At three in the morning, on a street swallowed by swirling snow, Yvonne stood there with her face still streaked with snow-covered tears.

Back then, we held each other and cried. A snowflake on her eyelashes melted into a crystalline tear, falling straight into the depths of my heart.

In that moment, I was convinced that nothing in this world could ever pull us apart. That our love could cross a thousand kilometers and overcome all the hardships of the world.

We would certainly, absolutely, live together happily forever.

Yet the painful irony was that I discovered Yvonne was cheating on me that very same night.

Seeing the questioning look in the taxi driver's eyes, I smiled and said calmly, with a touch of helplessness, "She'd been driving for too long that day. She collapsed and fell asleep as soon as she made sure that I was okay."

"But she forgot to turn off her phone and didn't switch her account in time. Surprisingly, the first pinned message on her bubble chat was a nude photo from my best friend."

The driver sighed. He kindly handed me a couple of tissues, but I had no tears left to cry.

All I remembered from that moment was the feeling of my blood running cold. It was like a massive rock crashing into a still lake, shattering every beautiful illusion into pieces.

As I continued to scroll, I saw their continuous chat throughout numerous years.

The very first message was from the day Harvey returned to the country after his divorce.

At the welcome dinner I had prepared for him, while I was drunk, Yvonne had confessed her feelings to Harvey. She said to him, "What I feel for Nic isn't love. It's a sense of responsibility. You are the one I yearned for but couldn't reach in my youth—my first love."

Meanwhile, the last message was from last night.

Harvey had texted her. [You took all your clothes off and then you said you had to leave. Yvonne, what exactly am I to you?]

[If you're so reluctant to leave him, then let's end this. Nicholas is my best friend. If he hadn't helped me find a place to live and a job when I came back, I'd be homeless. I don't want to hurt him.]

Yvonne was already asleep by then and hadn't replied. She hadn't had time to make her choice and I saw the messages before she could.

That snowflake turned into tears, then into an icicle, piercing my heart.

All those little details I had ignored, all those small things I had forgotten, suddenly connected in that moment.

So, that faint, subtle scent was not my imagination. It was the proof of Yvonne's betrayal.

So, that strange feeling I had wasn't me being paranoid. It was a subconscious premonition.

In an instant, my world collapsed.

I frantically dragged Yvonne out of bed, crying and demanding to know why.

Why did she stay with me if she didn't like me?

Why did she confess her love to me in the snow if you didn't like me?

Why … why did she get together with my best friend when I loved her the most?

Seeing my painful tears, Yvonne turned her head away in a panic.

Then she looked at me helplessly and said, "Nic, it's not that I don't like you. I just … I don't like you that much anymore."

After ten years, our youth was gone and the passion had faded.

The once overwhelming love had turned into a debt that could never be repaid.

I couldn't accept it. I refused to believe it.

We were together for ten years, a full decade. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days and nights. More than a thousand kilometres apart.

Could such a relationship really just have been about repaying a debt?

Was I merely a thief standing between her and Harvey, stealing their happiness?

At that time, I was in agony, falling apart, going insane.

Unwilling to accept any of this, I hysterically smashed everything in the house.

I even slapped Yvonne across the face, but she remained utterly still, letting me vent my fury.

However, before my anger could subside, Yvonne's phone buzzed with a new message.

It was a photo of a five a.m. flight ticket alongside a pregnancy test report. And after that, Harvey's sorrowful voice message kept replaying in the dead-silent night.

"Yvonne, I don't want to pressure you, but I can't hold on anymore. I'm right next door. I need you to choose between us."

"I'm not like Nicholas Sparks. I have nothing. If you don't come and give me an answer, I'll kill myself before dawn."

That woman, who was usually so composed, instantly panicked.

Yvonne Grant, who hadn't even flinched when I questioned her and hadn't been swayed by my tears, desperately wanted to find Harvey at that moment.

I was exhausted. Leaning against the wall, I spoke almost in despair. "Yvonne, if you walk out that door today, there will be no turning back for us, ever."

Yvonne paused, but she still walked out without looking back.

Hearing this, the taxi driver lit a cigarette, his face full of concern. Then, remembering my situation, he silently put it out.

"People's hearts are unpredictable," he sighed.

Yes, people's hearts were unpredictable and fate was capricious.

If the story had ended there, it would just have been a tragedy in our relationship.

After a period of heartbreak and tears, I might have eventually moved on. But that night, fate played another cruel joke on me.

I called my father and told him that Yvonne had betrayed me, that we couldn't go on anymore.

I said I wanted to go home. Back to my hometown, back to their side.

My father panicked and drove all night to pick me up and take me home.

Sadly, the snowstorm that day was too fierce.

Due to the rugged mountain road, my father got into a car accident on his way. His car was wrecked and he died on the spot.

God was so unfair.

He allowed a heartless, unfaithful bitch like Yvonne to live, but he took away the father who loved me the most.

By the time I got the call and rushed over, all that remained was a white sheet about to be pushed into the crematorium.

They told me my father's state was too horrible and they didn't want me to see him. They even urged me to control my grief.

Still, that was my father. The man who loved me, cherished me and protected me since I was little.

How could I be afraid of him?

I rushed forward desperately and lifted that white cloth. What I saw was a face that was a blur of blood and flesh. There were no features, no face; even my father's skull was shattered into countless pieces.

I could not describe the feeling of that moment. My consciousness seemed to fly away, soaring to a completely unfamiliar world.

A world without death, without pain, without tears and without betrayal.

Later, I saw a psychiatrist. The doctor told me it was dissociative consciousness, a very severe psychological illness and she urged me to be hospitalized for treatment immediately.

Unfortunately, my mother became ill before I did. My father's death had traumatized her, leaving her mentally unstable.

The once gentle and graceful mother now flew into a rage whenever she saw me.

She would hit me, curse me and spit in my face. Another time, she would look at me through her tears and say, "It was you, you killed your dad."

"You're the one who destroyed this family."

"Nic, why did you make that call? Why did you stay with Yvonne?"

"I hate you. I hate you!"

Yes, why?

Why must fate be so cruel to me?

I couldn't understand. Who could give me an answer?

No one could answer me.

In just one night, everything changed.

I lost my husband, my friends and my parents. I lost the home that was once so warm and happy.

Now, all I could do was sit alone on the street, letting the bleak, cold wind ruthlessly cut me to shreds.

Just then, Harvey told me Yvonne was pregnant.

He sent me photos from her prenatal checkup and said, "Nicholas, you should know the child isn't yours. Leave Yvonne alone. Don't bother our family, okay?"

There they were, holding hands as they went for the checkup, full of affection and sweetness. It's such a happy family reunion.

At that moment, I wanted to kill them both, but I still had my mother to take care of.

My father had already gone and I was no longer a child. I had to shoulder the burden of this broken family by myself.

Later, I asked Yvonne for a divorce.

The ridiculous thing was that she actually refused. She claimed she couldn't bear to lose me, that she couldn't let go of our ten years together.

"Nic, you don't understand, human emotions are very complicated. Just because I chose Harvey, it doesn't mean I don't have you in my heart."

"He's different from you. You have a happy family, with your parents taking care of everything for you. But Harvey ... he only has me."

Yvonne said that after giving birth, she would give them some money to send them away. Then we'd live a good life together.

"Nic, there's nothing that can't be overcome. Many people live through things like this. After everything settles down, let's forget all this and go back to how we were before, okay?"

No!

Ten years of my life and one human life had been destroyed. How could I possibly forget all this and live peacefully with her?

So, I filed a lawsuit. After dragging on for some time, Yvonne finally signed.

She didn't sign out of remorse, but only because she needed the child in her belly to be acknowledged by its biological father so that she could start a new family with another man.

After the divorce, we never contacted each other again.

Yvonne continued to paint and teach, while I took my mother to see doctors everywhere.

One cow after another was sold and one tear-soaked pillow after another was thrown away.

My mother's condition remained unstable. She'd cry while staring at me, or lash out at me with blows and curses during her episodes.

During that time, our house was filled with psychiatric medications.

I thought about dying a thousand times. Yet I had to find every possible way to keep living with my mother.

In time, my mother's condition declined, but her mind slowly cleared. For a brief moment, she became that loving mother again.

On her deathbed, she held my hand and said, "Nic, you've suffered so much these past years. Mom can't be a burden to you anymore. I don't blame you. Your dad and I never blamed you."

"After I die, let go of the past and live a good life. Don't ruin your life for someone like that."

Another ten years passed.

I shed the very last tear of my life and I finally made up my mind to live well.

But at my mother's funeral, I was diagnosed with cancer.

"Psychiatric medications are all harmful. After taking them for so many years, this was an expected outcome."

"I'm not too sad, just a little regretful. Regretful that I didn't live well in the past ten years."

"So, in the last moments of my life, I planned a spontaneous trip. I just never expected that after ten years of no contact, I would run into Yvonne here."

"But it's okay, it's all in the past, I've long since let it go."

Hearing this, the driver was already sobbing uncontrollably. He asked me why I hadn't told Yvonne all of this.

I only replied bitterly, "What was there to say? Should I have used my father's death to gain sympathy? Or should I have admitted that I was the one responsible for his death?"

I couldn't bring myself to say it, nor could I do it.

Life had thrown every kind of torment at me and the only thing I could do was accept it with calm acceptance.

After all, this was how my life must be.

As we were speaking, the car reached its destination. I immediately got out and stretched.

The sky was darkening, but the Cosmos flowers were still blooming.

The wind blew through the fading blossoms, swept over me and scattered a few medical reports from my bag.

I instinctively reached out to chase after them, but when I turned back, I saw Yvonne standing right behind me.