Chapter 4

The day I would be flying back to my hometown, Zachary left in the morning, but not before telling me, "I'll be doing a full-day photoshoot today, so I might be back later tonight."

"Okay."

After he shut the front door, silence descended upon the house.

This would be the last day I spent in this place.

I pulled my suitcase out from behind the closet and double-checked my items.

My ID, gold earrings, content planner, a few articles of clothing, and my phone charger.

In the end, I only managed to fully pack a 20-inch suitcase.

I had handpicked most of the items in this house, yet I didn't bother bringing a single one with me.

I was the one who had labelled the spice bottles in the kitchen, and the note stuck to the fridge door was also my doing.

"There are six eggs left, but the salt is running out."

Zachary's fridge used to always be empty.

I was the one who had turned this place into a home.

The couch in the living room, the curtains, the bedding—they had all been carefully picked out by me.

The packing foam from his unboxing of the camera yesterday was still piled on the coffee table, as he hadn't bothered cleaning up after himself.

Besides that, the special desktop in the study that he used to edit his videos had been bought using money that I had saved up myself. It had cost me 12 thousand dollars.

At the time, he had told me, "Once our account is established, I'll pay you back ten times this amount."

It had been three years since then, yet not only had he not returned me the money, but he hadn't even brought it up again.

A panda-shaped sticky note was attached to one edge of the monitor screen, almost like a reminder that this house had long since changed mistresses.

I pulled my suitcase along behind me as I headed for the foyer, pausing to turn and sweep one last glance around the place.

Once I was in the elevator, I called Mom. "Mom, I'm arriving later today."

Her voice pitched higher in surprise. "Really? Do we need to go pick you up? Your dad left for the market early this morning. What would you like to eat?"

The sound of her voice suddenly caused warm tears to spring to my eyes.

"Anything is fine, Mom."

On the way to the airport in a cab, I happened to come across Zachary's Instagram post.

It was a series of nine photos, all starring Rowena.

Her, trying out her new camera. Her, smiling at his camera. Her, standing next to Zachary as they checked out the video monitor together.

The attached caption read, "A new journey with a new partner. Please look forward to it!"

I scrolled back through his old posts from the past three years and found none about me. There were no photos of us together, no photos of us celebrating birthdays, and no photos of us going on vacations together.

The only time there was anything even close to a mention of me was from a brand promotional shoot two years ago, where he had written, "Shoutout to my team."

His team consisted of one person—me.

As I scrolled further down my feed, I saw that Marcy had reposted his post and added her own caption, "My son found himself a good partner, so I'm sure his future will only get brighter."

After that, I exited the app and opened my photo album. There were still 14 photos taken of Zachary and me together.

Selecting them all, I tapped on the "delete" button.

Upon arriving at the airport, I checked in for my flight, proceeded through the customs checkpoint, and headed through the departure hall, which was bustling with people.

My phone vibrated, and when I checked it, I saw that Zachary had sent me a voice message.

This was the first time he had voluntarily contacted me with a voice message in the past three days.

I played the message, and his low voice came through the speakers.

"Winona, are you still mad at me? You haven't said much to me the past few days, and that got me thinking. Maybe there really were things that I had overlooked."

A tremor shot through my heart, causing me to grip my phone a little tighter.

However, his next voice message came soon enough.

"But you have to understand that I truly have been quite busy recently. Rowena's career is just starting up, so she still relies on me for a lot of things. Once she's stable, I'll definitely spend more time with you. As a content creator yourself, I'm sure you can understand.

"Regarding our TikTok account, please reconsider. It's genuinely a pity to lose over a million followers just like that. I can help you start from scratch again. It'll be difficult, but not impossible."

Then came one last message, this time a text.

"Don't be mad anymore. Why are you making this such a big deal?"

I stared at that last sentence.

Three years of hurt, the deleted footage, being called a random nobody, and Frostia…

All this was not a big deal to him, apparently.

I poured my heart out in a long message about how I had waited for him for so long and how much I had been hurt. I also mentioned how it wasn't that he didn't know how to love, but that he just didn't love me.

Yet, in the end, I deleted it all.

I scrolled back to the very first message he had sent me three years ago. It was a reiteration of the verbal promise he had made me.

"Winnie, from now on, you'll be in charge of taking the most beautiful shots, while I'll be responsible for editing you into the most wonderful stories."

I took a few seconds, just staring at the words, before finally responding with a succinct, "Goodbye."