Chapter 4

I returned to the apartment and sat quietly on the couch, looking around at the room.

It held too many memories of us.

Sad memories. Happy memories. Painful memories…

I still clearly remembered how she had personally cooked an entire dinner of spicy food for my birthday.

She had even gone to a bakery to learn how to make a birthday cake.

There were celebrations for when she got hired and when she was promoted.

She loved traveling around the world. The walls were covered with photos and ticket stubs from every city we had visited together.

There were too many memories.

I couldn’t believe she had simply stopped loving me.

I took out my phone and messaged her.

What if I told you I came back early? Would you be happy?

Chloe called me almost immediately.

I answered with the last bit of hope I had left.

As long as she said she was happy and wanted to see me, I could forget what I had just witnessed. I could pretend nothing had happened.

We could go on living as we always had.

But she didn’t say that.

The moment she opened her mouth, it felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head.

“Baby, don’t scare me like that. I’m working overtime at the office today, and I’ve been really busy these past few days. I don’t have time to spend with you. You know I don’t like making you do everything for me. It makes me feel guilty.”

Her voice was gentle, with a hint of grievance.

But I could vaguely hear the noisy sounds in the background.

As expected, she was still lying to me.

Maybe they had been together for a long time. I was simply the last person to find out.

I let out a quiet laugh.

“I still have a meeting here. The client is a pain, so I might be a few more days before I can come back.”

There was a brief silence on the other end.

Then her voice filled with happiness.

“Okay! Focus on your work so you can hurry up and marry me, but don’t overwork yourself. I’ll worry about you. I miss you so much.”

“Believe me. Once I get through this busy period, I’ll spend all my time with you. Weren’t we supposed to go to Tibet together? So you have to believe that I’m working hard for our future.”

I froze when I heard those words.

If this had happened before, I would have been so happy that I couldn’t sleep all night. I would have been desperate to see her and hold her.

But now, I felt sick.

She had said the exact same things to me and to that other man.

I suddenly remembered a short video I had once seen online:

The fly in your food isn’t what makes you sick. What makes you sick is seeing it. If you never saw it, you’d keep eating happily.

Love was the same.

Someone could do countless unforgivable things behind your back—as long as you never found out.

That night, I sat in the car and waited for her to come home.

At midnight, a woman in a white floral dress appeared at the end of the street with a drunk man hanging off her arm.

There were almost no people on the street at that hour.

I recognized my girlfriend immediately.

And the man with her was none other than her childhood friend.

I watched from inside the car as they behaved intimately, whispering sweetly to each other.

Their movements were so natural that they clearly weren’t doing it for the first time.

As they drew closer, I could clearly hear their conversation.

Adrian kissed Chloe on the cheek.

“How long are we going to keep sneaking around like this?”

“Aren’t you afraid Ethan will find out?”