Afterward, I began to hate myself.
Once I had tearfully arranged my mother’s funeral, I spent what should have been my honeymoon alone in the south for a month.
During that period, the only person I didn’t resent was Evren.
He was like a pearl buried in dust, a pitiful yet helpless child of fate.
Before leaving, I asked Leah to look after him for me.
She took excellent care of him. In the new home where we were meant to start our married life, she moved quickly and skillfully in the kitchen, making five dishes and a soup, all looking beautiful.
I sincerely thanked her.
That year, the connection between the three of us became closer than ever.
Evren treated me with growing affection.
With the first earnings from his company, he bought me the gemstone bracelet I had once admired.
For my birthday, he lit fireworks across the entire city to celebrate.
Each month during my period, he would cancel all his face-to-face meetings and stay home just to keep me company.
I had never questioned it.
He loved me down to his bones.
Until one day, by coincidence, I went to his office alone.
Through a half-closed, hidden door came faint, breathless sounds.
I pushed the door open.
Two bare bodies, pale as snow, cut into my sight like blades.
A scream tore out of me before I could stop it.
He reacted fast, moving to shield the woman under him.
“Who allowed you in?!”
“Get out!”
I lost control, throwing everything I could grab at them.
Blood ran from Evren’s temple, yet he still thought to cover the woman in his arms.
I wrecked everything around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to go closer.
They were the two people I had loved more than anyone.
The fear dug into my bones, and my teeth rattled as I tried to stay composed.
“Leah, look at me.”
Her face was swollen and red from crying. Wrapped in a blanket, she knelt before me.
“Paisley, I’m sorry.”
“What happened between Evren and me was wrong, but we’ve fallen helplessly in love.”
“I’m begging you, please let us be together, all right?”
The way she knelt there, pitiful and begging, looked exactly like that first year we met, when a group of delinquent girls had cornered her in an alley.
That year, to protect her, I, once the perfect student, completely offended that group, and for a long time afterward, I didn’t dare take shortcuts home.
At my wedding, I had personally handed her the bouquet, wishing her to find her own happiness someday.
And now, she lay in my husband’s arms, asking me to give her my blessing.
Tears ran down my face, and my voice came out barely above a whisper.
“When did it begin?”
Her shaking lips couldn’t make a sound, but another voice answered for her.
“Does that even matter? Haven’t you made enough of a scene? This is a company, not your home.”
“It doesn’t matter?! Evren, how can this not matter?!”
I screamed hysterically at him.
He stood completely bare, but his eyes stayed calm.
“Fine! I’ll tell you!”
“Last March, when you left me and went to the south alone, that’s when it began.”
“I never meant to hide it from you, but you had just lost your mother. I didn’t want to hurt you again, so I went along with your moods and kept the marriage going.”
“Leah has suffered enough. I couldn’t stand seeing her live in fear because of me. I planned to wait until after your mother’s death anniversary to ask for a divorce.”
“Now that you know, we might as well lay everything out.”
“Let’s divorce. You can take whatever you want. I only want Leah.”
It was only at that moment that I truly understood.
That slap I had given my mother back then, when I stood on Evren’s side, just how heavy it had been.
Before divorcing Evren, I still made a complete scene.
