"The baby will be born, and then we’ll invite the brothers to come out and celebrate," she said.

Their decision was made. They were keeping the child.

A suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. I opened the window to let in fresh air, but it didn’t help. Standing on the balcony, inhaling deeply, the cold wind did little to ease the storm inside me.

After a while, I calmed myself enough to take a screenshot of the group chat before silently exiting. But I remained sitting in the corner of the balcony, lost in my thoughts, until Ferry came home unexpectedly early. He pulled me up from the floor and shut the window.

"It’s the middle of winter. Sitting here with the window open—you’ll get sick," he scolded.

I stared at him, searching his face. He was fussing over me, adjusting my clothes, but something about him felt different. He wasn’t the same as before. Was it guilt? Did he finally feel remorse after what he had done? Repulsed, I sidestepped him, avoiding his touch.

"Don’t touch me."

He froze for a moment before finally meeting my eyes. There was something unreadable in his gaze, and then he said lightly, "It’s because of what happened in the group chat, isn’t it?"

"Karen, didn’t we agree before we got married? We were only doing this to fulfill our parents’ wishes."

"They’re satisfied now. I’m content. So what more do you want?"

Our marriage had never been about love—it was an arrangement, a necessity. The Gardner and Zach families had been close for generations, but while I had studied abroad since middle school, Ferry had remained in Europe. We had barely spoken growing up, our relationship nothing like that of our fathers. But when I returned home, our parents had pushed us together.

They had pleaded, cried, and insisted, "You two getting married is the best choice."

"We’ve paved the way for you. Why insist on going down the wrong path?"

"That boyfriend of yours? Forget him. We won’t allow it—not unless your father and I are dead."

They had stripped us of our bank cards and phones, placed bodyguards at the doors, and done everything in their power to force us together. I had no choice but to break up with the man I loved. And in the end, I married Ferry.

Before we received our marriage license, he had looked at me with cold detachment. "We’re in this together. As long as they’re satisfied, nothing else matters."

I knew he loved Chindy. But I never imagined he would be so brazen about it. Or that he would go so far as to secretly feed me birth control pills for three years. Our marriage may have started as a sham, but five years is a long time. To say I wasn’t hurt would be a lie. To say I wasn’t disgusted—an even bigger one.

I turned to him and asked, "So you want to keep the baby?"

Even as I asked, I already knew the answer.

If Chindy hadn’t gotten Ferry’s approval, she wouldn’t have so openly accepted the red envelopes from the group. She wouldn’t have made a spectacle of herself unless she was certain she had his support.

Ferry clenched his jaw. "Karen, I want a child."

The words made me snap. My hand flew before I could stop it, striking him across the face. The absurdity of it all hit me at once. I started laughing—hysterically, painfully—tears streaming down my face as I did. Without another word, I walked into the bedroom. The test reports from the lab still lay on the table, alongside the hospital’s diagnostic reports.

Fury surged through me as I grabbed them and hurled them at him.

"Ferry, take a look for yourself."

"The ‘folic acid’ you gave me—it’s birth control, isn’t it?"

He stilled. His hands trembled as he picked up the reports, scanning them with wide, disbelieving eyes.

His voice shook. "Karen..."

I cut him off, my voice cold and unyielding. "You fed me birth control pills for three years. And now—now you have the audacity to say you want a baby?"

"If you wanted to have a child with Chindy, you could have just told me. I would’ve hidden it from Mom and Dad for you."

"Instead, you disguised birth control pills as folic acid and tricked me into taking them."

"I can accept many things, but I can't accept you hurting me."

Looking back on these five years of marriage with Ferry, some moments felt surreal. For the most part, we treated each other with distant respect, but there were times when our relationship seemed... real.

There were nights when he would come home drunk, his body heavy against mine, murmuring, "Honey…"

"Do you think we’re happy? I do."

Then he would hold me tighter. I would get up to make him sobering soup, but he would pull me back. "Nothing sobers me up better than having you by my side."

"Just stay with me a little longer."

At first, I wondered if he was thinking of someone else. But over time, I convinced myself otherwise. I welcomed those moments, allowing myself to bask in the scent of alcohol on him, the warmth of his presence. He would give me small gestures of romance now and then. On holidays, he would sweet-talk both our parents.

Sometimes, he would stand in my parents' house, his arm wrapped around my waist, saying, "Don’t worry, Mom and Dad. Karen is wonderful. Marrying her was one of the best decisions I ever made."

Even if I always suspected it was an act, those words made me believe, even for a fleeting moment, that maybe—just maybe—fate was tying us together for life. Even if we weren’t lovers, we were family. But he had been so ruthless. So heartless, watching me take birth control pills for three years without a word.

If my bestfriend hadn’t discovered the truth, I would have kept taking them, never knowing.

His hand trembled as he held the report, his gaze clouded. His voice was barely more than a whisper, "I was afraid you’d be sad."

"I won’t give them to you anymore."

Two short sentences. No apology. No remorse.

Just an escape from the consequences of his own betrayal. I let out a cold laugh. Was he afraid of upsetting me? Or was he just afraid that if he had told me the truth, he wouldn’t get what he wanted?

Ferry’s selfishness and hypocrisy made me sick.

"You say it so easily, but do you have any idea how much pain I went through? How many nights I lost sleep, thinking something was wrong with me?"

I slowly took the hospital report from his hands and pointed at the results.

"The doctor said I took too many birth control pills. My hormones are completely messed up. It might make me infertile."

"You only ever wanted a child with the woman you love. Did you ever think that I should have had the right to be a mother, too?"

"Now that you’re satisfied, you don’t have to feed me pills anymore. But because of you, I might never be able to have a child."

My voice broke. The tears I had been holding back spilled over, my body shaking with emotion.

"But it doesn’t matter anymore. We have no future, Ferry. I hate you."

After confirming the pills' ingredients, I had gone straight to the hospital for a full check-up, hoping for reassurance. But reality wasn’t kind. I couldn’t escape the damage those pills had done to my body. When the doctor told me that getting pregnant would be difficult, I felt something inside me break.

That was the moment I truly began to hate Ferry. And now, my hatred for him had reached its peak. I would never forgive him. Without another word, I turned and walked into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. As I did, my computer screen lit up.

A new email. It was William Larson.

He had been waiting for me abroad for so long. Even after we had officially separated, he never stopped reaching out. Every week, without fail, he sent me an email.

And now, just as he had always done, he had written again. I took a deep breath, wiped my tears, and pulled myself together. Then, I opened the email.

Clipped inside was a blurry picture of a black hole.

[Another collapsed star was observed today, Karen. How have you been? I miss you.]

[After I retire, so I don’t turn into a sad black hole, I’ll definitely come back home to watch over you.]

[It’s just that it’s still too far away. My heart breaks thinking about you.]

William grew up in a foreign country, always mixing in that dry, foreign sense of humor. Over the past five years, the files he sent me have piled up into a mountain, filling my entire inbox. The pictures he took of me, the words of love he wrote—I backed them up separately, afraid that one day they might disappear. But I never replied. For so long, it had been his one-man show.

Because unlike Ferry, I knew that I had married a man, and I had my own sense of propriety. I always thought that, given time, William would eventually let go of me. But he never did.

I sat there quietly, scrolling through the letters from the past. Memories flooded my heart, and for a second, two little voices argued inside me. Then my phone beeped. Ferry had transferred ten million dollars to my account with a message.

[This is my fault. Consider this my compensation.]

But no amount of money could erase my hatred. And at that moment, I finally realized—my life was mine to live. Not for him, not for my family. For myself.

A rush of excitement coursed through me as I typed out my reply to William’s email.

[It’s not far. Wait for me for a month, and I’ll come to you.]

After that fight with Ferry, we silently agreed to sleep in separate rooms. I stayed in the master bedroom; he moved into the second bedroom. But every night when I got up, I would see the door to the second bedroom wide open—empty.

He was probably at Chindy’s house. But I no longer cared where he spent his nights. I packed up my belongings little by little, sending them overseas where William would receive them. Each box I shipped off felt like a piece of myself leaving behind the weight of my past.

One evening, Ferry came home with a gift—a phoenix crown. The same one I had stared at through the display window for so long.

For the first time, he brought out his prized bottle of red wine, setting up a dinner table just for me.

“Karen, Grandpa’s birthday is coming up. Let’s not make a scene for now, okay?”

Once again, it was about maintaining the appearance of our families' unity. We were used to putting on a show for these big occasions anyway.

I agreed. “Okay.”

Grandpa’s birthday was always a grand affair. Ever since he turned seventy, it had become a major event. This year, we had booked the best restaurant in the city, filling the entire venue with friends, family and business associates.

Before we stepped inside, Ferry extended his hand toward me. Out of habit, I reached for it. But this time, he didn’t just hold it—he interlocked our fingers. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, pressing against my knuckles. His peaceful gaze lingered on me before he smiled in satisfaction and led me through the restaurant doors.

And then, I saw her. Chindy was there, bustling around, assisting Ferry’s family with the preparations. The smile immediately vanished from his face, replaced by a flicker of unease. During the gathering, the same old topic was brought up again.

My mother and mother-in-law took turns prodding us.

“Are you two lying to us? You’ve been married for five years, and you’ve been trying for a baby for three. How come there’s still no news?”

“You both need to get checked.”

“A check-up is a must. We’ll arrange one for you tomorrow. I’d like to see what’s really going on.”

My smile froze. My mind replayed everything Ferry had done. My vision blurred, my throat burned. Lowering my head, I gently wiped away a single tear with my pinky finger.