Zach and I were neighbors, and we grew up together.

I lost my mother when I was really young and lived with my alcoholic father.

Meanwhile, Zach’s parents divorced, and he lived next door to me with his gentle mother.

Zach’s mother loved me and would occasionally ask me whether I would become Zach’s wife.

Whenever she did that, Zach would be highly against it.

“Who’d want to marry a mute?!”

Even so, Zach always protected me.

When other people threw stones at me, ordered their dogs to bite me, or stole my stuff, he always ran over and fought against my bullies.

Even if he was battered and bruised all over, he still stood in front of me as my protector.

He said that he did not like me because I was mute, but he would always protect me because I was his star.

Then, one year, my father got into major debt and wanted to sell me because I was useless, but Zach’s mother discovered his plot.

She saved me, but my drunk father stabbed her thirteen times, and she never woke up again.

I would forever remember how Zach looked at me when I woke up in the hospital.

His eyes were full of despair and endless hatred.

“Why didn’t you die?! I hate you! I’ll forever hate you, Stella!”

In his rage, Zach slapped me.

He struck me so hard that I was dizzy from the blow, and I lost my hearing in my left ear because of it.

But it was also because of this slap that Zach stayed by my side.

Zach hated me, but he also felt guilty toward me.

Both of us lost our parents that night.

Since I was mute and deaf and since Zach’s mother said that I was the treasure she protected, Zach did not leave my side.

Instead, he took upon himself the responsibility of being my brother and brought me up, but I knew that he still hated me.

Over the years, whenever it was his mother’s death anniversary, he would get himself drunk and go alone to visit his mother.

I went with him once, but in his drunken state, he kicked me away.

He then grabbed my neck, and with a fearsome expression, said, “Stella, you’re not worthy of visiting my mother!”

But after he became sober, he hugged me and touched the bruises on my neck while apologizing to me. “I’m sorry, Stella. I just feel… really conflicted.”

I knew that.

He would even cover my face when he slept with me.

Honestly, I felt conflicted too.

I wanted to treat him as my brother and stay by his side forever, but things did not go my way.

After twenty years of being together, I still fell hopelessly in love with him, even though I knew that he would never love me.

Even when he said that he would marry me, it was on the condition that I would donate my kidney to the woman he truly loved.

Gale started talking up a storm once they got into the car.

“Are you missing your little mute lady?”

Zach threw his phone away and said coldly, “No. Why would I?”

“If you don’t like her, say it clearly to her. She’s mute and is really pitiful, you know?”

“She’s pitiful?” Zach yanked his tie off and felt really frustrated. “What about her is pitiful? I brought her up and gave her a good life, and what did she do? She ended up becoming a selfish, ungrateful brat. I just nagged her a little, and she gave me the cold shoulder. She must think she’s a big shot now.”

“No matter what, you grew up together. Even if she doesn’t love you romantically, she’ll still treat you as family. Why don’t you call her and mend things with her?”

“No need.” Zach cast his phone a glance and spoke even more coldly, “I’m not putting up with her horrible temper!”

Even so, after a while, Zach still picked up his phone and sent me a simple message.

[I’m coming back home for dinner tomorrow night.]

Look. Even when he was trying to mend things, he did it in such a self-righteous fashion. He never cared about my feelings.

But he still did not know that he would never need to care about my feelings anymore.

I could no longer feel any emotion from how he treated me.

The sound of a message notification popped up somewhere in the car.

Zach’s eyes flew wide open, as if he was weirded out by the sound.

“Gale, did you hear a message notification in the car?”

“Nope. We’re the only ones here, and there’s no way we’d get any message notifications at this hour. You’ve been exhausted over the past few days, and you’re probably just hearing things.”