Chapter 5

Ethan froze when his usual tactic had failed.

"Hey, I'm just putting on a show for Sara's family," he said sullenly. "Do you really have to take everything so seriously?"

"Whether it's an act or genuine feelings, you know better than anyone," Hannah countered.

The moment Ethan started talking about taking wedding photos, his eyes lit up with unmistakable excitement. Only an idiot would have missed what that meant.

Cornered by her response, Ethan finally lost his temper.

In ten years, this was the first time he'd ever found himself completely unable to win an argument with her.

"You're being completely unreasonable!" he snapped.

Hannah couldn't be bothered to waste another word on him. She turned toward the bedroom, but Ethan rushed ahead, snatched her pillow off the bed, and threw it into the hallway.

"You don't get to sleep in my bed anymore!" he shouted. "Go sleep in the study tonight and think about what you've done!"

He slammed the bedroom door shut, pulled out the key, and locked it from the inside as though he were barricading himself against a burglar. Hannah knew exactly what he was trying to do.

He was using the silent treatment to force her to come crawling back and apologize. What he didn't realize was that he'd just given her exactly what she wanted.

She had no intention of sharing a bed with him anymore. All she wanted was to pack up her things and leave as soon as possible.

In fact, aside from a few old dresses she'd worn for three or four years, there was hardly anything of value left for her in that bedroom.

Hannah shook her head, retrieved her suitcase from the corner of the living room, and carried it into the study. The moment she stepped inside, her eyes fell on the gift she'd given Ethan for their seventh anniversary.

It was a custom-made string-art portrait, painstakingly created from dozens of spools of thread wound hundreds of thousands of times around tiny metal nails according to a precise design.

She had spent an entire month working on it through sleepless nights. The finished portrait recreated a photograph from their first date at an amusement park.

She still remembered that Ethan hadn't wanted to take the picture at all. Because of his childhood issues, he was fiercely practical and had always viewed amusement parks as overpriced places designed to entertain children.

He thought taking pictures together was childish and embarrassing, so he had flatly refused to take even one photo with her.

Back then, Hannah had even taken on Sara's entire workload for the following quarter just to persuade him to finally give in and pose for one reluctant picture with her.

That was the first time they'd ever gone to an amusement park together. And it had also been the last.

Because the memory meant so much to her, Hannah had specially woven that photograph into the string-art portrait, desperate to preserve that moment of sweetness forever.

Over the years, she had meticulously checked the tension of the threads and the condition of every nail. She had even ordered a custom glass display case with desiccant packs sealed around the edges, all to make sure the portrait would never deteriorate.

She had protected that piece of art with the same painstaking care she had used to protect her fragile relationship with Ethan.

Only now did she understand that no matter how carefully she tended a relationship with someone who didn't love her back, all that effort was ultimately futile.

Slowly shaking her head, she took the framed portrait down from the wall and picked up a pair of scissors from the desk.

The moment the blades barely touched the edge, the tightly stretched threads snapped with a series of sharp pops, unraveling almost instantly.

It had looked perfectly intact on the surface, yet fell apart at the slightest touch. Just like her decade-long relationship with Ethan—all appearance and no substance.

She gave a bitter, self-mocking laugh and threw the tangled mass of broken thread straight into the trash.

She then began gathering the files from the desk, but as she lifted a loose folder, it slipped from her hands. More than 100 handwritten letters spilled across the floor.

She looked down and froze.