Chapter 2

The next morning, Elio asked me to go to a party with him.

"Isolde, didn't you say you want to rebuild our relationship? In that case, you should come with me."

But the moment I stepped into the party, the hostility hit me all at once. Every gaze directed at me was filled with malice.

"Isolde, Don Santoro likes women who can hold their liquor. Here, have one."

Elio sat at the head of the table, a cigarette between his fingers, his face hidden behind smoke. It was impossible to read his expression.

As soon as the words landed, his friends grabbed me and held me in place.

I had been allergic to alcohol since I was a child. The moment it hit my throat, my face went pale, and a sharp pain spread through my chest.

I struggled to prop myself up and tried to reach for water, but Sofia grabbed me and forced the rest of the whiskey down my throat.

"Elio, everyone's here to celebrate my Best Actress win today, but your fiancée barely drank. That's kind of rude, don't you think? I know she doesn't like me, and that's why I invited her to patch things up. I didn't think she'd humiliate me out of jealousy."

Breathing grew harder with each passing second, and a rash spread across my skin.

The guests around me, however, were all smirking at me.

They always felt Elio was out of my league and treated me like nothing more than a laughingstock. Some of them even pulled out their phones to record me.

Just then, Elio finally made a move and handed me a glass of water.

I grabbed it and drank it immediately, only to hear laughter break out again.

"Don't blame him, Isolde. He saw how pale you looked and was trying to help."

That was when I realized it wasn't water but a concentrated sports drink.

My body started to convulse, the rash spreading up my neck, while my chest tightened with a suffocating pain.

Out of sheer instinct and desperation, I reached out and clutched Elio's sleeve. "Please… take me to the hospital…"

For a moment, his expression wavered, but Sofia quickly cut in, "No one dies from a drink, Isolde. You just don't want to celebrate with me."

The moment she finished speaking, Elio yanked his sleeve out of my grasp. His voice turned cold as he said, "Isolde, you're staying until this party is over. You're not going anywhere without my permission!"

I closed my eyes in despair and let the darkness swallow me whole.

…

When I woke up again, I was lying in a hospital bed.

Voices drifted in from outside the door.

"The doctor already said she's fine after getting her stomach pumped, so why is she still pretending to be unconscious? She's so pretentious," Sofia said.

Their friends echoed her words. "Only Elio could stay with someone like her because he loves Sofia. If it were me, I wouldn't last a single day."

After a long silence, Elio spoke. "The game's almost over. Don't let any accidents happen."

Sofia's voice rose sharply, her tone harsh and vicious. "As long as I'm happy, what does it matter if something happens to a bitch like her? Or what, Elio? Are you starting to care about her now? Have you fallen in love with her?"

I kept my eyes closed and waited for the answer I already knew was coming.

"I love you. I've loved you for ten years."

Laughter broke out again outside the room.

They were already excitedly discussing how to destroy me at level 100.

I pulled the blanket tighter around myself and curled into it, not wanting to hear another word.

Just as I was about to call Mamma, Elio walked in.

The moment he saw that I was awake, a flicker of panic crossed his face.

He quickly composed himself, sat by the bed, and took my hand as he apologized, "I'm sorry, Isolde. I didn't know they switched the water to an energy drink."

The apology was real, but the excuse was not.

After all, Elio was the architect of all my suffering.

On the day I was discharged, Elio said everyone wanted to apologize and invited me to go camping in Sereno Bay.

I looked at his flawless, pretentious expression, and as if I needed to see everything through to the end, I nodded.

When we arrived at the beach, Sofia and her friends waited until Elio was gone before grabbing me and throwing me straight into the freezing water.

I hadn't fully recovered, and the tide had just come in. Before I could even react, something cold and slick wrapped tightly around my ankle.

It was a sea snake.

Fear gripped me instantly.

I called for help at the top of my lungs, but the people on the shore stood there with their arms crossed, laughing as they watched.

"You can swim. Stop acting like you're helpless."

My struggle startled the sea snake, and it tightened its coils around me before biting down hard.

"Did she actually think Elio would love her? That's ridiculous!"

"Elio already sold off everything she got from selling her estate and transferred all the money to Sofia just to make her happy."

"He said it himself. She's just a simp whose world revolves around him."

Their grating voices crushed what little feelings I had left.

Everything I had given over the past seven years, every bit of my sincerity, meant nothing to him. From the beginning to the end, I had been nothing but a fool.

The moment my heart gave out, I stopped struggling.

Seawater rushed into my nose as the venom spread through my veins, and my consciousness slowly faded into darkness.

I thought I was going to die there in that freezing ocean.

But in the next second, a strong arm pulled me out of the water and dragged me back to shore.

Elio held me tightly, his voice trembling with the perfect amount of panic and heartache, as he said, "Isolde, don't be afraid. I'm here now. I'm right here."

I used the last bit of strength I had left to look at him and asked weakly, "Why… do you keep hurting me like this?"

His body stiffened for a brief moment before he answered, "I didn't know they would just stand there and do nothing. I thought they were just fooling around like before…"

Like before?

As it turned out, in Elio's eyes, every time I had been hurt before had only ever been them having a bit of fun with me.