"Mm, I miss you."

"Want to take one together this year? Like we always do."

"Sure."

The last message was timestamped this afternoon, with a photo thumbnail attached.

I tapped it open. It was that third photo.

The Henson family banquet. The two of them standing side by side, his arm around her waist, her head tilted slightly toward his shoulder.

The timestamp on the photo read this year's Mid-Autumn Festival.

I scrolled up. Nearly every year—around New Year, Mid-Autumn, Dragon Boat Festival—there were similar brief exchanges and photos sent back and forth.

Nothing explicit. But the messages were steeped in an intimacy that needed no words, a quiet understanding between two people who knew each other completely.

"What are you looking at?"

Yvette's voice came from behind me.

My finger flinched. The screen went dark.

I turned around. She'd already finished the dishes and was drying her hands, her gaze settling on the phone in my hand.

"Louis, why do you have my phone?"

"Thought I heard it ringing." I handed it back, my expression unchanged. "It kept buzzing. You looked busy."

She took it, eyes darting to the screen, then back to me—studying my face, gauging how much truth was in my words.

The screen was dark. She'd have to unlock it again to see anything.

The suspicion in her eyes gradually faded.

"I'm going to shower."

The bathroom door closed and the water started running. I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the steady rush of it, a tangle of emotions I couldn't begin to sort through.

A few minutes later, the water stopped.

Yvette stepped out wrapped in nothing but a towel, her damp hair draped over her shoulders. Droplets traced the line of her collarbone and disappeared.

She carried the warm, humid air of the shower with her as she sat down beside me.

"Honey, it's been a while since we..."

Before tonight, a hint like that would have undone me in an instant. She knew exactly how to unravel my restraint.

But now—that pale skin, the wisps of steam rising from her body—it all sent a sour wave churning through my stomach.

The photos flashed behind my eyes, unbidden.

The same her. Had she done this with Theo Gilbert too?

On all those holiday nights I'd spent alone, had they—

I shifted away from her touch before I even realized I was doing it.

She froze. The edge of the towel slipped without her noticing. She just stared at me, bewildered.

"What's wrong? You don't want to?"

"Just tired."

I stood and walked to the water dispenser, filling a glass with cold water.

The chill slid down my throat, barely enough to tamp down the suffocating knot in my chest.

"Ran around to a lot of places today."

She sat in silence, her body taut beneath the towel.

"Yvette, what if—hypothetically." I kept my back to her, staring out at the city lights beyond the window. "What if an outsider really did attend the Henson family banquet? What would happen?"

Behind me came the soft rustle of fabric. She pulled the towel tighter.

"What do you think would happen? The family rules aren't just for show."

"At best, a public dressing-down and being made to kneel in the ancestral hall. At worst..."

"You know how my father is—old-fashioned to the bone when it comes to tradition. If it blew up, he'd have my name struck from the family register. Thrown out of the Henson family entirely."

She paused, then added, "So it's really not that I don't want to bring you. The price is just too high."

The price is just too high.

My grip tightened around the glass.

"Got it."

"I'll sleep in the guest room tonight. I'm tired. Just need some quiet."

She hesitated but didn't ask me to stay.

Lying in the guest room bed, I didn't sleep. Not for a single hour. My mind wouldn't stop.

It started from that very first New Year's Eve after we got married.

We'd only been married a short while then. I sat alone in the empty living room, listening to firecrackers popping near and far outside the window, and called her.

She said the family dinner was in full swing, the elders were all there, and it wasn't a good time to talk. Her voice was gentle as she told me to treat myself to something nice.

I believed her. I even felt sorry for her—having to steal a moment in the middle of all that celebration just to think of me, alone.

The following year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I made the snowskin mooncakes she loved and had someone deliver them to the Henson residence. They vanished without a trace.

The next day, she said she'd gotten them. Delicious, she told me, but the family dinner had strict etiquette—she couldn't exactly pull them out and share.

I believed her. I even blamed myself for not thinking it through.

Year after year.

The same excuse. The same tenderness.

The same me, alone in the same solitude, never once doubting.

Until those three photographs—like three ice-cold keys—unlocked the door to the truth.

Outside the window, dawn crept in. I heard faint movement from the master bedroom.

Yvette was awake.

Before long, she tiptoed through her morning routine—washing up, getting dressed—without coming to the guest room to wake me the way she usually did.

The front door clicked shut. Her footsteps faded down the hallway.

I threw off the covers, pulled on a jacket, and grabbed my car keys.

In the underground garage, her white sedan glided out of its spot.

I hung back a few cars' length and followed.

She didn't take the road toward the Henson estate. Instead, she turned east, heading for the upscale apartment district on the other side of the city.

The car stopped outside a gated complex. A moment later, a man in casual clothes stepped out.

He was smiling—easy, familiar—as he opened the passenger door and slid in.

Theo Gilbert.

The man from the photographs came into sharp focus.

They didn't leave right away. Through the windshield, I watched Yvette lean toward him. They held each other tightly.

Then came a long, deep kiss.

Their movements were practiced and effortless, as though they'd done this a thousand times before.

The occasional passerby drifted through the complex entrance. Neither of them cared.

My heartbeat was steady. Too steady.

The rage I'd expected, the sting, the suffocation—none of it came. Just a vast, frozen silence.

Maybe this was what it truly felt like when the heart dies.

The white sedan pulled away again, heading into the most upscale mall in the city center.

I parked, tugged my cap low over my eyes, and followed them inside.

They moved through the crowds like any other couple. Yvette had her arm looped through Theo's, and on her face was a radiant smile I had never once seen directed at me.

They walked into a high-end menswear boutique. She picked through shirts and jackets, holding them up against his chest while he grinned and dipped his head to oblige her. In the end, she swiped her card for a complete set—shirt, trousers, jacket, the works.

Next was a shoe store. She crouched down and personally helped him try on a pair of leather shoes that cost more than I wanted to think about.

The sales associate hovered nearby, offering compliments. Yvette looked up at Theo, her eyes bright.

Finally, they stepped into the luxury watch boutique I had walked past countless times but never dared enter.

Through the glass, I watched Theo's gaze land on a mechanical timepiece behind the counter. He tapped the display case.

Yvette barely hesitated. She waved the clerk over.

Card swiped. Gift wrapped. Just like that.

I stood behind a pillar not far away, my throat tightening.

Seven years of marriage. Apart from a pair of ordinary socks picked up at a department store, Yvette had never bought me a single piece of clothing.

She knew I loved watches. More than once, I'd lingered in front of magazine ads or storefront displays.

Every time I cautiously brought up the idea of upgrading to a nicer watch, she would furrow her brow just slightly and say, in that soft but unyielding tone of hers, "Accessories like that are too expensive. They're not worth it."

"We'll have plenty of expenses down the road. No sense spending money on something like that."

And I would fall silent, sheepish, pressing that small want back down where it came from.

Now, without so much as a blink, she'd bought another man the very thing that "wasn't worth it."

All because his eyes held something unmistakable—desire.

Theo lifted his wrist, letting her fasten the new watch for him.

They smiled at each other, fingers intertwining.

The watch face caught the cold overhead lights of the department store, throwing a glare that made my eyes sting.

Carrying bags of all sizes, they didn't bother shopping anymore. They headed straight to a hotel.

I watched them check in with my own eyes. Watched them step into the elevator.

Five minutes later, I pulled out my phone and dialed Yvette's number.

It rang six or seven times before she picked up. I could hear a television in the background.

"Hello? Honey?"

My voice was steady. "Where are you?"

"I just got to my parents' place. I'm busy helping set up for tonight's dinner. What's wrong?"

"Yvette." I spoke slowly. "My heart... something's wrong. I can't breathe. The pain is bad."

Silence on the other end.

She knew about my heart condition.

It wasn't serious, but it had always been a risk.

"Why so sudden... Did you take your medication?"

"I did, but it doesn't seem to be working. Can you come back? I need you to drive me to the hospital. I don't think I can drive myself..."

My words came in fragments, punctuated by ragged breaths.

"I..."

She was clearly torn.

Coming back meant abandoning Theo, who'd just checked into the hotel. It also meant fabricating a reason for leaving the Henson family dinner.

But not coming back—what if something really happened to me?

During those few seconds of hesitation, a man's voice drifted through the phone, barely audible: "Vivi, I'm out of the shower. Water's the perfect temperature."

Yvette realized immediately that I might have heard. That brief hesitation shattered into panic.

"Louis, I really can't get away right now!"

"A bunch of the elders are already here, and my dad's watching everything!"

"Just call 911 yourself! Hurry!"

Her words tumbled out fast and frantic, laced with the kind of urgency that only comes from trying to cover something up.

"I have to hang up—they're calling for me!"

The line went dead. Clean and final.

I slowly lowered the phone. The screen faded to black.

The last flicker of hope inside me went dark with it.

I glanced at the hotel one more time, then turned and walked away.

By the time I got home, dusk had settled over the city. Firecrackers popped somewhere in the distance.

My phone buzzed. A friend had sent a file, with a note: "Got what you asked for last night. Read it, and stay calm."

I opened it. A detailed background profile and timeline.

Theo Gilbert. Yvette's neighbor. Same age. They'd attended the same schools from kindergarten through high school.

In the photos, a boy and a girl growing up side by side—bright eyes, easy smiles, no distance between them.

The file described him as the closest presence throughout her entire youth.

If he hadn't insisted on studying abroad after high school, their families would have arranged a marriage long ago.

And then came a line in bold—a date that cut into me like a blade.

Theo Gilbert's first return to the country fell exactly on the eighty-seventh day of my marriage to Yvette.

That New Year's Eve. A five-star hotel in the city. Check-in records for both of them.

Their first hotel room together—on the very night I'd sat alone in front of the television, listening to firecrackers outside the window, waiting for her call that said nothing more than "the family dinner's keeping me busy."

I set the phone down, walked to the corner of the living room, and pulled out a suitcase. I started packing.

There weren't many clothes. Most were old things from before the marriage. Yvette would glance at them occasionally, say offhandedly that I should throw them out—but she'd never once bought me anything new.

The books on the shelf were all related to my work. She never touched them.

A slightly outdated DSLR camera. I'd wanted to document our life together, but I'd rarely had the chance to photograph her.