Chapter 2

Harold gently cut in, playing the understanding one, "Forget it, Cece. Don't blame Wes. This is my fault. I shouldn't have asked you to pick me up."

Cecelia immediately shot back, "Don't talk about yourself like that. If anyone's at fault here, it's Wesley. He's the one making a scene over nothing and using you as an excuse.

"Don't worry. Picking you up was the most important thing I had to do today. It doesn't matter how much of a fuss he makes."

A sharp pain pierced my chest. I took a slow breath but couldn't stop the bitterness from seeping into my voice. "Right. Of course, your husband's surgery couldn't possibly be more important than picking up your best friend."

Cecelia fell silent for a moment before her voice wavered. "Your surgery is today?"

It was almost laughable. When I'd first gone in for tests because I wasn't feeling well, Cecelia had rushed around to take care of everything. She had repeatedly assured me that she had memorized the date of my surgery.

Yet when the day finally arrived, she had forgotten all about it.

I nearly laughed in disbelief, but Harold spoke before I could. "Wes, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I didn't know your surgery was today. Please don't do what you did before..."

He left the sentence unfinished, but he didn't need to say another word. The implication was clear.

Whatever guilt Cecelia had begun to feel vanished instantly. Her voice turned cold. "Wesley gave you a hard time before?"

"Cece, please don't ask." Harold's voice was thick with pain.

Cecelia rounded on me furiously. "Wesley, I never thought you were this kind of person! Surgery? Mr. Snyder is so important that I'm sure he can handle it just fine on his own!"

With that, she hung up on me.

She didn't come home that night.

The next time I saw her was in my hospital room. The first words out of her mouth were, "Go apologize to Harry later. Because of the scene you made last night, he couldn't sleep at all."

For once, my expression hardened. "No."

By then, I had already been forced to apologize more times than I could count, all because Harold had repeatedly set me up to look bad over matters both big and small.

Cecelia's blatant favoritism toward him and her refusal to trust me had worn me down until I had nothing left to give.

For the first time, I refused.

Furious, she swept the fruit off my bedside table. "If you won't apologize, I'm done with you for the rest of my life!"

With that, she stormed out and didn't return for half a month.

The only way I could keep track of her whereabouts was through Harold's posts.

She flew to Pralex with him, where they embraced beneath the Leffier Tower. They fed pigeons in Bravalea, surfed in the Karbilla Islands, and walked hand in hand through a snowstorm in Vilkina.

In the last video, a stranger asked them, "Are you two married? You seem so happy together."

Cecelia didn't deny it. She simply smiled and thanked the stranger.

I watched every moment, my nails digging into my palms. Yet as I stared at the screen, I suddenly realized that none of it mattered to me anymore.

…

This morning, Cecelia finally came home. She walked right past me as though I didn't exist and headed straight upstairs to her study.

She had told me that if I refused to apologize to Harold, she would be done with me for the rest of her life. And she had meant every word.

I stood outside her study, took a deep breath, and said, "I'll go apologize."

"What?" Cecelia sounded as though she couldn't believe her ears.

"I said I'll go apologize to Harold."

For the next seven days, I would play the role of an understanding husband. After that, I would finally leave and live the life that was rightfully mine.

…

I had assumed the apology would be a private matter between the three of us: Cecelia, Harold, and me.

I never expected Cecelia to turn it into a public spectacle at a banquet.

By the time I arrived, the ballroom was already packed with guests, most of them influential figures in the industry.