It was past midnight, and my wife was late coming home from work again.

She saw me sitting alone in the living room and handed me her phone without being asked.

"Go ahead. Check it."

"The passcode is your birthday."

Then she walked straight to the bathroom to shower.

I stared at the phone on the table and let out a bitter half-smile.

What was the point of checking? Even if I went through it a hundred times, it wouldn't matter.

She'd already wiped it clean.

A little while later, Ida Matthews came out of the shower and wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"See? Nothing there. I told you—you can trust me."

I lifted my head and caught sight of the thin scratch marks along the back of her neck.

My lips curled into something cold and mocking.

I didn't lose my temper.

I just pushed her away, calmly.

"Let's get a divorce, Ida."

I was done living like this.

——

The air went still for a few seconds.

Then came the sharp crack of something breaking.

Ida had knocked the vase off the side table.

That vase was the first thing we'd ever bought together—picked out at IKEA during our first year of marriage.

It had followed us from a cozy one-bedroom apartment to a spacious condo, and finally to this sprawling mansion. We used to call it our good-luck charm, a witness to every stumble and triumph along the way.

Now it lay shattered across the floor.

Just like our seven-year marriage. Beyond repair. No going back.

I pulled my gaze from the wreckage and looked at Ida again.

"I've already had a lawyer draft the divorce papers. Make sure you sign—"

She cut me off before I could finish.

"My hand is bleeding, Roland. The vase cut me."

I froze, then glanced down.

Sure enough, a shard had sliced her palm open. Bright red blood dripped steadily onto the floor.

"Roland, help me with this." Her voice came out raw and hoarse.

She rarely showed vulnerability around me.

But I knew this game. It was her go-to move whenever she wanted to smooth things over. If I took the bait—rushed to get the first-aid kit, bandaged her up—then we'd be "fine again," just like that.

Not this time.

I looked away and kept my voice flat.

"It's just a small cut. Put some ointment on it."

I paused, then circled back to where we'd started.

"After you take care of that, sign the papers."

The light drained from Ida's eyes.

"Roland Harding, I'm hurt, and you're still doing this? How long are you going to keep this up?!"

Her tone was pure bewilderment.

In her mind, the affair wasn't even that serious.

After all, once I'd broken down—screaming, crying, falling apart—she'd started deleting the messages on a regular schedule. She'd even changed all her passwords to my birthday.

So she genuinely couldn't understand why I was still "throwing a tantrum."

I ran my thumb absently over the rough, faded scar on my hand and said nothing.

That was when her phone rang.

The same ringtone. The familiar one that had been going off in the middle of the night for almost a year now.

Ida had told me once it was the company's emergency line. I hadn't questioned it.

Not until her birthday. I'd been at the grocery store picking out the salmon she loved, debating whether to make her pan-seared filet or a lemon-butter bake, when I looked up and saw her across the aisle—wrapped in another man's arms, the two of them browsing snacks together like any other couple.

That was the moment it finally hit me.

Ida had been cheating on me for God knows how long.

And the man was someone she'd mentioned once in passing—her childhood sweetheart, Humphrey Sawyer.

Maybe because the confrontation and confession were already behind us, Ida didn't bother making excuses this time.

She answered the call right in front of me.

"I'm on my way. Wait for me."

After she hung up, she didn't bother with the wound on her hand. She just grabbed her car keys and rushed for the door.

At the entryway, she stopped and turned to look at me, her eyes dark and unreadable.

Her voice was heavy with disappointment. "You never used to be like this, Roland."

Never used to be like what?

Offering her my whole heart on a platter, only to let her shred me to pieces?

I'd cared too much. I couldn't bear to let go of ten years together.

And at the time, she'd been pregnant.

So I swallowed the pain and chose to forgive her.

She promised to keep her distance.

And how did that turn out?

The scar on my hand was proof enough of how stupid I'd been.

I ran my thumb along that scar. The old wound felt like it was splitting open again, oozing, the pain so sharp I couldn't breathe.

A sudden slam shattered my thoughts.

Ida had walked out and let the door crash shut behind her.

I knew where she was going. Back to Humphrey.

I stared at the closed door and let a faint smile pull at the corner of my mouth.

"Goodbye, Ida."

Half an hour later, Humphrey Sawyer posted a social media story visible only to me.

"She said I'm the only one who cares about her. She told me to never leave her."

The photo showed the back of Ida's head buried in his chest, their fingers laced tightly together.

Just minutes ago, Ida had told me I could trust her.

But what she meant by "trust" was probably trusting that whatever she had with Humphrey was a pure "friendship."

Trusting that she'd skipped my follow-up appointments one after another for Wyatt Sawyer's trivial problems out of so-called "loyalty" to a good friend.

Trusting that two people could spend an entire night naked in the same bed and call it nothing more than "catching up."

Before long, Humphrey deleted the post, just like he had every other time.

As if what I'd seen was just a hallucination conjured by paranoia.

Then he sent me a message.

"Hey, brother-in-law, Ida was in a really bad mood tonight. She only came to have a few drinks with me. Don't overthink it."

"It's not worth letting an outsider like me cause problems between you two."

Don't overthink it.

I stared at those words and let out a cold laugh.

I still remembered the time I'd dragged myself out of bed with a burning fever, clutching screenshots of Humphrey's posts, and confronted Ida. She'd given me the exact same explanation.

"Humphrey and I grew up together. He went abroad after high school and stayed overseas for years. Now that he's finally back, I can't spend some time with an old friend?"

"Roland, you're just cooped up at home recovering with nothing to do. That's why you keep overthinking."

When she noticed my fever-flushed face growing paler by the second, she seemed to realize she'd gone too far.

She quickly pulled me into her arms and pressed her forehead against mine.

"Roland, if not for anything else, do it for our baby. Trust me. Stop overthinking, okay?"

She wiped my tears away gently, her voice soft and helpless.

"Stop crying, Roland. Fine. I promise I'll keep my distance from him."

When my tears only fell harder, Ida deleted Humphrey's contact right in front of me.

She even changed all her passwords to my birthday.

Ten years together. Seven years of marriage. And our baby was almost due.

Back then, I truly couldn't let go.

So I gritted my teeth, forgave her, and chose to believe her one more time.

And then what happened?

Less than a month later.

She'd gone into early labor. She'd just been told the baby had died inside her. She needed to stay in the hospital to recover more than anything.

But all it took was one text from Humphrey saying "my stomach hurts," and she walked out without a second thought.

I broke down completely. Like a man possessed, I snatched up the fruit knife from the bedside table, my voice raw and shredded.

"Ida, are you really choosing him? If you walk out that door, we're done. For good."

Ida's face twisted, and she looked at me the way someone looks at a lunatic.

"Roland, stop this. I have a family doctor at home, and the doctors already said everything's fine."

"Humphrey just got back to the country. He doesn't have anyone here, and his health has always been fragile. I have to go. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

She turned and left without looking back. All she gave me was the rigid line of her retreating shoulders.

The moment the hospital room door clicked shut, the knife slipped from my hand.

The blade caught my wrist on the way down, carving the ugly scar I still carried.

The buzz of my phone dragged me back from that distant memory.

It was a voice message from Ida. She sounded drunk.

"Roland, stop being mad at me. Give me another baby, okay?"

A baby?

My thumb found the scar on my wrist without thinking. I'd gone numb to the pain a long time ago.

But hearing her mention a child again sent a fresh wave of agony through my chest, wave after wave, until I felt like I was drowning.

It took a long time before I could steady myself. I lifted my hand and wiped away the last tear.

Then, silently, I blocked both Ida and Humphrey.

I dialed an overseas number.

"Dad. Three days from now. Meet me at the airport."

Over the next few days, Ida didn't come home.

I didn't ask her when she'd be back. I just started packing.

But seven years of marriage leaves marks that run deep. Almost everything I touched had her shadow on it.

The white scarf she'd given me on our first date.

I'd worn it for years and could never bring myself to throw it away, because she'd spent months knitting it by hand.

There were so many other firsts she'd given me, gifts she'd poured her heart into, staying up until her eyes were red and raw to make with her own hands.

I'd kept every single one locked away in the safe. I couldn't let them go.

Later, as Ida's career took off, her gifts grew more expensive.

I accepted each one with the same joy, because they were proof that Ida had once loved me deeply.

But then came the second year after we moved into the mansion. That was when Humphrey appeared.

The vanity began filling up with luxury watches and bracelets from designer brands.

The closet started overflowing with the latest haute couture from every season.

Some of these pieces were worth hundreds of thousands. Some were worth millions. But they were no longer given out of love.

They were just apologies. Compensation. Hush money for the countless nights I'd spent waiting alone while she was with someone else.

I looked at all of it and walked past without touching a thing.

I packed only what was truly mine.

The day I finished, Ida happened to come home.

She saw the suitcase in my hand and frowned.

"Where are you going this time?"

She still thought I was just throwing a tantrum.

After all, the old me had threatened to leave more than once.

I didn't correct her. I just lowered my gaze. "Just need to clear my head."

Ida didn't notice anything different about me. Instead, she pulled me into her arms.

"Roland, I've been waiting for you to reach out these past few days."

Waiting for me to reach out?

But I remembered clearly. Every time I'd texted her before, asking her to come home, all I ever got back was an impatient brush-off.

She cupped my face in both hands and stared at me, her eyes dead serious.

"All you had to do was say the word, and I would've come straight home. But you didn't."