It felt as if time had rewound, back to when she was just a little girl—those golden days when it was only her, Mom and Dad, a perfect family of three.
Every evening, Dad would come home from work with bags full of her favorite foods and sometimes, if she was lucky, he'd bring her a new doll. Mom would always complain, “You’re just spoiling her!” even as she helped unpack the gifts, her eyes sparkling with joy.
“Should we hang this pink one above Evelyn’s bed? She loves pink!” Mom would ask with a grin, holding up the latest doll.
And like magic, Dad would always pull out one more surprise—this time for Mom. Sometimes it was a single flower, sometimes a delicate necklace. Mom would blush and laugh, eventually throwing herself into his arms, her protests melting away.
To Evelyn, her parents’ love had always seemed unshakable, indestructible—like a fortress no one could breach. Even when she misbehaved and Mom got angry, it never truly disrupted the harmony between them.
But then, the cracks started to show.
At first, Dad began coming home later and later. Mom grew more irritable, her temper flaring over the smallest things. The laughter that used to fill their home became less frequent. And eventually, the gifts stopped coming—no more dolls for Evelyn, no more flowers or necklaces for Mom.
Late at night, Evelyn would hear Mom’s voice rise into a storm, hysterically confronting Dad, “Who is she? Who is that woman?!”
It wasn’t until much later that Evelyn pieced it together. The family she’d once thought unbreakable had started to fall apart long ago. The tiny cracks had grown into a chasm too wide to bridge.
Eventually, her parents divorced. Evelyn stayed with her mom, while Dad remarried a woman she didn’t recognize. The day they met, the new “auntie” greeted her with a syrupy smile.
“Evelyn, I’m your mom now too. Call me ‘Mom,’ and I’ll give you a red packet! How about that?”
“Or I’ll buy you new clothes!” she added sweetly.
Evelyn clenched her fists. She stayed silent at first, then shouted, her voice trembling with rage, “I won’t call you that! You’re the mistress! You stole my dad!”
The woman’s smile froze and her father’s hand came down hard on Evelyn’s face.
“How dare you speak like that?! Is this what your mother has been teaching you?!”
The woman stepped in, her tone soft but tinged with defeat. “Don’t hit her. She’s just going through a rebellious phase—it’s normal that she doesn’t like me.”
Her father sighed, resting a hand on the woman’s stomach. “I hope our future child won’t grow up to be like this.”
That was the moment Evelyn realized—her father no longer had room for her in his heart. He had a new family now. She ran out crying, wiping her face as she went and from that day on, he barely reached out to her.
It took nearly a decade for Evelyn to come to terms with it. People leave. Parents, lovers—it doesn’t matter. In the end, everyone leaves.
By the time she graduated college and her mother announced she was remarrying, Evelyn accepted it without protest. She’d already learned to expect abandonment.
But then came Christopher.
Despite all her scars, she gave him everything—her trust, her heart, her love—without hesitation. And just when she thought she’d finally found someone to hold onto, she discovered the truth.
There was someone else.
For the sake of that other woman, Christopher belittled her, punished her and humiliated her. Even when Evelyn spiraled into depression, even after she attempted to end her life multiple times, he barely noticed.
No one in this world had ever truly cherished her—not her father, not her mother, not Christopher.
Love always has an expiration date. Once it’s over, it’s gone forever.
Evelyn had once fought against that truth, but now she’d experienced it so often that she’d grown numb.
When she finally opened her eyes, two days had passed. An IV drip was attached to her hand and a fever-reducing patch rested on her forehead.
The first thing she saw was Christopher’s hand reaching out, his palm hovering above her forehead as if to check her temperature.
