Chapter 3

Shawn froze. He clearly didn’t expect the very first thing I would settle with him was the ownership of the house.

“Lea, what’s the point in counting pennies like this?” Shawn barked. “Yes, half the house belongs to you, but didn’t I pay for the other half? Right now, I am exercising my share of the right to allow Willow to stay here for a few days. She’s from out of town, and she just graduated only to experience a traumatic event like this. She doesn’t even have anyone to take care of her. Am I supposed to send her back to that dreary, cramped shared apartment?”

“You could’ve rented a place for her. You could’ve arranged a staff dormitory for her. You could’ve paid for a hotel room,” I replied. “But instead, you chose to let her live with you in our home!”

Willow came running over and grabbed my hand, tears streaming down her face.

“Lea, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t know this mug was yours. Shawn handed it to me, so I just used it… I know you’re angry at Shawn for saving me first, but I really couldn’t help it. I was in the backseat with my head bleeding, and I couldn’t even stand up straight. Shawn couldn’t just leave me abandoned on the highway, could he? Why do you have to take your anger out on me?”

I looked at the wound on her forehead, which was barely the size of a coin, and then looked down at my own right leg. It was wrapped in steel pins, swollen to twice the size of my left leg.

“Willow, since you brought up that day, let’s make things clear right now,” I said. “That day in the car, I clearly said that the bottom of the car was leaking fuel and could catch fire at any second. By the time Shawn carried you out, the fire had started. You were fully conscious, and you watched him lock me inside a fuel-leaking car with your own eyes. Did you say anything to remind him? Did you tell him even once to go back and save me first?”

Willow’s face instantly turned pale, and she couldn’t say anything.

“You didn’t,” I pressed on. “Not only did you not say a word, but you clung to his clothes, crying that you were dizzy, forcing him to walk you all the way past the guardrail. Willow, you had a mild concussion; you didn’t go blind. You graduated from the police academy too, so it’s impossible that you didn’t know the car was leaking fuel. Why are you playing innocent?”

“Lea, that’s enough!” Shawn snapped, suddenly stepping in front of Willow to shield her. “In a situation like that, Willow was scared out of her mind! How could she have had the mental capacity to care about whether the car was leaking fuel or not? Do you always have to twist people’s intentions into the most malicious things possible?”

“Alright. That’s enough, Lea,” Shawn’s mother called out with a stern face as she walked out of the kitchen.

“It’s all in the past now. You had the surgery, and isn’t your leg almost healed anyway? Everyone is safe, so why hold a grudge? Shawn has been overwhelmed with work and the aftermath of the crash for the past two weeks. You just got discharged from the hospital today. Do you have to turn the whole house upside down?”

In their eyes, I had become an unreasonable, shrewish woman throwing a tantrum. Trying to reason with people who refused to listen to human logic was nothing but a waste of my life.

I didn’t bother responding to them anymore. Turning around, I leaned on my crutches and headed straight toward the master bedroom.

“Where do you think you’re going? You come back just to make a scene, and now you want to leave without even apologizing to us?” Shawn shouted behind me.

I pushed open the bedroom door, pulled out the suitcase from the bottom of the closet, and balanced on one leg while grabbing a few changes of clothes to stuff inside.

Next went my toiletries, my laptop, and then my ID, passport, and bank cards from the bedside drawer. As for the envelope containing the property deed, I shoved it separately into my backpack.

Shawn followed me to the bedroom doorway, his expression finally shifting into one of panic.

“Lea, what kind of drama are you putting on now? Are you running away from home? You’re almost hitting thirty, yet you’re still playing this childish game of packing up and leaving whenever you’re unhappy. Your leg is broken. Where can you even go?”

I simply ignored him, and when I tried to pass by him, he reached out his arm, attempting to block my path.

“Stop making a scene, okay? You decorated every inch of this house yourself. Are you really just going to walk away from it?”