Chapter 2 The Truth They Refused to Hear

As Ian led me into the house, the atmosphere around the dinner table immediately turned tense.

With an easy smile, he offered me a cigarette, looking as harmless as ever.

"After what happened last week, I thought you still held a grudge against me. You weren't happy that I won Outstanding Teacher, and you even punched me in front of everyone. But since you came to my celebration today, why don't we put all of that behind us?"

If I had not caught him destroying my nomination form with my own eyes that day, I never would have believed he could wear two completely different faces depending on who was watching.

But before I could say a word, a sharp slap landed across my face.

"Jensen Slater! Is this how I raised you? How could you hit someone in public?"

The one who struck me was my own mother.

"When my flower shop ran into financial trouble, and I asked you for help, you refused to lend me a single cent. It was Ian, a man who wasn't even related to us, who generously lent me a large sum of money. What was the point of raising an ungrateful son like you?"

She went on and on, scolding me for laying a hand on Ian.

My ears rang so loudly that the rest of her words blurred into meaningless noise.

A moment later, my younger sister stepped forward, trying to "reason" with me.

"Jensen, you and Ian are colleagues. How could you target him at school? You probably don't even know this, but when I went to visit you in the village, I accidentally fell into the pond, and Ian saved me. Today is supposed to be his big day, yet you chose this day of all days to come here and ruin it. That's so disrespectful. No wonder nobody likes you anymore. Even your students don't want to be around you."

I looked up at her in disbelief. Everything I'd confided to her over the phone had become the very blade she now used to stab me in the heart.

"Tanya Slater, I'm your brother! How could you say something like that?"

Natalie cut me off impatiently. "Enough, Jensen. You cheated first. So what if I divorced you and gave the placement to Ian? Besides, he can't handle living in those mountains. If he stayed any longer, he'd lose his mind. Could you really bring yourself to take this opportunity away from him?"

They had worried Ian would be driven insane, but not one of them had spared a single thought for how I had felt.

Over the past three years, mosquitoes had left my body covered in bites every summer. In winter, the freezing temperatures split the skin on my hands until they bled. The dry mountain air cracked my skin so badly that I couldn't bear to look at it. I became so self-conscious that even in 104-degree heat, I didn't dare wear shorts or sandals.

And the "kindness" they kept praising?

None of it had been Ian's. It had all been mine.

When my sister fell into the pond, I stripped off my down jacket and jumped into the freezing water in subzero weather to pull her out. By the time I'd gotten her safely ashore, I'd collapsed from exhaustion and had to be rushed to the county hospital for emergency treatment.

That was why, when she woke up, the person sitting beside her hospital bed was Ian.

As for my mother… Her flower shop had been losing money year after year. I refused to lend her money because I genuinely wanted her to face reality and close the business before things got worse. But when I saw her hunched figure slowly walking away that day, I could not harden my heart after all.

Too embarrassed to hand it to her myself, I had entrusted Ian with an envelope full of money and asked him to deliver it for me. I never imagined he would claim the credit as his own.

Rage flooded my chest. I shouted out everything Ian had stolen from me, exposing every lie, yet every single person in the room only looked at me with solemn expressions.

Not one of them believed me.

Natalie even frowned and said, "First, you wanted to steal Ian's Outstanding Teacher title, and now you're trying to steal his good deeds too? Let's be honest. This is all because of the placement position, isn't it? But it's already been finalized. I've already submitted everything, and there's absolutely no changing it now. Just give up. We've been married for three years, Jensen, and I never realized you were this materialistic. It's just an ordinary placement job. Is it really worth making such a scene over?"

One accusation after another crashed down on me.

None of them reflected what I had done or what I had wanted. Yet with every sentence they spoke, they forced those crimes onto me as though they belonged there.

Natalie had clearly forgotten that I had turned down an offer from a research institute and spent three years teaching in the mountains solely so she could pursue her career at the university.

She had also forgotten her first visit to the village during my first year there.

Back then, she had held my rough, wind-chapped hands with tears in her eyes and promised that once the doctoral family-placement positions became available, she would have me transferred back immediately.

"You know what? Forget all of that for now. Why did you kiss him just now? Natalie Hargrove, can you swear that the only reason you wanted to give him the placement was that you were touched by his kindness?"

I was practically screaming. I could imagine how pathetic I must have looked.

"What exactly is so noble about him? He knew perfectly well you had a husband, and he still inserted himself into our marriage. Isn't he just a shameless homewrecker? Wasn't it enough that he stole everything else from me? Now he wants to take my family, my friends… and even my wife?"

The instant the words left my mouth, another slap landed hard across my other cheek.

My mother pointed at my nose and shouted, "Jensen, would you wake up already? Are you so suspicious you've started hallucinating? None of us saw anything. Natalie isn't like you. I know she'd never cheat on her husband. And even if she really did kiss him, it was only on the cheek. What's the big deal?"