Looking at Tobias's stubborn yet brave expression, I suddenly remembered the rainy night when I brought him home.
Ever since I saved him from that alley, the same gangsters kept targeting me. For a long period, I didn’t dare walk down that road again. Only after reporting it to the police was the whole matter finally resolved.
I never regretted saving Tobias. But on that night, I hated myself for being so kind. Why did I give another man a chance to get close to my wife?
Ten years. Those were my ten years.
I refused to accept the truth. I let myself fall apart, hair messy and clothes dirty and I kept asking them like a madman when their relationship started.
Thinking back now, I was really foolish. Everything had already happened—what was the point of asking? But at that time, I was full of anger, full of the rage of being betrayed.
After putting on her clothes, Patricia said confidently, as if she was comforting me. “Rob, stop causing trouble. Tobias needs to focus on his studies. He won’t fight you for anything and he doesn’t want a title. Mr. Angelo will still be you.”
She then added, “From now on, you don’t need to sponsor Tobias anymore. I’ll take care of his sponsorship.”
Tobias never came to the house again. But the places where they had dates only increased. Cafés, restaurants, libraries, even hotels…
I began watching them like a madman. Patricia never worked on Saturdays, but ever since she got close to Tobias, she went to the university every Saturday.
I followed them by taxi like a stalker. At the bottom of the teaching building, I saw them kissing passionately.
They couldn’t control themselves and got into the car. It was the same car I bought for Patricia as her birthday gift. Soon, the car began to shake in a steady rhythm.
That time, I rushed up and smashed the car. I embarrassed them both completely. Yet, Patricia was determined to protect him. She treated me like a lunatic and had the security guards throw me out.
After that, for a long time, I acted like some shameful human being. I held banners and caused a scene at the university where Patricia worked. I even went to Tobias’s class.
I wished the whole world would know he was a home-wrecker. He was the poor student I sponsored, the one I treated like a younger brother. I had been so good to him and now I hated him just as much.
There were so many women in the world—why did he choose to covet my wife? I wanted to tell everyone that he was an ungrateful traitor. And Patricia was the worst liar in the world.
My relationship with Patricia became more and more ugly and broken. She was afraid things would get too big, afraid I would damage Tobias’s reputation and studies, so she hired bodyguards to keep me locked up.
I even hurt myself many times. That feeling of being abandoned by the whole world made me suffer silently with no one to talk to. I desperately needed some way to let out my pain.
In the past, whenever I got even a small injury, Patricia would wrinkle her eyebrows with worry. But she became more and more impatient.
Even when she saw long wounds across my body, she only shouted at me with disgust, “Enough! If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Why are you using self-harm to get sympathy?”
“Robert, I never thought about divorcing you. As long as you kept turning a blind eye like before, I could let you stay and be Mr. Angelo for the rest of your life.”
“But now I don't think you can handle that anymore.”
Later on, I took sleeping pills and was sent to the hospital, but I didn’t die.
After waking up, I finally thought things through and I signed the divorce agreement.
