As the plane lifted into the night sky, I stared out at the city lights below.
I had once believed that city would become my home.
Instead, it left me with nothing but scars.
At the gala that night, Bert nearly dropped his glass when he saw my breakup message.
He texted back at once.
Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been together five years. You think you can just end it like that?
The message failed to send.
The screen showed that he had been blocked.
In all the years we had been together, no matter how badly we fought, I had never once blocked him.
That was when he finally panicked.
He left the banquet under the excuse of going to the restroom and ran all the way to the rooftop, calling me again and again, only to hear the same automated message every time.
The number you’re trying to reach is unavailable.
After the gala ended, he didn’t go home with Sylvia.
He drove straight to the apartment where I had been staying and pounded on the door until the landlord finally opened it.
“Stop knocking,” she snapped. “That girl left this afternoon.”
He stood there like a man who had forgotten how to breathe.
Then downstairs, he found the bank card he had given me.
I had left it behind.
Untouched.
He raced home after that.
Sylvia was sitting on the couch drinking tea when he stormed inside. She took one look at his face and lifted an eyebrow.
“So,” she said, smiling faintly, “your little lover left. Heartbroken?”
The loving husband and wife they showed the world vanished in an instant.
Bert slammed the door and crossed the room in three steps, grabbing her by the throat.
“Did you force Shari to leave?” he hissed. “I warned you not to touch her.”
Sylvia clawed at his hand, her face reddening.
“Bert, don’t forget our arrangement.”
He let go.
She coughed, holding her neck, then said coldly, “She chose to leave. No one forced her. Do you think everyone is willing to live inside a lie the way you are? If she stayed here, your family would keep crushing her. I was helping her.”
He sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and smoked the rest of the night.
Years ago, he had secretly applied to the military academy because he wanted to escape his family’s control and make a name for himself on his own.
But without family support, the climb had been brutal.
When his father fell seriously ill, Bert had finally bowed to pressure and accepted the arranged marriage with Sylvia’s family so he could secure his footing in the district and rise to major general.
It wasn’t that he had never thought about telling me.
Once, during a video call, he had tested the waters.
“Shari,” he had asked carefully, “what if one day I had no choice but to accept a marriage arranged by my family?”
I had answered without hesitation.
“Then we’d break up. I’d never become the person who destroys someone else’s marriage.”
After that, he had never dared mention it again.
He simply kept lying.
Whenever military life wore him down, whenever his family suffocated him, the person he longed for was always me.
As far as he was concerned, wherever Shari Lane was, that was home.
He loved me.
He just loved power and convenience more.
He had fought his family more than once and failed every time. In the end, he chose compromise and kept playing the part of Sylvia’s devoted husband.
Sylvia had known about me all along and chosen to ignore it. As long as Bert fulfilled the terms of their marriage alliance, she didn’t care who lived in his heart.
What he had never expected was that I would leave so cleanly.
No waiting.
No bargaining.
No room left for him to pull me back.
And for the first time, the hollow pain in his chest became something he could no longer pretend not to feel.