I did too many things that I despised myself, whether I should do it or not, whether I was forced or willing.

Now, I just want to end it all quickly.

So, I once again obediently put on the shoes for the little girl.

Maybe I was too obedient, which made Silas lose his fun.

He dragged me into his room angrily and stripped Sue naked in front of me.

I'd seen scenes like this countless times. Sometimes, Silas would even make me guide them.

Like before, I tore open a condom and handed it over.

But this time, Silas pushed it away.

"We won't need this time."

My hand trembled and I withdrew it.

Silas's hands didn't stop, but he surprisingly glanced up at me.

I didn't look at him, nor did I care to anymore.

Silas got angry again and locked me in the bathroom.

There was a lot of noise outside that evening, along with strong winds and snow. I sat there and listened all night.

In a daze, I was jolted awake by a frantic phone ringing.

"Is this Miss Spencer? Your mother has been in a car accident and is currently being rescued. Please come to the Public Hospital immediately."

My heart lurched.

"Silas!"

I slammed my palms against the door, trying to drown out the sounds outside.

Silas opened the door, wrapped in a bathrobe. His loose collar revealed hickeys and the woman in his arms clung to him.

"What's wrong?"

"My mom … she was in a car accident. Can you please take me to the hospital?"

I knelt on the ground and begged him, tears welling up in my eyes, afraid he wouldn't take me because he was upset.

"Juliette, you didn't even bother making up a good lie. It's 3 a.m. in a blizzard. Normal people stay home. Did a car crash into your mother's house?"

Sue sneered, pointing at the dark sky and the heavy snow outside.

Silas chuckled along, not even bothering to look at me. "Juliette, you're even resorting to lies like this?"

"What? Can't stand the sounds we were making?"

Silas locked the door again.

The more I shouted, the louder the noises outside became.

Completely desperate, I grabbed the stool beside me and smashed the window, climbing out.

The sharp glass cut my legs and blood instantly flowed.

I couldn't get a taxi because it was so late and snowing.

I could only run forward like a zombie, leaving shocking trails of bright red blood in the snow.

A black Cayenne stopped beside me after honking twice.

"Get in."

The man in the driver's seat never looked back at me inside the dim and cramped car.

I thanked him repeatedly, but he didn't say another word.

Just as I was about to leave the car, I finally heard him say.

"Juliette, you have options besides Silas."

"If you figure things out, remember to look for me."

A gold-embossed business card was handed over. I took it with both hands, thanking him profusely.

At that moment, my whole heart was focused on my mother, so I didn't look closely and just put it in my pocket.

I stumbled into the hospital emergency room. Before I could even ask, I saw nurses pushing a body covered with a white sheet out of the operating room.

"Is Sarah Ziegler's family still not here?"

"Unbelievable. Her daughter didn't even show up before she died."

Two nurses were talking amongst themselves, their words easily piercing my heart.

I rushed over and lifted the white cloth. My mother's delicate face in the past was full of scars, while her body was covered in wounds of every size.

For ten years, I had resented her because of Silas.

I had even viciously wished for the whole family to die together, but now that she was truly dead in front of me, all I felt was heartache.

Since there were no more relatives left at home, there was no need to hold a funeral.

I stayed by my father's bedside for a while, telling him about my mother and myself.

I talked intermittently until the early morning. Before leaving, I looked at my father, who had been motionless for ten years and said with a crying voice.

"Dad, I'm tired."

The next morning, my mother was cremated. Then, I put the urn into a box and took it home.

Along with it, I also brought back the divorce agreement I had asked someone to draft.

As soon as I entered, I bumped into Silas and the girls sitting at the dining table, talking and laughing.

"Sign it."

My voice was cold as ice as I slammed the divorce agreement onto the table.

"So, you ran away overnight just to get this divorce agreement, huh?"

"Juliette, you've really gone too far!"

I hugged the urn tightly as my head lowered.

"Silas, let's just let each other go."

"I don't love you anymore."

In the past, I would still argue with Silas, sometimes even fight with him when things got heated.

I would point my finger at his nose and question him, asking if the love he swore to me back then was just a joke.

Most of the time, I still held onto a glimmer of hope, hoping he would forgive me, hoping we could make our marriage work.

So, when he said he liked wild women, I learned to please him in bed.

When he liked innocent ones, I would wear his favorite clothes to make him happy.

But then, one woman after another moved in and my heart grew colder bit by bit.

Those tricks I used to please him became my shame and also became his way to humiliate me.

"Juliette, what's this you dropped ..."

"Lester Fox?"

Sue picked up the business card I had dropped on the floor and read the name aloud.

So, it was Lester.

Silas' lifelong nemesis, that nemesis across the ocean whom he had never met

Silas' face immediately darkened and he slapped me hard.

"So, you said you don't love me anymore because you found someone else outside?"

"Do you even know who Lester is?"

My ears were ringing and I couldn't even stand steady. The urn in my hand cracked with a sound.

Watching the ashes scattered in the air, I froze, unable to react.

I dropped to my knees instinctively, trying to gather the ashes back into the urn.

No matter how I tried, it was useless.

Sue even picked up the milk on the side and poured it on the ground. The others later followed suit.

The fine ashes instantly turned into sticky clumps.

"Ah!"

At that moment, my nerves snapped. I went crazy and raised a stool, smashing it towards Sue.

Silas didn't even have time to react before Sue fell to the ground, clutching her head.

"Silas."

"I'm in so much pain."

Someone called an ambulance. Silas dragged me along and forced me to stay at the hospital.

"If anything happens to her, you're going to die with her!"

That day, I was forced to give blood transfusions to Sue again and again until the doctor felt that no more transfusions were allowed.

Silas let me go, saying that it was my own fault.

I hid in my father's ward for those days and never went out.

"Here you are! Thanks to your blow, Silas is so good to me now."

"Is this your father? Why isn't he moving?"

Sue Larson, basking in Silas' favor, walked with a new arrogance.

She kept fiddling with my father's oxygen tube, asking me curiously what it was.

"Don't touch that!"

I pushed her away and she stumbled back a few steps, clutching her head.

The next second, she rushed forward and unplugged my father's oxygen tube. She laughed as she held it in her hands and played with it.

"Do you think Silas will blame me for this?"

Before I could get an answer, Silas walked in.

He was taken aback by the scene before him, his eyes sweeping back and forth over me.

After a long pause, he finally said.

"Sue is still young and naïve. Your father's condition was beyond saving. Maybe ending things sooner was a mercy."

"I'll make sure to give your mother more money in the future."

The beeping sound from the monitor continued, each beep announcing my father's death.

I stood there, rooted to the spot. Besides the sadness and grief, there was also a sense of relief.

Silas ignored me and walked away, carrying Sue.

I collapsed on the ground, exhausted and kept apologizing to my father. Still, I wondered who had ever been sorry to me.

I pulled out a business card and made the call.

"Mr. Fox, please come pick me up tonight."

The same crematorium, the same ceremony.

This time, I left my father's ashes in the memorial hall.

When I returned to the Gills' residence, Silas wasn't back yet.

Those nine girls kept whispering in my ear that Silas was furious and I was doomed.

I paid them no mind. They persistently followed me, asking if I was really going to get a divorce.

I didn't answer, simply opening the bedroom door.

"Choose. Everything in here is yours."

When I said that, they swarmed in and the room was instantly emptied.

Only a few old photos of Silas and me from our younger days lay scattered on the floor, ignored by everyone.

I locked myself in my room and didn't come out all evening.

Silas sent Aunt May to ask about me then, but I simply had her hand him my divorce agreement.

"Another divorce."

"It's been a hundred times already, Juliette. Aren't you tired of playing this game?"

Silas tore the divorce agreement to shreds.

"Let her starve! Don't give her food until she stops acting up!"

Silas thought my divorce talk and my saying I didn't love him was also fake.

Still, love could truly run out.

Ten years. I really couldn't love that man anymore.

Now that I was alone, what else couldn't I let go of?

That night, I climbed out the window and entered Lester's car.

Silas didn't see me bustling around the dining room the next morning.

There was no toast he loved to eat on the table, nor was there any coffee I made by myself and there were no ironed and matched clothes on the hangers.

Silas rushed upstairs in a hurry and opened my room, but found it empty.

He picked up a few group photos on the ground and panicked.

"Aunt May! Where is Juliette?"

Aunt May rushed over after hearing the sound and she hadn't put down the spatula in her hand. She looked at the empty room and shook her head to indicate that she didn't know.

"I'll call her mother."

Aunt May was stunned and asked subconsciously.

"Sir, isn't Juliette's mother dead? She was cremated the day after."

Silas' mind flashed back to the scene of me holding the urn and his breath hitched momentarily.

He slowly bent down and gathered the photos from the floor. His eyes were empty, hollow like all life had drained out of him.

For ten years, he never thought that I would really leave him.