Hayden Baxter's sidepiece comes up to me and throws yet another tantrum.

"I love Hayden too much. Can't you let me have him?"

Hayden sits quietly on one side but texts me, "Just say yes and humor her for a bit."

I do as I am told, then wordlessly begin to pack up my stuff so I can move out of the home I share with Hayden.

On my way out, I hear his friends jesting, "Elena is surprisingly obedient. Does this mean she'll abort her baby if you ask her to, Hayden?"

Hayden raises a brow, looking nonchalant. "Want to place a bet on it?

"I bet she'd whine and throw a fit at the hospital entrance in a week, only to give in and do as she's told."

I don't argue. Instead, I quietly tap on my conversation with someone else.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

I received a message that read, "You mean it?"

A happy emoji followed the text, but I locked my phone. For now, I had no plans to reply to the sender.

The laughter in the living room did not stop. "If Elena aborts the baby, you can drive my new car for three months!"

"Only three? I say a whole year!"

"You're on!"

The voices rose to a clamor, and everyone in the living room began to cheer on the bet.

I returned to the room and frantically packed my stuff, taking everything I saw and shoving it into the suitcase. It wasn't until my calf bumped into the corner of the table that a sob escaped me.

Hayden Baxter fell for Lola Dunbar, a woman seven years his junior. He bought her a house and a car, and took her on fabulous holidays around the world.

However, Lola refused to even let him hold her hand. She brandished her talent for waterworks and whined, "You're married. I can't do this to Elena!"

Hayden's heart had cracked at her tantrum, and he immediately returned home to divorce me. He'd hoped to use the divorce certificate to appease Lola.

I'd put up a fight, refusing to accept such absurd grounds for a divorce. But he'd pulled me into his arms and reassured me, "It's only for show. We'll get remarried soon. How about it?"

However, only a few days had passed before Lola showed up before me. She wept so hard that she collapsed in Hayden's arms. "I love Hayden too much. Can't you let me have him?"

Hayden's friends told me to be more generous instead of picking fights with a young lady like Lola. Hayden was silent throughout the exchange, his apparent reluctance to give in to Lola a mere cover for the text he secretly sent me. "Just say yes. You don't have to mean it. Just humor Lola for a bit."

Once again, I compromised.

Another text popped up on my phone. "Do you really, truly mean it, Elena? You're not lying to me, are you?"

My face heated as I replied almost instantly, "Yes, I mean it. I'm not lying to you."

Hayden took me to the hospital not long after I'd packed my suitcase. He was in a good mood throughout the drive and even tried discussing how we should celebrate my birthday this year. It would be the fifth birthday he celebrated with me this year, marking our fifth anniversary as well.

"I saw a few islands that were simply gorgeous, honey. Which one would you like?" he asked, then pecked my cheek. "Silly me. I forgot you had a special love for Merilea. Let's get an island there!"

It was only when we got out of the car that Hayden noticed the streaks of tears under my eyes. He reached to brush them away, but I smacked his hand away and said nothing. He did not try to console me until he'd led me to the obstetrics and gynecology department.

"Don't be angry, honey. We can always get pregnant again. You know how hard young women like Lola can be when they get worked up," Hayden said.

The doctor didn't seem affronted by Hayden's remark and only asked me a few questions before sending me to the waiting room to await the operation. Hayden sat beside me and waited with me, but I caught him texting Lola.

Hayden: "Okay, be good now. These surgeries take time. I'll be back as soon as her surgery's over. You said you'd let me kiss you today, so no backtracking, okay?"

Alas, Lola wouldn't stop whining for attention.

Seeing how obliging and well-behaved I was, Hayden shot to his feet and made to leave. "I need to get going, honey. When you're done with the surgery, just hail a cab and head to the new place I arranged for you."

He left in a hurry, his instructions delivered with increasing urgency, and disappeared before I could respond.

I lay on the operating table and felt my womb getting hollowed out, the life I'd once carried replaced by a strange silence.

An image popped up on my phone after I'd just left the operating theater. It was a screenshot of a flight ticket from Andenova to Cranwell, captioned with a brief: "Wait for me."

I did not head over to the new place Hayden arranged for me, and instead returned to the old neighborhood I lived in before I married him. As I breathed in the familiar scent of my past, I found myself reminiscing on the days when I first met Hayden.

I'd been an orphan since I was young, and a lady I'd never met remotely sponsored my upkeep. When she found out I'd moved into the abode she'd bought in an old neighborhood and successfully got into college, she cut off all contact with me.

One winter, Hayden and his family happened to move into the unit below mine. He'd loved coming up to my place and seeking out my company.

When he found out I loved roasted chestnuts, he'd show up outside my door with a paper bag of piping hot, roasted chestnuts and knock on the metal grille until it rattled. I'd open the door and see his bright smile behind the subtle steam from the chestnuts.

Hayden would squeeze past me through the door and peel a chestnut. After that, he'd blow on it to cool it. "Here, have one. Careful, though, it's hot."

An intense roaring had filled my head as I ate the chestnut right out of his hand. It wasn't until he realized how intimate the gesture was that his face turned crimson.

After that, I attended college in the northern region, while Hayden attended college in the southern region. We lived on two polar ends, but he'd wait for me with a paper bag of roasted chestnuts on the first day of winter without fail.

He hadn't complained as he peeled the chestnuts for me and blew on them to cool them off.

It was only natural that we started dating. Later, we got married. He successfully set up a business and moved us into a villa, but he stopped buying me roasted chestnuts in wintertime. Instead, he'd wondered aloud, "Aren't you sick of chestnuts after having them for years?"

I believed he truly loved me at first, but the human heart was a fickle thing.

The sharp ping from my phone pulled me out of my thoughts. I stared at the picture Lola sent me. Her slender shoulder was exposed, and Hayden's head was buried in the crook between her neck and shoulder. Her fair hand gripped his back, and her eyes were half-lidded in pleasure.

I didn't have to be a genius to know what they were up to.

I hurtled into the bathroom and dry-heaved for what felt like ages. I blocked Lola's contact right after I recovered from my retching.

Just then, an animated GIF of a tail-wagging pup popped up on my phone, followed by a text from Julian Langley. "What are you up to? I miss you."

Julian was my seatmate in high school. I'd gotten into the prestigious high school with barely passing grades, and the teacher implemented a study buddy system at the beginning of the school year.

Julian was my buddy. He had a pair of alluring eyes and a defined jawline. He'd given me such a hard, unwelcoming look that a chill ran up my spine, causing me to shrink away from him instinctively.

For a long while, we didn't speak. On our break between classes, the idea of sneaking past him while he was napping freaked me out so much that I decided to climb out the window just to get to the water cooler.

It was my first time climbing out a window, and I'd unceremoniously fallen flat on my butt.

"Pft!" I heard someone sputtering overhead, only to look up and see Julian leaning against the window ledge, grinning at me.

Embarrassed and emboldened by anger, I'd demanded, "When did you wake up?"

"When you struggled to get on the window ledge. I wondered if you'd fall, and it looks like my gut feeling was right," Julian drawled, though his smile deepened as he tipped his head to the side and shrugged.

I froze. Suddenly, my seatmate didn't seem so intimidating.

I started asking him questions about schoolwork after that, and he'd patiently guide me. On the day he realized I was a lost cause, he got me a set of practice tests.

I'd shot him a baffled look.

He explained, "Go through these. Come to me if you can't work out the answer."

Whenever I thought Julian had it hard tutoring me, I'd buy him a latte. This went on until the year we were streamlined into different classes. It was par for the course that he got into the advanced placement class. Before we parted ways, he asked for my number.

But Julian didn't text me after that. It wasn't until a week earlier that he reached out to me again, asking, "How have you been recently?"

I'd cried myself stupid after my divorce from Hayden was finalized. In my sadness and daze, I'd hit the call button.

Julian listened to me sob my heart out for half an hour, and not once did he interrupt me. He'd somehow put together my broken words and understood that I was freshly divorced. Then came Lola's harassment.

Julian texted me, "Will you marry me?"

Listening to the lively chatter and laughter outside, I cut a look at the man with the unfamiliar smile who sat nearby with his legs crossed.

I replied, "Okay."

Since that day, Julian had become considerably chattier. When we were in high school, I never thought that he would be so capable of being a chatterbox. Every day, he'd ask me what I was doing, what I was eating, and send me cute stickers of puppy-eyed characters to tell me that he missed me.

Life didn't seem so lonely anymore with Julian in it.

Three days passed before Hayden sent me a picture. From the looks of it, he'd gone home to have a meal with his parents.

He said, "Hey, honey, it's been two days since we last saw each other. Why haven't you called me? How's the new place? Have you been losing sleep because I wasn't there to hold you?"

If I weren't mistaken, the fair, slender arm that somehow made it into Hayden's picture belonged to Lola.

I did not mince words with my reply. "You and Lola seem to be having a great time."

"She insisted on tagging along. It's not like I had a choice. But my parents like her and find her charming. I should have her show you a trick or two someday," Hayden pointed out.

After all, I was an orphan. No one ever taught me how to butter up older folk. Hayden knew this, too. "You're marrying me, not my parents. You don't need to know how to get along with them."

The bitter resentment I'd tried so hard to bury surged up again. I ignored Hayden after that. Come nightfall, he called me again and demanded, "The housekeeper I hired said you never dropped by the new place. Where did you go?"

I sighed. "I didn't feel like going."

Upon hearing my disgruntled tone, Hayden chuckled. "What's wrong, honey? Why are you acting out like Lola does? I told you that this was all for show. I'll still go back to our little life after I get tired of her. Come on. Just tell me where you are now, and I'll go see you."

After some consideration, I decided that it was better to end things completely with him. I said softly, "I'm at my old place, the one I was living in before we got married. You know where it is."

Hayden had always been the type to do whatever he wanted. I was worried that he might come over after he hung up, so I forced myself out of bed and waited for him in the living room.

In the end, all I saw was the faint drizzle outside the window, the wind gently tousling my hair as it rushed through.

It was a cold and rainy night. As I closed the window, I called Hayden, only to have my call rejected. It wasn't long before I received a voice note. "Tsk, she's so dramatic. I got her a fancy apartment, but she refused to stay in it and chose to return to that old neighborhood she used to live in.

"I never liked her anyway. She seemed like such an airhead at first that I thought it'd be fun to string her along. I didn't expect her to fall in love with me just because I got her a bag of roasted chestnuts every year. It's like she never had chestnuts before!"

He broke off with a laugh, then continued, "I agreed to marry her not because I didn't have options or plans to fool around behind her back. She happened to be pure and obedient, though she's so boring in the bedroom that I got tired of sleeping with her.

"Lola's still the best. She's more lively and a far better sport. Come here, babe. Give me a kiss."

The voice note abruptly ended.

My heart was torn into pieces. It would seem that ending things with Hayden amicably was no longer an option for me.

I sat in the living room listlessly until morning. I heard the metal grille outside my door rattle gently, followed by a male voice. "Elena, it's me."

My mind was blank as I padded over to the door and opened it.

It had been so long since I last saw Julian. He looked much more grounded and serious than before, and there was none of the cheekiness he showed in our texts.

He was holding a bag of roasted chestnuts.

Julian's face overlapped with Hayden's, and for a moment, the voice note replayed in my mind. I aggressively smacked the bag of roasted chestnuts out of Julian's hand as my vision blurred. "Go away! I don't want to see you!"

…

With not much happening at Hayden's company for the time being, he took Lola on vacations everywhere.

A group of them checked into a resort on the mountaintop. That afternoon, the group was soaking in and dozing off in the resort's heated jacuzzi when a loud cry jolted them to their senses.

"Holy crap! The heir to the Langley family has returned! Dude, weren't you hoping to work with the Langleys on a project or something? Now that their heir is home, you could curry favor with him."

Hayden tugged the face towel off his forehead and swam over to his friend to check out the news.

However, his friend suddenly pulled an odd expression. He stubbornly gripped his phone as if to hide the news on it. He said, "Oh, no, I was mistaken. Silly me."

No one caught the hint, for they immediately approached him when they heard this. "What do you mean? Here, let me take a look!"

"Yeah, I've seen the Langleys' heir before. I bet I could tell whether it's him in the news."

The owner of the phone watched as his phone was pried out of his grasp.

When everyone got a good look at the picture, they gasped in unison.

"Wow, it looks like he's back for a hot date! Check out this woman in his arms!"

"Huh? This woman looks a little familiar…"

Only then did they understand why their friend had faltered and claimed he was "mistaken". The picture was proof that I, Hayden's wife, was cheating on him! None of them dared to utter a single word about what they were looking at.

Sensing the shift in the atmosphere, Hayden snatched the phone from his friend.

The picture was taken through the mist of the drizzle. Julian was seen getting into his car with a woman in his arms, seemingly unbothered by the rain. The woman's face was hidden from view, but Hayden recognized the shoes he'd bought for me.

Hayden had only just put two and two together when he shot to his feet and put on his clothes. Confused, everyone demanded urgently, "Dude, where are you going? Lola will be here soon!"

"Elena ran off with another man!" Hayden snapped, his face grim.

Everyone in the jacuzzi exchanged questioning looks.

Consumed by rage, all Hayden heard was an intense roaring in his head. His instincts told him that he would miss me if he didn't go and see me at my old place right now.

He made call after call to me as he sped toward my old neighborhood, not at all noticing the fancy car that drove past him in the opposite direction. The other end of the phone beeped several times, but no one picked up.

Hayden's heart was beating wildly in his chest.

He dashed up the familiar staircase of the old apartment building and kicked open the door to my unit. The entire space was empty.

Hayden froze as he was forced to accept one hard truth—I truly did not want him anymore.