Her Last Goodbye

The sudden light made Leighton Chambers instinctively squeeze her eyes shut. The tear tracks on her face became painfully clear and glaring.

All at once, the scene struck me as absurd.

Back when we were younger, he'd thrown herself in front of a steel bar swung by a street thug to protect me, nearly crippling her right arm. She hadn't even raised an eyebrow back then.

Now, she was crying this hard just because she was parting ways with a boy barely in his twenties.

Her drunkenness gradually faded as she studied my expression.

A few seconds later, she collapsed onto the bed like a spring wound too tight for too long, suddenly losing all its tension.

"You could've made a scene the way you did before. You could've slapped me and forbade me from going.

"Do you really need to pretend you don't care just to make me feel guilty? That's pretty pathetic, Logan Chambers."

Her expression was strained with repressed pain. Ever since Leighton returned to our family, moments like this had become increasingly common.

Anyone on the outside would've marveled at how we'd grown even closer after surviving the seven-year itch.

People joked that Professor Chambers—of all people—acted like a lovestruck teenager, rushing home the moment she finished work, unable to bear being apart from me for even a second.

I was on her social media profile picture, and my image was plastered across her messaging app background. She voluntarily handed over her phone and let me check it whenever I wanted.

She looked every bit like the perfect wife.

However, only the two of us knew what was hidden beneath that calm surface.

Ever since that incident, I became sensitive and fragile. The words that came out of my mouth grew sharper and crueler.

If Leighton said a tie looked nice and made me look younger, I'd snap at her, "Is it because you’ve got someone younger and fresher on your mind that you think I’m too old?!"

She took the initiative to take me on a date to some trendy restaurant. Everything was going perfectly fine, then she casually remarked, "Their signature dish is pretty good."

I exploded, demanding to know why she would bring me to a place she’d already been to with another man!

But the truth was… I hadn't always been like this.