Samuel hated me so much. He only called me an old woman because I was seven years older than him.

Not only he tortured me, but also allowed his friends to be rude to me. It was because his drunk friend made him call me “Cathy."

I used to work closely with his father as his secretary and his father often called me “Cathy."

At first, everyone thought I would marry...

——

"Hey," The woman lifted her calf slightly and her white foot rested on my knee.

She tilted her head drunkenly, her eyes blurred.

The lights were dim and there was a faint smell of alcohol in the air.

I felt no ripples in my heart, I just felt funny. It was so funny that he was having an affair with such a promiscuous woman.

She felt bored and wanted to pull her legs back, but I grabbed her ankles. Her ankle was slender, seeming like it could snap with just a little force.

My heart was pounding like a drum, but I forced myself to remain calm. "Are you sober now? You'd better recognize who I am.”

I couldn't afford to panic at this moment. I let go of her hand and added, "You had quite the nerve to get involved with my fiancé on the eve of my wedding."

The woman's pupils constantly dilated, her face visibly flushing red. But she only felt momentarily ashamed before changing her attitude. She spoke contemptuously, with a strange sense of superiority, "How come I didn't know Samuel was getting married?"

She leaned close to my cheek, provoking me with a direct stare, "I remember now, you're that old woman. If you can't hold onto your man before marriage, what will you do after getting married?"

I didn't answer and instead raised my hand, slapping her hard.

The force of the slap turned her head to the side and my fingers were trembling.

"Oh, did I hit a nerve?"

Just as she was about to hit back, a third person, who had been silent until now, got up from the bed.

The man grabbed a shirt and draped it over his bare body. Then, he seized the woman's wrist as she tried to retaliate and forcefully flung her hand away.

"Wina, stop messing around." He called her Wina.

I'd heard her name before. She was his new love, as young as him, with a face full of collagen.

What about me? What was I to him if I'm bound by marriage?

I suppressed my anger, tears already filling my eyes.

Before she left, the woman deliberately left her underwear on the messy bed. The black lace almost burned my eyes.

After she left, I finally couldn't hold it anymore and my voice couldn't help but choke up. "Samuel, why are you treating me like this? Why are you deliberately humiliating me at this critical moment?"

The man leaned against the headboard, lighting a cigarette between his fingers. Through the swirling smoke, he half-squinted at me, "So, are we still getting married? Do you still want to marry someone like me?"

He did it on purpose, provoking me at this moment.

I clenched my teeth, deliberately steadying my ragged breathing. "Yes."

My clenched fingers had already dug into my flesh.

After hearing my answer, he let out a long sigh. Then, the quiet room suddenly erupted with wild laughter.

He laughed so hard that he shook, tears streaming down his face like a madman.

Samuel extinguished his cigarette with his bare hands and then spread his hands. "Then why bother asking why I treat you this way?"

He smirked, his eyes fixed on me. "The answer is obvious, because you're cheap. You're so cheap that I can't even get rid of you."

Looking at the unfamiliar man in front of me, who was now so desolate and hostile, I couldn't help but feel a sense of strangeness. He wasn't like this before.

I had watched him step by step toward the abyss and I had always believed that he would change back, that he would see my sincerity.

In a daze, the urgent knocking on the door pulled me back to reality.

Seeing me stunned, Samuel seemed to feel a twinge of pity. He stretched out his long legs and actively put on his pants.

He got out of bed and walked towards the door, his tone indifferent, "I'm coming, stop knocking."

I hurriedly wiped away my tears, even forcing a smile. I almost forgot that I had come to find Samuel to go to the wedding venue.

Some relatives and friends rushed in, their faces all smiling as they saw the signs of festivity in the room.

"Samuel, take it easy. Tonight is the bridal chamber candlelit night." They joked, completely unaware of my pale face.

"The days ahead are long. You're so eager before the wedding. You really love your wife."

"Oh, hey, it's true what they say, women are like wolves at thirty and tigers at forty. Catherine, don't wear our Samuel out."

I was speechless, my eyes pleading with Samuel. I only hoped he wouldn't say anything. I just wanted him to give me some dignity, not to embarrass me here.

The bridesmaids also looked at me with ambiguous expressions.

"I really can't tell, did you two have a wild night last night?"

I couldn't answer. My chest felt tight, as if knives were continuously stabbing into my heart.

Should I tell the truth? Should I say that my fiancé was entangled with another woman last night?

"Don't tease her anymore, she must be exhausted after a whole night."

Samuel suddenly spoke, putting his arm around my shoulder. He lied without batting an eye, looking natural and without any guilt towards me.

"You’re okay, right, honey?" He lowered his head and lightly kissed my cheek.

I could only numbly nod and swallow the bitterness.

I was taken to do my makeup, but for some reason, tears kept streaming down my face. The foundation that had just been applied became patchy, so it had to be removed and reapplied.

Someone nearby complained, "Why is she crying? Hurry, let her family come and comfort her."

Another voice whispered softly, "Don't say that, the bride's family is all gone. Didn't her family all die?"

I turned back to find the source of the voice, but everyone was avoiding my gaze.

I suddenly stopped crying. The bitterness in my heart was also desperately being swallowed down.

They were right, my family was all gone, long dead. But I had known since I was very young what I wanted and I had come this far. Why should I cry?

…

The wedding went smoothly.

Samuel gave me a lot of face and Wina did not reappear. We were like every newlywed couple, inseparable and sweet.

But on our wedding night, we sat on the same bed, silent and avoiding each other's eyes.

When we were in love, I naively thought he would give me a home and I would no longer be exposed to the wind and rain.

Now that I was truly his wife, he didn't even want to look at me.

This vintage wooden bed was the style I told him I liked three years ago. Three years later, everything had changed.

Samuel drank too much and leaned back on the bed.

After some thought, I walked over and helped him take off his jacket.

"Catherine, Catherine, don't leave me..." He stared blankly at the ceiling, tears streaming down his face.

Catherine was my name, Catherine Rick.

As my fingers touched his face, he reached out and grabbed my hand. He slowly looked at me, his eyes wet, his cheeks still flushed.

The next moment, he suddenly sat up and hugged me tightly.

He pushed me against his broad chest and the woody scent from his body instantly filled my nostrils.

He was hugging me so tightly that I could hardly breathe.

"Samuel, I'm not leaving. Never leaving."

Close to me, his warm breath sprayed on my face, tickling me. I tilted my face up towards his lips.

But just as we were about to kiss, his eyes suddenly cleared and he pushed me away heavily.

"You're not the Catherine I know. You are fucking fake, fake!"

Before I could react, he pounced on me and pressed me down on the bed.

His brows were furrowed and his eyes were bloodshot.

He grabbed my neck and roared at me, "Give it back to me! Give me the real Catherine!"

He let go and began to tear the clothes on my chest frantically. "Everything you have is fucking fake, even your feelings are fake. You plotted against me falling in love, plotted against me getting married and the next step is to have a baby? Will having a child finally make you leave me alone?"

I couldn't refute him. What he said was true, yet not entirely.

I let him vent his frustrations on me.

An hour later, blood kept flowing from beneath me uncontrollably.

Seeing me drenched in cold sweat and nearly fainting, he finally realized something was wrong.

I no longer had the strength to respond and slowly closed my eyes. I lost our first and possibly our last, child and it was a man-made accident.

I deceived Samuel once again, calculated against him once more.

I had known for a while that I was pregnant. From the moment I found out, I understood that this child was never meant to be mine.

My body was weak and naturally predisposed to miscarriages, so even if I got pregnant, there was a high chance of a natural miscarriage.

The likelihood of a smooth delivery with both mother and child safe was nearly zero. Given my physical condition, the doctor advised against keeping the baby, as it posed a risk to my own health.

But I insisted on keeping it.

I calculated and created an "accident," hoping that the deeply disappointed Samuel would turn around and feel pity for me.

In the VIP ward, the room was filled with the smell of disinfectant and the monitoring equipment beeped steadily.

Samuel looked at me without saying a word. He clenched his fists, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

Finally, he spoke, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were pregnant …"

"It's okay." I interrupted him before he could continue.

"Alright."

He seemed truly remorseful, lowering his head and saying nothing more.

The ward was deathly silent.

I had just adjusted my mood and was about to speak in a light-hearted tone, when his phone rang.

That call seemed like his savior, rescuing him from the suffocating atmosphere and giving him a chance to escape reality.

He left and didn't return for a long time.

At eleven o'clock, he sent me a photo on WhatsApp.

I opened it. It was a photo of him with Wina. The girl was looking at the camera, while he was not. He was drinking with his face turned away.

Two minutes later, another message came in.

[Sorry, sent by mistake.]

In that moment, my heart shattered.

I knew Wina did it on purpose, but I couldn't help but care.

My newlywed husband, drinking and seeking pleasure with another woman right after I lost our child.

From the photo, I saw the bar's logo on the deliberately shown cup and eventually, I found that bar.

When Samuel saw me, he was initially stunned. Then his expression darkened, his brows furrowing and his mouth setting in a hard line.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

His rowdy friends seemed even more brazen under the influence of alcohol. "Yo, Samuel, why did you bring a mom out to play?"

One of them jeered. "Isn't this your Cathy?"

They seemed to have lost their senses, eyes glazed over in a state of euphoria, channeling their jealousy and disdain toward him. A fat guy even reached over and pinched me.

The people around us joined in, shoving Samuel and egging him on. "Call her Cathy! Go on, call her Cathy!"

"Call her Cathy! Call her Cathy!" More and more people closed in on me with malicious intent...