Jason’s patience finally snapped.
“Stop being so shameless.”
“Nicole, I’ve already apologized. I’ve tried to comfort you, tried to fix this—what more do you want?”
I looked at his flushed, almost feverish face. I couldn’t tell if his frustration was directed at me, or if it came from someone else’s consolation.
“I’m not causing a scene,” I said lazily. “I told you—I just want a divorce.”
My voice was calm, detached, as if I were simply talking about the weather.
Jason froze for a second, stunned by how indifferent I sounded. But he quickly recovered and resumed his pleading, clinging to the last scraps of our crumbling marriage.
“Nicole, have you forgotten the vows we made on our wedding day?”
“You said you’d stand by me through everything. It hasn’t even been that long… just a few years.”
“Our daughter is still a baby—barely a few months old. How can you be so heartless? How can you divorce me and leave her without a father?”
His eyes were red, filled with desperation and blame.
“If you leave, what do you want me to do? What about our daughter—what will happen to her?” he cried.
I stared at him, face expressionless, voice sharp as ice.
“I don’t care what you do.”
Jason looked at me like I had just torn his soul in half.
“That’s your own daughter. How can you say something like that?”
His voice cracked under the weight of his disappointment, his eyes brimming with disbelief.
Then, through gritted teeth, he muttered, “Fine. If you’re that heartless…”
“I might as well take our daughter and die.”
Without warning, he picked up our swaddled infant and stormed toward the balcony. The gesture was meant to shock, to terrify me into backing down.
But I didn’t even flinch.
I knew he wouldn’t jump. He was bluffing—again.
I’d overheard him once, telling someone in a hushed voice that he and his daughter couldn’t live without another woman. That woman was never me.
As I expected, Jason froze when he reached the balcony, awkwardly clutching our baby, drenched in drama but doing nothing.
“Nicole, you’re heartless!”
“Didn’t you want a divorce?” He shouted over the rain. “Fine! Let’s get a divorce!”
He stomped back inside, still carrying our child, dripping wet from the storm.
Moments later, the front door burst open.
His beloved childhood sweetheart, Julia, charged in like a storm of her own—spitting venom.
“Nicole, you’re the worst kind of woman!”
“Have you forgotten that car accident? The one where the doctors said you might never wake up? It was Jason who stayed by your side day and night, taking care of you nonstop!”
“And now you want a divorce? You really have no conscience at all!”
She knew the public saw me as fiercely loyal, someone who stood by her husband through anything.
Seeing my silence, she must’ve thought I was softening, maybe even ashamed.
But I looked at her with the same cold indifference.
“If he had gotten into a car crash and ended up a vegetable,” I said plainly, “I would’ve taken care of him, too.”
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t divorce him.”
Three days later, Jason finally signed the divorce agreement—in a rage.
But he had one final condition: I was to leave the house empty-handed.
I scoffed.
“Why should I be the one to leave with nothing?”
“You’re the one at fault here. If anyone should walk out with nothing, it’s you.”
My mother-in-law’s chest rose and fell violently. She rolled up her sleeves and stormed toward me, finger jabbing at my face.
“You shameless woman! You dare to say that out loud?”
“My son was just painting—what did he do wrong? You greedy little thing! You planned this all along, didn’t you? Have his child, take his property, and now you want to kick him out?”
“I’m going to sue you for marriage fraud!”
Her voice was shrill with rage, like nails scraping glass.
My father-in-law wasn’t far behind.
“You ungrateful wretch! Have you forgotten who gave you everything you have today?”
“Back then, you were just a poor girl with absolutely nothing. My family took you in, fed you, clothed you, raised you!”
“And now you dare spit in our faces—eating from our bowl while cursing us behind our backs. You’ve turned on us the moment you got comfortable!”
“Now that you’re living well, you go looking for a lover, throwing out my son like trash. And now you want to take the house too?”
He turned toward the door and shouted at no one in particular:
“I want the media to see this—let the whole world see if something this disgraceful has ever happened before!”
