There was one thing Ethan still didn’t know.
He never knew why I had broken up with him in the first place.
When he came back successful and said he was going to marry me, I had planned to explain everything.
I had planned it over and over again in my head.
I wanted to tell him that all those cruel words I’d said during the breakup had been lies.
That he was wonderful.
That he deserved the best girl in the world.
That one day he would have a happy family, healthy children, a life untouched by poverty and illness.
I repeated those lines to myself in the dark so many times that I could have spoken them in my sleep.
I wanted to smile and say, Ethan, live well.
What no one knew was how many nights I cried afterward.
How many times I thought:
What a shame.
The girl who gets to stay by his side for life won’t be me.
On the day I finally felt ready to tell him the truth, I called him.
He was at a club talking business.
He sounded drunk.
After the call ended, I felt uneasy, so I went to find him.
But when I got there and looked through the glass of one private room, all I saw was Ethan holding a woman in his arms and kissing her like he couldn’t get enough.
I pushed the door open.
He turned to look at me.
Not a trace of panic.
I bit back my tears and asked, “Ethan, are you playing me?”
He shoved the woman aside and walked over, alcohol heavy on his breath.
He backed me against the wall and wiped away a tear from my face with his thumb.
“I was going to,” he said lazily. “I was planning to play you. But then I went to your apartment and saw how pitifully you were living. I got soft-hearted.”
He smiled.
“Ava, how about I really do marry you?”
I stared at him, unable to speak.
Then he added lightly, “I just don’t love you anymore. So if you marry me, behave yourself. Don’t cry, don’t throw tantrums. I’ll have plenty of women. If you get jealous all the time, I’ll get annoyed.”
The second I heard him say he didn’t love me anymore, my eyes filled.
Still, I forced myself to stay calm.
“Ethan, I came here to tell you I don’t plan to marry you. Back then when I broke up with you, it was because my mom—”
He grabbed my chin so hard it hurt.
“Don’t you dare bring up your mother.”
His eyes were cold.
“Don’t shove all the blame onto her. You and your mother were both the same. Greedy. Money-hungry. Neither of you was any better than the other.”
My whole body went still.
Drunk and cruel, he leaned closer.
“I’m not asking, Ava. I’m telling you. I said I’m marrying you, so be grateful and accept it. I don’t want your explanation.”
He smiled with a kind of vicious calm that chilled me.
“You made me miserable once. So now I’m going to make you even more miserable. That’s fair.”
I stared at his face and suddenly it looked unfamiliar.
Maybe all those years, the love my mother and I had given him had only existed in our own imagination.
Maybe I should have clung to him back then.
Maybe I should have dragged him into my illness and poverty and let both of us rot together.
Maybe kindness had just been stupidity.
Then he said something even worse.
“I heard Lily used to work at clubs pouring drinks and entertaining guests, right? Pretty lucky she still found a decent boyfriend. Tell me… if her boyfriend found out, would he still want her?”
I slapped him.
Hard.
My hand stung.
“You’re disgusting.”
He touched the side of his face with his tongue, then smiled.
“For revenge, I can do much worse than this.”
And I believed him.
Ethan had always been ruthless.
I didn’t dare gamble with Lily’s life.
She had fought too hard for her happiness.
So in the end, I gave up.
I told myself my life was already ruined anyway.
Marry him, then.
Just marry him.
His revenge lasted a very long time.
Long enough that one day he seemed to grow tired of it and wanted to reconcile.
But by then, I no longer loved him.
Not anymore.
Lily figured out something was wrong faster than anyone else.
Even though I tried to hide it, I couldn’t hide everything forever.
At one point my face had swollen from crying so badly that she took one look at me and nearly lost her mind.
For two days straight, no matter what I did, she scolded me for it.
I ended up crying under the blanket.
“You’re unbelievable,” I complained. “You only know how to bully me. If you’re so capable, take me to my mom. I guarantee you wouldn’t dare talk to her like this.”
Lily went quiet.
A while later, she sat beside me and gently stroked my hair.
“When your body gets a little stronger,” she said softly, “I’ll take you to see your mom. Okay?”
I knew she was lying.
I knew I wasn’t getting better.
But I didn’t want her to worry more than she already did.
So I smiled and said, “Okay.”
After that, I worked harder at recovery.
I swallowed piles of medicine.
Took injection after injection until both arms were bruised purple.
I stopped crying about pain.
I stopped complaining.
Ethan watched all of it from the side with clenched teeth and red eyes.
One night I heard him arguing with Lily outside the room.
“Ava wants to see her mother. Can’t you hear that? What happens if you take her once?”
Lily exploded.
“I think you’re the one hoping she dies sooner, you bastard! Worried she’s living too long and getting in the way of your little mistress taking over?”
I pressed my face into the pillow and silently wiped away my tears.
Living had turned me into a burden.
And Lily had to suffer because of it.
After that, I stopped asking to go to the cemetery.
But my spirit slowly dimmed.
I slept more and more.
The hours I stayed awake kept growing shorter.
I thought maybe it was finally time to say goodbye properly.