Right now, with Mom about to have surgery, I wasn’t asking for much, just for Emily to stay at the hospital with me so I could feel at ease.
Yet something that simple turned into a heavy disappointment.
“Since you’ve said it like that, then go ahead. I hope you two have fun.”
As soon as I spoke, Grant put on that fake innocent look again. “Emily, maybe we should drop it. If I make you two argue because of me, I’d feel really bad.”
After saying that, he started walking toward the door. “Who told you to leave!”
Emily grabbed his arm and glared at me with clear annoyance. “What do you want now? It’s just a surgery.”
“Why are you being so irritable and sarcastic? Who are you trying to impress?”
“I already promised Grant. Do you want me to break my word?”
“Do you even know how hard Grant’s life has been all these years? Now he just wants me to spend his birthday with him, to make him feel a little better. Can’t you let him have that?”
My throat tightened, and my eyes felt dry. I looked at Emily as if she were a stranger, unable to understand how the woman who once cared only for me could change so completely, all because of Grant.
Her arms were crossed, brows drawn together, her eyes cold and distant. At that moment, she looked unbearable to me.
“Hmm, you should think about what you’ve done.”
Emily took Grant’s hand and started toward the door. Before leaving, she stopped and, without looking back, said coldly.
“If you still want this marriage to last, you’d better learn to control your temper. If you can’t, then learn from Grant.”
“You’re already in your thirties, yet you can’t even compare to a boy in his twenties. You make me lose face.”
Her words hit me hard, leaving me frozen as I watched Emily and Grant walk away.
A warm wetness slid down my face. I touched it, then brought my fingers to my lips; it was bitter and salty.
I let out a small, bitter laugh. Because of Emily, I had cried more times than I could count. From the day we met until our marriage, I had given her everything.
For her birthday, she said she wanted to see fireworks, so I bought every firework in the city and lit up the whole night sky just for her.
She said she wanted a job where she could earn money without working, so I used every connection I had and drank until I threw up blood, all to get her one.
She said her parents had worked hard raising her, so I gave them a branch company to manage, and to keep it running well, I even sacrificed the main company’s profit.
Everything I could do, and even what I shouldn’t have done, I did for her.
I thought I could completely win her heart. But everything changed the moment she started sponsoring Grant.
There were no boundaries between them. They could share the same utensils while eating, lie on the same bed, and sometimes I even found Grant’s underwear on our bed.
Her reason?
“Grant studies so hard. I just let him take off his clothes, and I wash them for him at night.”
Was it really just washing clothes?
I didn’t dare think about it. I lied to myself, forcing myself to believe that Emily wasn’t that kind of person.
I kept lying again and again, my heart already too fragile to bear more. But today, it finally broke completely, and I couldn’t fool myself anymore.
Once, every look, every smile from Emily could touch my heart. When she was happy, I felt her joy, and when she was sad, I cried with her.
Today, I cried because of her again, but this time, it would be the last.
Emily, I didn’t love you anymore.
Lauren Sanders, my secretary, arrived just in time to pay for the surgery. The light above the operating room turned on.
