“It’s Julie. She’s getting divorced.”
The moment he heard that, the tension in Dante’s shoulders eased slightly.
“She heard you’re a lawyer, so she asked if you might know what to do.”
Dante sat back in his chair, tapping at his phone with a stylus without even looking at me.
“I’m not a divorce lawyer.”
“But I can recommend one.”
Weren’t you the one handling Camille’s divorce this whole time?
I guess anything unrelated to Camille simply gets filtered out by you.
Dante kept looking at his phone, smiling to himself every now and then.
I didn’t even want to know what he was looking at anymore.
Finally, I was discharged from the hospital.
At least it hadn’t delayed my trip home.
I stood outside by the driveway waiting for him.
He was the one who said he’d pick me up after I was discharged.
Otherwise, I would’ve just taken a cab.
So I called him.
He answered.
But in the background, I heard opera music playing.
“I’m out of town,” Dante said calmly.
I opened Camille’s Instagram.
She had posted a photo from the opera house.
If this had happened before, I would’ve been furious enough to smash my phone.
But now, I simply opened Uber instead.
Then I checked my departure time again, my packing list, and my flight information.
Making sure nothing would go wrong.
Making sure I could really leave New York behind.
That night, Dante came home after all.
He even brought me flowers.
“Tomorrow marks ten years since we met. I took the day off for you.”
“Where do you want to go?”
I still wanted to visit my old university.
I wanted to see the places where I had spent all these years.
Late autumn in New York.
The ground was covered in golden ginkgo leaves.
I looked at Dante, and for a moment, it felt like I had gone back five years.
Back then, I had looked at him like girls look at idols.
Like he was untouchable.
And now, he was still standing beneath the ginkgo trees.
But this time, all I saw was a man who knew how to lie.
I suddenly smiled.
And strangely enough, I was in a good mood.
I casually slipped my arm through his.
“Let’s go.”
The moment we reached the library building, his phone rang.
A message from Camille.
“I have a fever.”
Quietly, I watched Dante’s expression change.
First discomfort.
Then hesitation.
And when he spoke again, he had already turned back into the calm and composed Dante Valieri.
“There’s something going on at the firm. I need to leave.”
I looked at him.
I was about to nod, but then something crossed my mind.
So I asked on purpose,
“Can it wait one more hour?”
Exactly as expected, Dante answered,
“No.”
And suddenly, I didn’t feel sad at all anymore.
I already knew exactly what his answer would be.
Before I could respond, he added,
“I’ll come back with you another time.”
There wouldn’t be another time, Dante.
Standing alone on the track field, I crouched down into starting position.
Back then, Dante used to wait for me at the finish line.
Ready.
Run.
I sprinted all the way to the end.
But waiting for me there now was only a wall covered in roses.
From now on, no ending in my life would have anything to do with Dante anymore.
I walked through the entire campus alone.
I filmed countless videos.
I was about to upload them to Instagram when I saw Camille had posted another hospital photo.
【I have a fever, but thankfully he’s here. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore.】
Suddenly, I didn’t want to upload anything at all.
You know, Dante?
If you had just told me you were going to see her, I would’ve let you go.
Why did you have to work so hard to lie to me?
Ten years together.
Was I here to celebrate them today?
Or to bury them?
I think this was goodbye.
My phone buzzed with the boarding notification.
Tomorrow, I could finally go home.
That night, while taking out the trash, I saw Camille stepping out of Dante’s car.
I walked over and calmly stopped in front of them.
Camille tilted her head slightly as she looked at me.
“Dante, who’s this girl?”
Dante fell silent.
I knew why.
He was thinking about which identity would be safest to give me.
I held my hand out to Camille first.
“Serafina Vescari.”
“I’m going through a divorce right now, so I came to ask Dante for a little help.”
I could see Dante relax slightly.
He picked up my excuse without hesitation.
“Her father hasn’t been in great health lately. He wants her back in Chicago for a while.”
Camille nodded.
But her eyes still moved between the two of us several times.
Then she gently slipped her arm around Dante’s.
“Are we interrupting something?”
Dante glanced at me instinctively.
Like he was checking my reaction.
I only shook my head calmly.
“No.”
“It’s almost over anyway.”
Camille looked back at me almost immediately.
“You’re getting divorced too?”
I smiled faintly.
“My husband is in love with someone else.”
Dante froze for a second and looked at me.
Camille only smiled softly.
“I understand that.”
“But things get better eventually.”
Then she looked up at Dante, her eyes warm.
“Dante really helped me a lot.”
“I honestly don’t think I could’ve gotten through my divorce without him.”
I nodded lightly.
Yeah.
He helped a lot.
Especially the hardest part.
He had already signed my divorce papers for me.
After that, Dante drove Camille away.
I turned around and went home.
Four hours before boarding.
I cleared every last thing of mine out of the house.
Three hours before boarding.
I edited together all the videos I had filmed earlier that day.
Two hours before boarding.
I finished editing the video, opened the screen recording on my phone, pointed the camera at myself, and pressed record.
Then I picked up my suitcase and closed the door behind me.
The only thing left on the nightstand was Dante’s copy of the divorce papers.
My plane had already taken off.
Meanwhile, Dante finally came home.
The living room was quiet.
Instinctively, he looked around.
The couch. The wine cabinet. The kitchen.
Every trace of me was gone.
Dante frowned.
A strange emptiness suddenly crawled up his chest.
He walked upstairs quickly.
Opened the walk-in closet.
Half of it was empty too.
And only then did Dante finally realize something.
I said I was shipping things back to Chicago.
But I had cleared out far too much.
He turned around abruptly.
Almost tore through the entire house looking for me.
But there was no one there.
Finally, he pushed open the bedroom door.
A phone sat quietly on the nightstand.
Beside it were the signed divorce papers.
Dante stared at the phone.
It was the same one I had been carrying around at the university earlier that day.
He picked it up and pressed play.
The first thing on the screen was the entrance to the law school.
I stood beneath the steps and smiled softly.
“Dante, do you remember this place?”
“You used to wait here for me after class every day.”
“Everyone thought you were some young politician or a Wall Street lawyer.”
“But really, you had just finished handling that Brooklyn shooting for my father.”
“There was blood on your cuff, and you still dared to come pick me up.”
The camera shifted slightly.
Then landed on the library.
“You always sat in the farthest corner.”
“Pretending to read legal files while actually handling business for the Vescari family.”
“One time, I snuck over and kissed you.”
“You didn’t even look up. You only said one thing.”
Lowering my voice, I copied Dante’s tone.
“Serafina. Stop it.”
I laughed first in the video.
But slowly, the smile faded.
The camera moved to the rose wall at the end of the running track.
“You used to wait for me here.”
“Back then, I really thought that if I ran toward you, you’d always catch me.”
The screen stayed silent for a long time.
Only the sound of the wind remained.
At the very end, I smiled faintly.
“So I was wrong.”
The final clip was the video I had recorded before leaving.
“Dante, I can’t believe we’ve known each other for ten years.”
“Seven years of loving you. Three years of marriage.”
“I really thought that if I stayed long enough, you would eventually love me a little too.”
“But some things can’t be earned no matter how hard you try.”
“So I’m letting you go.”
“And I’m finally letting myself go too.”
I fell silent for a moment.
Then I said only one last thing.
“Dante Valieri, we’re divorced.”
My palm covered the camera.
