Before I could say anything, Laura glanced at her phone and urged Sharon again in Aurelian, "Come on, stop dragging your feet. Hurry up. Your precious brother is already calling you in the group chat. Today's important. Don't keep him waiting."

Sharon froze for a second. She set the soup bowl down, leaned over, and kissed my lips before speaking with visible hesitation.

"Honey, have the maid clean up the dishes and go to bed early, okay? My girlfriends invited me for a night out. Can I go?"

Seeing her like this, I couldn't help letting out a soft laugh.

"Sure. Go ahead. But you'd better not do anything that betrays me. If I ever find out, I won't hesitate to leave you."

She froze, panic and unease flashing through her eyes.

Her phone was ringing nonstop. She eventually picked it up, stood, and reached for her coat.

As she walked out, she coaxed me seriously, "Don't worry, honey. In this life, I'm yours. Till death do us part, remember? You'll be the only husband I ever have. Tasha, listen to your dad while I'm gone. Don't make him angry, or I'll spank you when I get back."

Once the door fully closed between us, I finally came back to myself.

I let out a long sigh, my eyes burning.

Tasha shot me another look of disgust and cursed me in Aurelian, thinking I couldn't understand.

"Ugly freak. A grown man crying. No wonder Mom doesn't like you. How useless!"

I gave a self-mocking smile and wiped the corner of my eye.

I knew I should let it go.

But I couldn't.

Seven years. Even a block of ice should've melted by now.

I wasn't clinging to them. I was just unwilling to accept this for myself.

Tasha was six this year. Since the day she was born, she had never been apart from me.

I poured almost all my love into her and Sharon.

For seven years, I was a husband and a father.

I just never got to be myself.

But Tasha, just like her mother, had forgotten something: I had taught her Aurelian.

For three days straight, Sharon didn't come home.

She sent messages every day, gentle check-ins, saying her legs had only just recovered, and she had gotten a little carried away.

I read the texts, saying nothing as I packed in silence.

I planned my exit.

On the seventh day she didn't come home, I pulled that agreement back out of my email trash, opened the link, and signed my name carefully.

I had already taken 99 steps toward Tasha and her.

This last step, I wanted to take toward my own life.

I had just bought a plane ticket for three days later and was about to turn off my phone when I saw Tasha standing there, stiff-faced, glaring at me.

For once, I didn't go over to hug her.

I simply stood up and walked away.

She flared up immediately, stormed past me, and cursed me in the Aurelian I taught her.

"Ugly freak! All you do is make my mom miserable. A junk plane ticket doesn't scare anyone. If you've got any backbone, pack up and get out for good!"

I thought Tasha's words would stab me again.

But this time, I felt strangely calm.

Watching her run upstairs, I spoke in Aurelian, "Fine. I'll leave."

The moment the words left my mouth, her small figure spun around. Her face froze, as if she had seen a ghost.

She panicked and tapped on her phone watch, sending a message to Sharon in Aurelian.

[Mom, bad news! That ugly freak understands Aurelian!]

Less than a few seconds later, a voice message came back.

It was Curtis Tomlinson, his tone dripping with contempt.

"Tasha, don't talk nonsense. Your dad's family went bankrupt years ago. How would he ever get the chance to learn Aurelian? Behave yourself. Don't bother me these next few days. I'm on a date with your mom. I'll bring you some beef jerky next time."

Tasha studied me with a tight little face.

When she saw I didn't react, she quickly tossed my words out of her mind and replied cheerfully, "Okay, Uncle Curtis. Have fun with Mom! I hope you two give me a pretty little sister soon."

These past few days, memories of Sharon kept surfacing.

Every time they did, I forced myself to be cruel enough to forget them.

-

Game sounds kept coming from Tasha's room.

I didn't go in to confiscate the console and tell her to go to bed early like I used to.

I didn't remind her to do her homework for tomorrow's inspection.

If she hated me that much, then I didn't need to keep playing the role of her father.

Still, one thing gnawed at me.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't understand how Sharon's acting had been so flawless.

At 2 a.m., Curtis sent another message.

[Oliver, Sharon has been wearing me out these days. She's really horny. What, you can't keep up? She even said you don't interest her at all.]

A photo came with the message.

Sharon stood in front of him, his hands slipping under her collar, desire written plainly in her eyes.

I stared at it again and again, as if I was punishing myself. It felt like someone had grabbed my heart and was squeezing it apart.

The pain was unbearable.

Under the bleak moonlight outside, another memory surfaced.

Back when the Holdens went bankrupt, my fiancée left me.

I had nothing, and Sharon appeared in my life like a source of hope. She helped me pay off debts and helped me rebuild from nothing.

At the time, I truly believed that the woman confined to a wheelchair was my salvation.

For seven years, she showered me with love.

Everyone said she was obsessed with spoiling her husband, that she loved me to the core.

I believed it, too.

So I lowered my pride, took care of her with everything I had, cooked for her, cleaned for her, and stayed by her side for seven full years.

Yet, this was the truth.

While Sharon said she loved me, she was tangled up with a so-called brother who wasn't even related to her by blood.

And only recently did I learn something even worse.

All those years, she had given every ounce of real affection she had to Curtis behind my back.

I spent an entire day burning every trace of myself away.

Clothes, photos, anything that proved I had ever existed here. I left nothing behind.

My flight was tomorrow. After tomorrow, none of them would have anything to do with me.

Sharon still hadn't come home, but Curtis's constant taunts made one thing clear: She was busy exploring new positions with him.

As for Tasha, she treated me like I didn't exist at all.

I fulfilled my duty as a father one last time and cooked a full table of her favorite dishes.

When she got home from school, she snorted coldly, ordered takeout for herself, and didn't say a single word to me.

I sat there as the food went cold, watching the night deepen outside the window.

Sometime past midnight, faint sounds came from the door.

By the moonlight, I saw Sharon finally return, along with the man she loved most.

Her cheeks were flushed. She was wrapped around Curtis, clinging to him, chasing his mouth, her hands roaming without restraint.

Curtis held the back of her head and deepened the kiss, his other hand steady on her hips.

From the moment they came in, they were tangled together, breathless, careless, shedding clothes as they went.

In the middle of it, Sharon whispered softly, "Shh, don't wake my husband."

Curtis pulled her closer, jealousy thick in his voice as he nipped at her ear.

"Didn't you say I'm the only one you love? Didn't you say doing this right under Oliver's nose makes it more exciting? Didn't you say he's just a shield for our love? Then why do you call him your husband?"

Seeing his wounded look, Sharon softened immediately.

She kissed him again, soothing him as she held him close.

"Calling him that makes it more thrilling, doesn't it?"

Their whispers and gasps grew louder, each sound tearing open the wound that had already bled dry inside me.

I curled up on the couch, the air thick and sickening, my heart completely numb.

I didn't know how much time passed.

When they moved from the kitchen toward the living room and finally noticed me, Sharon's breathing faltered.

She covered Curtis's mouth, forced the desire from her eyes, and pulled him upstairs.

In the quiet of the night, only her low warning drifted down.

"Don't mess around. If Oliver finds out, he won't let it go. He's still Tasha's dad. We can't make things too ugly."

Much later, Sharon came downstairs and carefully draped a blanket over me.

That same intimate scent still clung to her. Her open collar was marked everywhere.

I stiffly pushed her hand away. She noticed something was wrong.

"Honey, what's wrong? Are you mad because I haven't been home these past few days?"

I shook my head bitterly. "No. I had a dream that you cheated on me."

She froze, panic flashing across her face. "What are you talking about? I swear, you're the only husband I'll ever have."

The disgust rose so sharply inside me that I couldn't speak. I turned my face away and curled in on myself, exhausted.

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

I turned my back to her.

I didn't want to see her anymore.

When I woke up, I would finally be gone.