One Game Won, One Marriage Lost

To keep our marriage “fun,” every anniversary Ryan Hayes and I played a game of rock-paper-scissors. The loser had to grant the winner one wish.

It wasn’t until the tenth year that I finally beat him…

“Ryan, there’s a rare pair of lifetime-binding couple’s rings overseas. I want them.”

The moment he heard my request, his face darkened.

“Evelyn, those are just fakes. They can’t compare to our real love. Pick something else, okay?”

I let out a short laugh, lowered my head, slipped off the matching silver wedding band from my finger, and said I wanted a divorce.

He stared at me in disbelief, the warmth vanishing from his expression.

“Ten years… and you think our marriage is worth less than a couple of rings? All the conditions I ever asked for were to strengthen our relationship. Look at yours… completely unreasonable.”

“The first year, I asked you to wash my socks for a whole year.”

“The second year, I asked you to do the dishes.”

…

“The ninth year, I asked you to give me a child. Did you?”

I remained silent, but his anger kept rising.

“Say something! Every time you don’t get your way, you just play deaf and mute. I’ve put up with this for ten years—isn’t that enough?”

“Evelyn Lane, I really don’t get you. Always walking around with that deadpan face—who are you trying to scare? I even let you win this time, thinking you’d be happy, but instead you ruin my mood.”

“Tell me, what’s so great about that stupid ring? You barely even leave the house. If you wore it, people would just laugh and say it’s fake. What’s the point?”

In ten years of marriage, this was the first time Ryan ever raised his voice at me. In the past, whenever we disagreed, he was always the one to apologize first. He once said that only men who pamper their wives will prosper in life…

Maybe it was luck, maybe it was effort, but in just ten years, we had gone from ordinary working-class to wealthy and successful. Our house changed, our cars changed, our lifestyle changed… It seemed the only thing that hadn’t changed was our supposed “love.”

But the opened gift box on the table shattered that illusion.

“Ryan Hayes… we’ve been married for ten years. If you wanted to deceive me, did you really need to use a dress that your assistant already wore?”

“And those rings—was it that you didn’t want to buy them, or that you already gave them to someone else?”

Before I could finish, he subconsciously twisted the ring on his finger. Within seconds, he snatched up his phone and smashed it onto the floor, as if his last shred of cover had been ripped away.

With a loud crash, the phone lay shattered, lifeless on the ground.

“You’re insane! What nonsense are you spouting? The rings are just the silver bands we bought the year we married. And that dress—I paid a fortune to buy it for you! What does any of this have to do with Sophia?”

Yes… if I hadn’t seen Sophia Reed’s social media post last night, showing off that same rare pair of rings… I wouldn’t have realized my husband’s heart was big enough to hold two women.

I had no desire to argue further. Quietly, I walked to the drawer, pulled out the divorce papers, and handed them to him.

“Ten years of marriage. Signing this divorce is the last dignity we have left.”

Before I could blink, he sat down beside me, cut a piece of steak, and tried to feed it to me. I swatted his hand away.

The wineglass fell to the floor, shattering into countless shards—just like our already broken marriage.

He threw down his knife and fork and began yelling at me.