“Really, I swear I will never steal him away from you. I know… the person he loves the most is still you.”
The kiss marks blooming across her collarbone were bright, raw, obscene.
I could almost hear the sound of my heart cracking open.
Facing the two of them, I was so stunned I couldn’t say a single word.
There were actually people in this world whose morals were this rotten?
This wasn’t a misunderstanding.
This was an insult.
A deliberate humiliation — dragging my marriage through the mud while forcing me to stand there and watch them flaunt their intimacy.
In that moment, the thought of divorce rose in my mind for the first time.
Five years of marriage, and I had never imagined we would end up here.
But that night, the thought kept returning, each time sharper than the last, slicing me open from the chest.
“Erick, I suddenly feel… you’ve become a stranger to me.”
My voice was as soft as a breeze, yet colder than ice.
I stepped back, as though retreating from a nightmare one footstep at a time.
Seeing my expression crumble, Erick hurried forward and grabbed me, babbling anxiously,
“Wren, don’t be like this. You’re overthinking. I was just helping her, that’s all. You’re the one I care about most.”
His touch made my skin crawl.
I jerked away instinctively.
“Don’t touch me.”
The words came out hoarse, almost a whisper, like I was pushing away something filthy.
“I feel sick.”
I shook off his hand the way one shakes off something rotten and decayed.
Then I turned and began walking toward the bedroom I once called my own.
He didn’t follow immediately.
From the stairs came Tara’s voice — soft, fragile, dripping with false kindness.
“Erick, you should go comfort Wren. I don’t want to cause any trouble between you two.”
“She just needs some time to calm down.”
Erick’s voice floated up, light and dismissive.
“She likes me so much. She’ll understand soon enough.”
That confidence — that utter disregard for my pain — made every step feel like crushing glass under my feet.
Two seconds later, he finally chased after me.
“Are you angry because I didn’t pick up our son? Is that why you’ve been giving me attitude?”
He sounded impatient.
“Why do you have to be so petty? Why are you making this so hard for me?”
Even when everything was his fault, I was always the one being blamed.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. “Right. It’s all my fault.”
I didn’t even bother looking at him.
Erick froze, as if he had never seen me like this.
He lowered his voice, putting on a strange, undeserved sadness.
“Tara just lost her husband. She’s falling apart. I was afraid she’d do something stupid, that’s why I went to her. You’re both so sensible, aren’t you? When I go back later, I’ll make it up to our son… our son will forgive me, right?”
If he had spared even one second to think of his son…
If he had looked back even once…
If he hadn’t been so completely consumed with Tara…
Our child would still be alive, not gone in the freezing wind on the side of the road.
I stopped walking. I didn’t turn around.
I simply said,
“Erick, your chance is gone.”
Then I kept walking, unwilling to waste another breath on him.
But Erick suddenly grabbed my arm, his voice rising in panic.
“What do you mean ‘gone’? Fine, I was wrong! I’ll pick him up from school every day starting tomorrow, okay? Just… don’t be so cold.”
In that moment, he actually sounded desperate.
But it was far too late for that.
If our son hadn’t died in that accident, maybe—maybe—I might have forgiven him.
But now?
Forgiveness was no longer possible.
