While doing my girlfriend Bianca White's laundry, I found an envelope with a certified marriage certificate and a wedding photo between her clothes.

In the wedding photo against the white background, the young man beside her smiled with bright, reckless confidence.

I shook all over and slammed the document down in front of her.

Bianca gave it one calm glance, then tapped the young man's face in the photo with her fingertip.

"Mason Rivers. You know him. He failed to get into grad school and tried to kill himself last year and I saved him, so we exchanged numbers. He wouldn't have come to me unless he was desperate.

"His parents are very controlling. Back home, they were trying to force him into a marriage and give up on his education. As an educator, I couldn't just stand by and watch him die, so I helped him."

Bianca said it so casually, as if she had only done him a small favor.

However, the marriage certificate and wedding photo would not go away.

I stared at it, then suddenly laughed until I almost cried. I had waited eight whole years for that certificate, yet I had never once gotten Bianca to say "Let's get married" even now.

I never expected Mason to get it with one sentence.

"I'll move out tonight," I said.

I felt my chest tightened as I turned around, losing all hope.

Bianca, who had always been composed, lost her calm and suddenly hugged me tightly from behind. She had always had a cold personality and devoted much of herself to research, so moments like this were rare between us.

My back tingled. I could even feel her warm breath.

"It's my fault for not explaining clearly, making you misunderstand. I only registered the marriage with Mason to help him. There's nothing between us. He has never even touched my hand."

I was already going to tell Bianca that we should break up, but when I met her serious eyes, I forced them back down.

Eight years together, and I couldn't bear to let it end like this.

After one last struggle, I decided to give Bianca one more chance.

"Fine. I believe you. Now that this is over and the matter is settled, hurry up and divorce Mason."

Bianca frowned and quietly let go of me.

"We can't divorce yet. If we divorce now, Mason's parents will drag him back home. My plan is that once he gets into grad school, graduates, finds a job, and can break free from his family, we can divorce. That will guarantee his safety."

Mason had not even gotten into grad school yet. If we waited until he graduated, it would take at least four years.

Bianca wanted to stay married to Mason for four years?

Then what was I supposed to be?

My throat tightened, and I felt so sick I almost threw up.

"What about me, then? Do you want me to be your secret lover?"

Bianca looked at me with displeasure, her frown growing deeper.

"My marriage to Mason is fake. You're the one I love. How can you degrade yourself by calling yourself a lover? Alan, can't you be a little more understanding? I remember how compassionate you were back in college. How did you become as unreasonable as those narrow-minded men?"

Looking at Bianca's righteous expression, I suddenly found the whole thing so laughable.

There were a hundred ways to help Mason, but she had chosen the craziest one and married him. When she made that decision, had she ever thought about the boyfriend who had been with her for eight years?

Who was the unreasonable one here?

I slowly took off the watch on my wrist.

Bianca had given me very few things, and this watch was one of them.

Back then, we were still two broke students. I saw a watch I liked at the counter, and the luminova on the dial illuminated straight into my heart.

I wanted it desperately, but it cost eight hundred dollars.

Bianca said it was just brand markup and that anyone who bought it was an idiot.

However, she secretly signed up as a test subject for a medical research facility's drug trials behind my back. She earned one thousand dollars from that and bought me the watch.

That became Bianca's get out of jail free card.

Because of this watch, I forgave Bianca for being inconsiderate, forgave her for loving research more than me, and forgave her absurd demand that she would only marry me once I had one hundred thousand dollars ready.

But…

I couldn't forgive her for marrying another man.

There was only so much I could tolerate.

I held the watch in my palm tightly and a tear fell onto the back of my hand. "Bianca, we..."

The doorbell cut me off.

While I was still standing there in a stupor, Bianca stepped past me and opened the door herself.

A fair, thin boy walked in, dragging a suitcase in his left hand and carrying a huge stack of books in his right, swaying under the weight.

Bianca quickly took the books from him. "Let me."

The face in front of me overlapped with the face in the photo.

It was Mason.

Bianca dragged Mason's suitcase toward the guest room. As she passed me, she started explaining awkwardly.

"Mason is still my husband in name, after all. I asked him to move in with us so his family wouldn't get suspicious. I'll tutor him myself from now on, and you'll have to cook something nutritious for him. I'm sure he'll succeed next year."

"Thank you, Professor Bianca," Mason thanked Bianca, his face flushed.

When he looked up and saw me, the blush vanished at once. He rolled his eyes and muttered reluctantly, "Thank you too, Professor's…husband."

Husband?

Bianca and I weren't even married. What kind of husband was I?

I gently set the watch on the table, ignoring him, and turned to pack my things.

However, Mason refused to let me leave quietly. He nodded at me, but he couldn't hide the smugness in his eyes even with his head lowered.

"Professor Bianca only married me to help me. You're the only person she loves. Don't worry. Once I graduate and start working, I'll pay back the fifty thousand dollars she gave my family and the car she bought me. I'll pay back every cent. I'm grateful to you and the professor for giving me a second chance in life."

Even a fake marriage needed a payoff?

I quickly opened my mobile banking app.

Our joint savings of seventy-five thousand dollars had vanished. Only a little over three hundred dollars remained.

I held my chest, feeling as if my chest was being crushed. It hurt so badly I could barely breathe.

Whenever we talked about marriage, Bianca said she wouldn't marry me unless I saved up one hundred thousand dollars first.

I worked desperately to save up, so I could have the money sooner and marry her properly.

Yet now, she had married Mason without asking him for a single cent.

Not only had she asked for anything, she had even bought Mason a car and given his parents a fifty-thousand dollar monetary gift.

What did that make me, her boyfriend of eight years?

In despair, I shouted at Bianca, "We saved that money together, but you used it to marry another man! You stole it!"

Bianca had always thought highly of her own virtues, so when she heard the word "stole," her expression immediately darkened.

"If I hadn't given Mason's parents the money, how would they have agreed to let him leave the countryside? Is a human life not worth fifty thousand dollars to you? And about the car, what man gets married without buying a car? Whether the marriage is real or fake, I couldn't let Mason be treated unfairly. You're a man too. Can't you put yourself in his shoes?"

A metallic taste spread through my throat.

Tens of thousands of dollars, and she made it sound so lightly, as if she could take it out whenever she wanted.

But that was every cent we had saved over seven years of work.

Bianca was a university lecturer, and I ran a tailor shop. Our income was decent, but Bianca devoted herself to research, and materials were expensive. They ate up almost everything she made, and I always covered our household expenses.

The savings had also come from my careful budgeting, scraped together bit by bit. All so that one day, I could save enough and marry the woman I loved most.

I never got Bianca to marry me.

Instead, I got her to use our wedding funds to buy another man a car and marry him.

"You're so stingy. It's just some money. Once I finish grad school, what will that amount even matter? I'll pay you back double! I thought Professor Bianca's lover would be someone special, but he's just like those ignorant old men back in the village, always talking about money. So vulgar!" Mason muttered in dissatisfaction.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was enough for both Bianca and me to hear.

Bianca paused, but she still didn't say a word in my defense in the end. Instead, she simply carried Mason's luggage into the guest room and made Mason's bed for him.

Bianca was usually busy with work, so, I had taken on all the housework myself because I felt sorry for her.

This was the first time I had ever seen her do housework.

And it was for another man.

The tear on my face hadn't even dried. When the wind blew, my face felt raw and scraped.

I couldn't stay in that home for one more second.

I quickly opened a rental app, but the prices made my heart sink.

Apartments in Creston cost at least forty-five hundred dollars a month. Meanwhile, I had barely three hundred dollars to my name.

Then I remembered the jewelry my mom had left me.

Before she passed, she had left me the pieces she had saved away and told me to give them to my wife when I got married. They were meant for the woman who would be my wife.

Selling even one piece would solve my immediate problem.

Despite my reluctance, I had been forced into a corner. I truly had no other choice.

I opened the drawer, only to find that all the jewelry inside was gone.

My mind was filled with panic, and I ran to the guest room to look for Bianca.

"A thief broke into the house! All the jewelry my mom left me with is gone! We… We need to call the police!"

Bianca's shoulders stiffened. She pushed up her glasses, guilt written across her face.

"I sold them. Mason needs to study and there will be more expenses later. His family refuses to support him. Who's going to help him if I don't?"

I stared at Bianca in complete shock. If she wanted to support Mason's studies, what did that have to do with selling my mom's jewelry?

With red eyes, I shoved Mason into the corner. I grabbed his shoulders and roared at him.

"If you want to study, ask your parents for money! That was the jewelry my mom left me! Give it back!"

Mason glared at me indignantly, his eyes red as he held back tears. "Alan, you've gone too far! You know exactly what my parents are like, but you're still stabbing me where it hurts. Just because I was born poor, does that mean I don't deserve to study?"

So, people really could laugh when they were furious enough.

"I never said you didn't deserve to study. I just said if you want to study, earn your own money and save for tuition! What does stealing from me make you?"

"You…!" Mason hid behind Bianca in shame and anger, looking deeply wounded.

"Enough."

Bianca grabbed my wrist and looked at me with exhaustion.

"You grew up spoiled by your family and don't lack any of these things, so what's wrong with letting Mason have them this once? Your mom left those jewelry to me in the first place. How I choose to handle them is up to me. Aren't you being a little too possessive over someone else's things, Alan?"

I glared at Bianca in complete disappointment and bit my lip until it bled.

The jewelry was left by my mom for her future daughter-in-law, but Bianca had now become another man's wife. How could she still deserve the jewelry my mom had left behind?

Mason gave me a cold glance, his eyes filled with contempt. "I look down on people who scheme over a woman's belongings."

I was taking back the jewelry my mom had left me. How had that become scheming against Bianca?

Mason's words enraged me completely, so I grabbed a cup and hurled it at him. Bianca instinctively hugged Mason and took the blow for him with a muffled groan.

The blood on her face was so red; as red as the blood that had poured from her forehead the year the school lab exploded, when she threw herself in front of me.

I closed my eyes, no longer having the strength to continue this fight.