Chapter 2

The young Julian from five years ago lost his voice completely.

I put down my phone and sank into the couch wearily.

Emerging from the shower, Julian towel-dried his hair and glanced my way while brushing past.

“Who were you on the phone with?”

Met with my silence, Julian didn’t pursue the matter.

He approached and got down to my eye level.

“What’s the matter? Upset?”

He cupped my hands in his and smiled tenderly.

“After all these years, you still can’t get used to this?

“That won’t do. Don’t keep carrying all this sadness. If you get sick, it’ll break my heart.”

I quietly stared at him, not even having the strength to pull my arms away.

My phone buzzed with notifications from young Julian’s text messages.

“Madison, how did we get to that point?

“Things were great for us then. Did something happen? Just tell me…”

Truth be told, I had asked myself that very question countless times.

How did we end up here?

We had been in each other’s lives early on, and I was supposed to be the apple of his eye.

Julian couldn’t stand to see me hurt or upset.

On graduation day, I asked him with a smile, “If I stop being dependent on Julian, does that mean I’m finally an adult?”

Julian met my gaze and replied earnestly, “No, it just means Julian failed you.”

Four years ago, I cried in his arms until I passed out on the day my father passed away.

I told him, “I don’t have any family left, Julian.”

Julian shuffled my hair and teared up as his heart went out to me.

He kept assuring me that I still had him. From then on, he would be my forever rock.

Julian meant every word, and his broad arms held me tight.

I believed him.

Yet on the day we went to pay our respects at my father’s grave, he was in bed with my best friend.

…

I could still remember the moment like it were yesterday.

My best friend sat on the bed with her legs crossed, giggling away.

“You don’t have much going for you, but I’ll give you this. You’ve got good taste in men.”

Julian’s face went white.

He explained in utter desperation that somehow one thing led to another after taking a drink.

My best friend, arms folded, mused nonchalantly, “Why are you getting so worked up? She’s not going to leave you.

“I know her better than anyone. She’s a naïve, idiotic loser. If she ever goes for divorce, she might not have the will to live.”

Julian shook his head frantically.

He kept pleading with me, begging me not to walk away.

Staring down at his panic-stricken face, I relented and gave him one more chance.

However, to Julian, this very act validated my best friend’s claim that I couldn’t live without him.

So, while I was still clinging to the hope that somewhere, somehow, he still loved me, he’d already crossed every boundary with my best friend, again and again.

We started fighting constantly.

During one of my hysterical moments, Julian said the one thing I could never forget.

“Madison, you have no one now. Without me, who do you have left?”

From then on, Julian brought different women to our home.

Every corner of our home had been tainted by his betrayal.

His cheating only grew more brazen over time.

Four years later, whatever hope I had left was finally gone.

In the video feed, young Julian bawled his eyes out.

“I knew your dad’s passing must have been soul-crushing. I knew I was all you had left…”

Maybe it was the very fact that I had nowhere else to turn that gave him the license to be so cruel.

Julian was convinced that I would never leave.

He was certain I could never walk away.

Pulling out the divorce papers, I flashed my pearly whites at him.

“Since you’re a law major right now, why don’t you review the clauses for me and see if they’re fair?”

Young Julian paused for a moment, then nodded, the light dimming in his eyes.

He combed through the terms on the sheet.

As I observed the features I knew too well, my mind wandered back to the day he told me how he felt about me. Back then, he was so tense.