After I hung up with Jack, I started packing.
The more I packed, the more I realized how stupid I'd been.
How had I not seen it until now?
For over a decade, Theodore had loved giving me gifts.
He never forgot a holiday.
He never forgot an anniversary.
He even planned surprises for the anniversary of the first time we held hands.
But when did it start to change?
He started forgetting anniversaries. Forgetting to buy me gifts. Forgetting things I'd told him.
On my birthday, he rushed home just long enough to eat a slice of cake with me before Hilda called and he left.
Back then, I always made excuses for him.
He was busy. He was just repaying a debt of gratitude.
Looking back now, my obliviousness was almost laughable.
Theodore didn't come home for an entire week.
It was one of his lab colleagues who let it slip by accident. That whole time, he'd been traveling with Hilda. A vacation to help her relax.
As if to compensate me, Theodore had his assistant deliver a pile of expensive gifts to the house.
He sent me a string of gentle voice messages, apologizing, coaxing me the same way he used to whenever he'd made me angry.
But I knew it wasn't the same anymore.
Listening to those messages, the only thing I could think was whether Hilda had been right next to him when he recorded them.
I still couldn't stop myself from opening Hilda's Instagram.
Sure enough, she'd posted dozens of updates.
Watching the Northern Lights in Iceland. Nuzzling a baby elephant in Chiang Mai. Posing in a white dress on a beach. And in every single photo, there was Theodore.
The man who was always composed, always restrained, who thought even smiling too much in front of students was beneath his dignity.
There he was, standing beside Hilda with an indulgent grin, making silly faces with her.
I stared at those photos until a sharp sting in my palm made me look down. I'd dug my nails in so hard I'd drawn blood.
Even when Theodore loved me the most, he had never been that way with me.
He always said he was a professor. He had to be dignified. Composed. Mindful of how students and the public perceived him.
When we used to travel together, I'd playfully beg him to take those goofy couple photos with me.
He'd just ruffle my hair with a helpless smile.
“Summer, I'm a professor. What would my students think if they saw?”
I was disappointed every time, but I told myself that was just who Theodore was. That was his nature.
Now I understood. It wasn't that he wouldn't. I just wasn't worth it.
For Hilda, every one of his principles, every shred of his dignity, could be tossed aside without a second thought.
I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and closed Instagram.
I didn't reply to any of Theodore's messages, which clearly caught him off guard.
He hesitated over whether to call me, but then Hilda walked over in a sheer negligee and straddled his lap, and he forgot all about it.
On the anniversary of his grandmother's death, Theodore still didn't come home.
I was kneeling in the memorial hall, burning paper offerings, when a sugary voice rang out from the doorway.
“Why is everyone so serious?”
The voice cut through the silence like a slap.
I jerked my head up. When I saw who it was, I stopped breathing.
Hilda stood there in a bright red dress, a husky on a leash in one hand, an innocent smile plastered across her face.
Every guest in the room went rigid.
Hilda just tilted her head and smiled：
“Professor Delgado said there was something important at home today, so I went out and got a special gift.”
“Isn't this puppy adorable?”
The rage I'd been choking down for months finally detonated.
“Get out! Who the hell let you in here?!”
Hilda flinched as though I'd struck her, and her eyes instantly reddened.
“Mrs. Delgado, did I do something wrong……”
As she spoke, the leash slipped from her fingers.
The husky lunged straight at me.
I stumbled backward, but the dog still slammed into me.
Shaking with fury, I reached out to shove it off.
But in the next second, Hilda threw herself over the husky, wailing：
“Don't hurt it!”
“It's just a baby, it didn't mean to!”
I couldn't pull back in time, and my full weight crashed into her.
Hilda let out a shriek and fell hard onto the floor.
The next instant, a vicious slap cracked across my face.
The sound of it echoed through the room. My head snapped to the side, my ears ringing, the taste of blood flooding my throat.
I looked up in shock and saw Theodore, who had rushed back just in time.
He was shielding Hilda, looking at me like I was something unhinged.
“Summer, have you lost your mind?!”
“I just brought her here to lift Grandma's spirits. I even had a Taoist priest check her birth chart. It's auspicious. It's good for the elders!”
“Why do you always have to go after her?”
“And now you're trying to hurt an innocent dog?!”
“When did you become so vicious?”
His words shattered something inside me. Every ounce of grief and fury I'd held back came crashing down at once.
My eyes burned red and my voice tore out of me, raw and hoarse：
“I'm the vicious one? Theodore, what about you?!”
“You knew today was the anniversary of Grandma's death, and you brought your mistress here in a red dress with a dog to desecrate her memorial!”
“Theodore, who's the vicious one here?!”
The color drained from Theodore's face.
He clearly hadn't expected me to rip the pretense apart in front of everyone.
In the end, he just set his jaw and spat out：
“Unbelievable.”
“Summer, you don't sound like a professor's wife right now. You sound like a shrew.”
All the fire raging inside me went out as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.
Thirteen years together, and this was what I got in the end. Shrew.
What was I still expecting from Theodore? He hadn't been the man who loved me in a long, long time.
In twelve days I would leave him. What was the point of fighting?
I drew a deep breath, forced back the tears, and turned away from Theodore. I apologized to each of the guests and walked them to the door.
Being ignored rattled something in Theodore. Instinctively, he reached for my hand.
A flash of venom crossed Hilda's eyes before she dissolved into tears：
“Professor, what about the puppy? I bought it especially for Mrs. Delgado. Is it going to end up abandoned and unwanted, just like me?”
Theodore's heart ached at the sight of her. He pulled her close and murmured：
“Don't worry. She talks tough but she's soft underneath. She'll love your gift.”
“And you're not some unwanted orphan. You have me.”
I twisted my lips into something that wasn't quite a smile and walked upstairs without looking back.
Theodore started to follow, then glanced at Hilda and stayed where he was.
That night, a noise in my room jolted me awake. My eyes flew open and my stomach dropped.
Hilda's husky was inside my room.
In the corner, the suitcase I'd packed earlier had been torn apart.
My heart plummeted. I threw myself across the room.
When I saw what was inside, I couldn't breathe.
Five years of design drafts, every single one, ripped to shreds.
I sank to my knees and picked up a scrap with trembling hands.
It was a gown design I'd finished last year, one that had taken me three sleepless nights to complete.
Now only half the page remained.
My vision went black at the edges. The pain in my chest was so sharp I couldn't draw air.
After I married Theodore, his position as a professor came with expectations. He didn't want his wife in the public eye.
So I gave up the studio I'd already secured, and I willingly stayed home. I became the gentle, devoted Mrs. Delgado that everyone praised.
But all those years, I never let go of my dream.
I'd been drawing in secret.
My plan was simple: once the baby was born, I'd enter the International Interior Design Competition two years later.
Now everything was destroyed.
I clutched those torn scraps so hard my knuckles went white, tears streaming down my face, my whole body on the verge of collapse.
I was about to storm out and confront Theodore when the lock clicked shut from the other side.
His voice came through the door.
“That dog is a gift from Hilda. She spent every cent she earned from her part-time jobs to buy it for you. She's bending over backward to get on your good side. Would it kill you to be nice to her?”
“Stay in there with it. Bond with it. Don't disappoint me.”
Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.
I threw myself at the door, pounding on it.
“Theodore! Let me out!”
Silence. Nothing but silence on the other side.
I stood frozen, listening to the heavy panting of the large dog somewhere behind me, and fear clawed up my spine.
Theodore knew. He knew I'd been bitten by a big dog as a child. He knew I was terrified of them.
Years ago, when he took me to visit his grandmother in the countryside, he saw me freeze at the sight of a farm dog and actually yelled at it until it backed off, not caring how ridiculous he looked.
Now, for Hilda, he had locked me in a room with one.
