Chapter 2

As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I had a dream.

In my dream, I was fortune's favorite since I was young.

Edith doted on me as if I were a rare jewel, and Lucille never left my side as I grew up.

That was, until the day Trenton set foot into our home as the illegitimate son of our father, Randall Cox. From that very first day, the rivalry was set in motion.

He staged over a dozen suicide attempts in three years—slitting his wrists, overdosing on pills, turning on the gas. And each time, he "just so happened to be accidentally" discovered by Edith or Lucille.

However, Edith merely frowned with exasperation when she caught sight of the sleeping pill bottles scattered across the floor.

"Is pulling cheap stunts for attention the only thing you're good at?"

Lucille bypassed Trenton entirely as he knelt there on the floor in tears. She took my hand and immediately turned to leave.

"Ignore Trenton. I'm taking you to school."

The annoyance in their eyes was so genuine that it never once crossed my mind that their favoritism toward me could ever fade.

Thus, when Trenton staged yet another rooftop suicide threat on the very day Lucille and I signed our marriage papers, no one bothered to take his theatrics seriously.

Edith watched on with cold indifference, while Lucille's expression was utterly indifferent as she casually moved to hang up the phone.

Except this time, Trenton gave a bleak smile and simply jumped.

In the video, Edith's face twisted with horror as she bolted madly toward where Trenton threw himself off the ledge.

Lucille stood frozen where she was, phone clutched in her hand, her entire face draining to a ghastly white in an instant.

That day, I walked out of the courthouse in a daze, and in my hand was a divorce decree.

The unrestrained teasing of Lucille's friends still echoed in my ears.

"Lucille, you got divorced just three hours after getting married? Did you bring Elmer to the city hall and the courthouse for a taste of ordinary life or something?"

"Didn't you say just a while ago that you couldn't even stand the sight of Trenton? So, how come your face went completely white the moment he jumped?"

"What do you people know? Lucille's just sharp-tongued but soft-hearted. She says she hates him, but deep down, who knows how much she actually aches for him?"

For the first time ever, Lucille didn't coldly refute them. Instead, she simply frowned with impatience and said, "Shut up."

Then, she walked straight past me and dialed Trenton's number, which at some unknown point had already been pinned to the top of her contacts.

"I've gotten the divorce. Can you let the doctor treat your wounds now?"

Whatever was said on the other end of the line drew a sigh from Lucille. Then, with a note of resignation in her voice, she said, "Fine, whatever you say. I'm going back now to spend time with you."

It wasn't until her car sped past me, nearly brushing against me, that I belatedly realized what had just happened.

By the time I rushed back home, Lucille was draping a coat over Trenton's shoulders.

The room was a complete wreck. My gaze fell upon the fingernail scratches carved across the wedding photo on the nightstand. It wasn't hard to imagine just how indecent the position they had been in moments ago must have been.

My stomach churned violently.

Trenton peeked out from behind Lucille and said with a cruel smirk, "Elmer, it's not what you think. Lucille and I—"

Before he could finish, the dull thud of a punch rang throughout the room.

He clutched his jaw, staring at me in disbelief.

Almost in the same instant, I was kicked brutally by the ground.

I looked up and saw Edith, who had burst in with her bodyguards. She was glaring at me with fury written all over her face.

"Elmer, apologize to Trenton this instant!" She loomed before me, her voice ice-cold. "Trenton's depression only gets better when he's with Lucille. Can't you be a little more understanding and give him a break? Apologize to him right now!"

The way Lucille looked at me was filled with the same disgust.

"Elmer, no matter what happens between me and Trenton, you're still the only one I'll marry in the end. So, why do you have to push him to the brink like this? It's not like Trenton did anything wrong—you've truly gone too far this time. Now hurry up and apologize to him!"

Lucille's face blurred and grew unrecognizable before my eyes.

In a daze, all I could feel was that the person who had grown up beside me, who had charged alone into a kidnappers' den to save me, and who had even been willing to ruin her own hands for my sake, was drifting further and further away from me.

I swept my gaze around everything in the room, and my eyes happened to meet Trenton's. He was smirking tauntingly at me.

I jolted awake violently from the nightmare.

Before my mind had fully awakened, the name I'd called upon for 20 years escaped my lips before I even knew it.

"Edith…"