"How dare you hurt an innocent person like him!"
"Phillip! Come down with me and apologize!" She ordered me as she grasped my wrist tight.
Looking at the woman who used to have nothing but me in her heart, I no longer had feeling or hope for her and I slapped her on the face.
"You want me to apologize?" I looked at her bewildered face.
"Dream on!" I unbuckled her seatbelt, pointed to the car door and said, "Get out!"
I watched as she glared at me with an incomprehensible look, then threw out a sentence. "You'll regret this!"
A second after, she slammed the door and left.
Through the car window, I could still see her chasing after him, grab his hand tightly and see him struggle a few times before finally burying his face in Jocelyn's arms and crying uncontrollably. I felt like my heart was being torn apart, with countless stabs.
The pain was so intense that even my hands gripping the steering wheel trembled. When I drove past two people embracing in the cold wind, I clearly saw Alexander giving me a defiant look, silently declaring something to me: this battle -- he won.
Jocelyn and I were in a cold war and all her friends have come to mediate and advise me.
"Phillip, Jossy just feels sorry for that guy—she's not even in love. Don't overthink it," our mutual friends all said.
"It wasn't easy for you two back then. she was calling your name when she was drunk last time. She said seeing Alexander always reminds her of you from the past and she wants to make up for all the hardships you went through."
I listened to my friend talk about our past.
It reminded me of how we both started from scratch.
I remembered our childhood, fighting with vicious dogs for food together.
I remembered the day our parents went on a trip, they both died in that accident, leaving us orphans. Our older relatives seized all our property, turning us from orphans into homeless children.
It was Jocelyn who hugged me tightly and said, "Phillip, I will definitely give you a home."
Back then, home was a distant concept.
Amidst countless lights.
No lamp belonged to us and every brick and tile of the city was exorbitantly priced. Yet, Jocelyn had me living in the most upscale high-rise apartment in Hillsther. She filled the apartment with memories belonged to just the two of us. Even the corners and edges were covered with soft bump strips, as she feared I might bump into them.
She always said to me, "Phillip, in my heart, you'll always be a child."
"I want you ...."
"To be the happiest prince in the world."
"My little prince."
Now.
A friend told me, "Which woman can be pure? She has already done everything she could—she doesn’t gamble, engage in prostitution, or have an affair. She devotes herself wholeheartedly to you, Phillip, so stop causing trouble."
I understood.
She was Jocelyn's intermediary, a way for me to back down. If I went along with it, we could pretend nothing had happened, just like before when we had our arguments and move on.
But suddenly, I refused.
I was stubborn, so stubborn that when I saw Alexander's latest social media update—a picture of him with his child on a Ferris wheel, all smiles—with the caption:
[My son told me, "Even if she isn't my biological mom, as long as she loves me, we're family."]
In the corner of the photo.
I couldn't help but recognize a beautiful, fair hand.
I had touched and looked at those hands for almost thirty years. That ring—I designed it myself, Jocelyn had it custom-made—it was our wedding ring.
My heart was in so much pain, to almost numb, almost feeling like it had lost all feeling, when Alexander sent me a video.
