After working late, I walked past a local barbecue spot. The owner flashed me a sweet smile: "Hey! Add me on Instagram, I’ll give you a discount." I smiled back, scanned her QR code, and followed her. As I sat down to order, I idly scrolled through her feed. [Summer is never too hot when you’re here.] Below the caption was a photo of two hands tightly intertwined. I scrolled down a bit more, and a comment made my heart skip a beat. The account I had saved as "Husband" had replied: "I never feel tired when I'm with you." I stared at that familiar profile picture for a long, agonizing moment, then instinctively looked toward the kitchen. And there he was. Julian Sterling—always so aloof, so impossibly arrogant—standing there in a plain tank top, sweating profusely as he grounded himself setting up the grill. When the girl next to him wiped the sweat from his brow and handed him a bottle of water, his face softened into a look of absolute, profound tenderness. A look I used to know so well. Only this time, his eyes were meant for someone else. A bitter, acidic ache churned in my chest. So this is what it was. While I was being tortured by his icy, silent treatment to the point where I wished I were dead... He was out here hiding his identity, playing house and pretending to be in love with another woman. I opened our chat. [Julian, let's get a divorce.] I pressed send, and the tears finally fell. At this exact moment, I decided I was done torturing myself in this marriage. ... "Julian, why did you come out here?" Just as Chloe finished speaking, Julian walked out of the kitchen, his face completely expressionless. He affectionately ruffled the girl's hair. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I have something to handle." "You go inside and keep busy, okay?" The pale, harsh light of the streetlamps washed over him, blurring the edges of his silhouette. For a second, I thought I was looking at the twenty-two-year-old Julian. The year we were so broke we had to run a street stall just to survive. Back then, he treated me with that exact same desperate tenderness. But when my vision cleared, the eyes looking back at me held nothing but absolute, chilling indifference. Just like our marriage over the past eight years. "Who told you to follow me?" A harsh accusation. That was always the very first thing he said to me. I smiled bitterly and looked down. "If I said it was a coincidence, would you believe me?" Julian fell silent for a long moment, as if he were genuinely trying to figure out if I was lying. "I don't care what you're scheming, but leave Chloe alone. She's not like you." I slowly raised my head, meeting his warning glare. "At least she's not like you. Selling out your own marriage and giving up your dignity just for a business project." I opened my mouth, desperate to explain. But for eight years, he had never, ever wanted to hear what I had to say. He only ever wanted to use me to vent the agonizing pain of feeling betrayed. A bitter taste flooded my throat. The second he turned to walk away, I finally called out: "Julian." He stopped. My grip on my purse tightened until my knuckles turned white. "I said, I want a divorce." The moment the words left my mouth, I felt as if an unbearable weight had been lifted off my entire being. For eight years, I tried absolutely everything. I cried, I screamed, I even showed up at his corporate office to corner him. But even the time I held a knife to my own wrist, he wouldn't spare me a single glance. Julian was like an ancient, immovable glacier. Chloe was the sun that melted him, stripping away his defenses in an instant. But me? In his world, I wasn't even a flickering candle. After all these years, I was just so incredibly tired. Julian turned back to look at me, a cold sneer playing on his lips. "Is this the newest trick you've come up with to get my attention?" "Serena, you should just give it up. Since you sold yourself to the Sterling family back then, I will never let you escape that easily." He pulled out his phone, making a call. Within minutes, my best friend, Maya, along with several of our mutual friends, rushed to the scene. "Did she cause a scene with Chloe?!" They hopped out of their cars and jogged over to the curb. The very first thing out of their mouths wasn't a question about me or Julian. It was frantic concern over whether Chloe was okay, and whether I had harassed her. In that single moment, my entire world shattered into a million pieces, only to violently piece itself back together. It took me a very long time to find my voice. "You all... knew about this?" Maya frowned and walked toward me, casually grabbing my purse out of my hands. "Of course we knew. We were just terrified you'd find out and go crazy. So every time Julian came here to be with Chloe, we took turns taking you out for coffee to 'talk about your feelings' and run interference." My freezing fingertips twitched slightly, just to confirm I was still alive. Tears welled up in my eyes again. "Why?" So, for the past few years, every time they listened to me pour my heart out about my agonizing marriage... They weren't comforting me. They were protecting Chloe. "Serena, you're the one who wronged Julian in the first place. You getting what's coming to you now... isn't that just karma?" "You literally betrayed your own fiancé for money. Do you honestly think any of us would ever dare to be real friends with someone like you?" My eyes burned violently. But it wasn't like that! It wasn't like that at all! Why did everyone only ever believe Julian?! Maya exchanged a quick look with Julian, then practically dragged me toward her car. "You should be thanking Julian he didn't absolutely destroy you. He even asked us to drive you home so you wouldn't get into an accident." "Compared to Chloe, you are literally the dirt beneath her feet." As I got into the car, my legs were shaking so badly I could barely stand. I felt completely unmoored. The city lights blurred past the window in a dizzying flash. My phone buzzed. I opened it to find a message from Chloe: [Hey. I know he's your husband now. I'm breaking up with him.] Maya, who was driving, slammed on the brakes. She must have received the news that Chloe was breaking up with him, too. She immediately ripped the wheel into a U-turn and drove me straight to the secret little apartment they had all spent three years protecting. The second I walked through the door, I heard the sound of things smashing. A jade bangle hit the floor, shattering instantly, the broken pieces rolling right to my feet. I recognized that bangle. I had casually mentioned wanting it for my birthday last year. But Julian had just glared down at me with absolute contempt. "Serena, how thick is your skin that you actually have the nerve to ask me for a birthday present?" I had shaken my head frantically, trying to explain that the bangle held a special meaning for us. It was the solemn promise Julian had made to me back when we were both at rock bottom. But now, he had given that bangle to someone else. And that promise of "loving you for a million years" was given away right along with it. And now, Chloe had smashed it into pieces. Julian didn't look angry in the slightest. He just kept stepping closer to Chloe, coaxing her with an incredibly soft voice: "Chloe, I can explain everything to you. Please, just calm down first, okay?" In that exact moment, a tightly wound string inside my heart quietly snapped. Eight years of silent, agonizing psychological abuse. I used to think that as long as I acted crazy enough, Julian would eventually have to look at me. But even when I used my own life as a threat... He acted like he didn't see a thing. But now, Chloe had merely smashed a piece of jewelry, and Julian's face was etched with sheer, unadulterated panic. He was terrified she might accidentally hurt herself. It wasn't that he didn't know how to care. It was just that the person he cared about hadn't been me for a very long time. "Julian! You explicitly told me you only loved me! Why would you trick me into being the other woman?!" Tears streamed down Chloe's face. Her eyes held the same absolute, fiery resolve I used to have. "Chloe, you're not, please just listen to me..." Chloe completely ignored him, slamming her bedroom door shut and locking it from the inside. Julian rubbed his temples, looking utterly exhausted. When he finally looked at me, his eyes weren't dead and indifferent anymore. They were filled with disgust. "Serena, you really are a master at taking my peaceful life and churning it into absolute toxic garbage." "You did it eight years ago, and you're doing it today." He smirked sarcastically, muttering something under his breath that I wasn't supposed to hear: "And the worst part is, I can't even do anything to you..." I closed my eyes. I slid the divorce papers I had prepared a long time ago across the table to him. "Julian. If you divorce me, she'll stop being angry." He didn't move. He just stared at the document for a very long time, then slumped back onto the sofa. "Is this what you wanted?" I looked at him, confused. "What?" "First you track down Chloe and drop the truth bomb on her, and then you use her emotional breakdown to force me into a divorce. That was the plan, right?" I frowned, opening my mouth to deny it. But he suddenly stood up and stalked over to me, his physical presence overwhelmingly intimidating. "Serena, you aren't going to get away with this." I stumbled backward until my spine hit the cold, hard wall. Only then did he go back to the sofa and light a cigarette. "Once I calm Chloe down, you will go back to being the perfect Mrs. Sterling. Do not interfere with anything else." I scrunched my brow, my vision blurring with tears. My voice was hoarse as I demanded: "Julian, what is the point of hurting two women at the same time?!" "There is absolutely no love left between us! Why are you clinging to this?!" The second I finished speaking, his hand—mid-way to flicking the ash off his cigarette—froze. He stared at me intensely. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, Chloe suddenly opened her bedroom door. "Julian..." We both looked over. Chloe's face was deathly pale, the tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks. But her legs were covered in blood. It was pooling on the floor, and she was still actively bleeding. "Chloe!" Julian's face drained of color. He crushed the cigarette, sprinted over, and scooped her up into his arms. The group of friends swarmed around them, rushing her to the nearest hospital. Before I left, I called a moving company and sent Julian a single text message. [Remember to sign the divorce papers. I'm moving out tomorrow.]
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