Chapter 2

"Are you done?"

Olivia glanced at me, as unbothered as she always was whenever we fought. Then, she walked past me and dropped onto the couch like it was her rightful place.

"If you are, clean this place up. We're having a party."

A sharp, broken laugh escaped me.

"What the hell is so funny? You're just a social climber. What gives you the right to laugh?"

But I continued laughing so hard that tears stung my eyes.

Olivia's patience was wearing thin as she frowned and repeated, "Tristan, I said I'm hosting a party here."

To her, Mom and I could never measure up to Brad. Mom had a heart attack, and she had dismissed it as theatrics.

The first time Olivia was supposed to meet Mom, she claimed she was too busy with work. Later, I found out she was at the airport picking up Brad.

Her actions almost felt like she was cutting me over and over, stabbing a knife into my heart and twisting it until it bled.

The day we were supposed to register for marriage, Brad called and said he was being forced to drink by a business partner. But in truth, he and his friends were playing a game of Truth or Dare. They wanted to see if Olivia would leave me for him.

Mom had held her hand, begging her to leave after our marriage registration. "Olivia, my son truly loves you. I have always seen you as my daughter-in-law…"

I had reached for her too. "I need you, Olivia."

But she had resolutely shoved Mom away. "You'll be fine, Tristan, but Brad can't make it without me."

Her engines roared as she drove off. The next thing I knew, she was on his lap, blushing and flirting, while Mom died in my arms.

Now, I looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. "So what then? Are you planning to throw a party in front of my mom's funeral portrait?"

The room froze for a moment before Brad let out an abrupt, unexpected snicker. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."

He had a way of sounding sincere even when he wasn't. "Tristan, I know you've got the wrong idea about me and Olivia, but isn't it too much to curse your mom like that?"

Then, ever so casually, he explained, "We were just playing a game of Truth or Dare that night. If I had known you and Olivia were getting married at the city hall, I wouldn't have called her over."

Olivia's group of friends had formed a common alliance to side with Brad.

Right now, no one believed me, just like how Olivia hadn't believed Mom's heart was failing either. And if Brad hadn't called Olivia away, Mom wouldn't have gotten so agitated, which triggered a heart attack.

Noticing my clenched fists and bloodshot eyes, Brad edged back in fear while Olivia stepped in front of him protectively.

"Are you done? Your mom has always been perfectly healthy, so don't you think you're going too far to use her as some excuse to guilt-trip me?"

Throughout all this time, she had never once asked what happened to Mom afterward or shown concern.

Mom's last wish was for me to be happy with Olivia, but the latter was here, throwing cold and accusing remarks.

"My patience is limited, Tristan." Olivia expected me to apologize and soothe her temper like always, but she was wrong.

I grew up alone with Mom after Dad died in an accident when I was three. It had been more than 20 years with just the two of us.

For Olivia, I neglected Mom's failing health and poured every ounce of myself into Olivia, who ultimately trampled on my heart till it was battered and blue.

"Enough? Get out, all of you." I could feel my heart go cold as I pushed past the crowd and reached for the framed funeral portrait and urn.

Olivia grabbed my wrist. There was a flicker of disappointment in her eyes as her voice softened in helplessness and compromise. "Please don't do this, Tristan. You used to be different."

I guessed it was true when they said one would always yearn for what one couldn't have.

There was a time I loved Olivia desperately, but she had barely glanced my way. And now that my heart had turned cold, she was trying to inch closer. How the tables had turned.

I pried her fingers away and took a step back. "Then tell me, what was I like? Your lapdog? Shameless boy toy? A social climber?"

After a pause, I added, "Or a… loser?"

All color drained from her face. "Tristan…"

Those were the names her so-called friends showered on me. Just because I stood by her side, I was labelled as her boy toy.

Olivia was a spoiled heiress. On the day we got together, she decided she wanted a cake from that famous pastry shop, The Cake Cottage.

Every outlet I reached out to was closed, but I didn't want to disappoint her. So, I took the train, then a bike, and braced myself to walk miles across streets lined with sycamore trees. All that effort was to get her the cake she wanted, though I was severely allergic to sycamore pollen.

My face was flushed and swollen by the time I made it back and carefully handed her the cake.

She had nestled into my arms, held me tight, and kissed me sweetly. "Tristan, you're the only one who's ever treated me so well."

And I had believed she was genuinely moved, so from then on, I willingly gave her every last piece of myself.

No matter how her friends mocked me, I didn't care. I naively assumed that as long as I stayed by Olivia's side, we'd be happy.

When she met Mom, the latter adored her and sent soup that had been simmering for hours to her office, for fear that she'd be too busy to eat at work. She had always reminded me to take care of Olivia and keep her happy and healthy.

She never knew that Olivia didn't have a single sip of the soup. I had watched from around the corner as she poured every drop of the soup Mom had painstakingly made down the drain and coldly told her secretary, "Just do the same next time."

Mom would say, "Olivia is a young heiress with refined tastes. I won't send her more soup, then. I've saved up some money over the years, so take it and use it to bring her somewhere nice to eat. It's my treat."

That kind lady was the woman Olivia called a liar who faked an illness to trap her into marriage. The doctors said Mom would've survived if she had been brought in minutes earlier, but Olivia had stolen those precious minutes of survival.

Rage and grief crashed over me in waves, while her friends frowned and rolled their eyes at me in displeasure. "Watch your mouth, Tristan. Look at you. You should be grateful we even call you a boy toy—"

"Shut up!" Olivia snapped, and her friends exchanged glances in dismay.

I finally understood that she could have stopped them from humiliating me all along, and all those times they had openly mocked me were because she let them. Perhaps deep down, she had always looked down on me.