You're Acting, but I'm Not

On the way back, I felt lost. A passing electric bicycle knocked me down.

The middle-aged driver turned back several times to look at me, complaining loudly as he did so. "If you want to die, go somewhere else! Don't drag anyone else into it, you accursed thing."

The pain in my leg and the angry look in the middle-aged man's eyes made me dial Nathan Fulton's number without thinking.

When the call connected, no one spoke. All I could hear was the sound of a man and a woman flirting coyly with each other.

"Nate, who's better? Me or your fiancee?"

"Everything about my fiancee is great, except for the fact that she's like a dead fish in bed. She doesn't react at all…"

The sound that followed made my heart speed up, and I turned red. I hung up and closed my eyes in utter despair.

A kind-hearted passerby took me to the hospital.

The doctor was Clark Chestfield, Nate's colleague. He told me that my ankle was fractured, but he had to be careful with prescribing me medicine because I was pregnant.

When Clark found out that I hadn't told Nate about the pregnancy yet, he was shocked. "How could you not tell him? He might get better if he's triggered."

I laughed bitterly. "He wouldn't need to be triggered if it were possible for him to get better."

I had barely eaten or slept for many days because of him. I had lost ten pounds or so as a result, but he was still vigorously focusing on other women.

Clark could not dissuade me, so he agreed to my request. "You'd better tell him to come and pick you up. I'm worried about something happening to you on the way back."

However, he barely managed to get out two sentences once the call connected before Nathan scoffed and demanded, "An ankle fracture? She was fine a while ago, and now it's fractured?

"Interesting. Now she's resorted to self-harm just to pester me."

Clark shot me a sympathetic look and asked if I had any other choices.

I took my phone and scrolled through it several times before finally calling a friend I hadn't contacted in a long time. Once I had settled everything, I saw that Nathan had sent several messages.

"Olivia, it's unnecessary for you to keep this up. I really dislike women who won't stop pestering me.

"How could you bribe my colleague to lie to me just to get my attention? You've crossed the line. You'd better move out of my place."

He was afraid that I would refuse, so he had even found me a new place. He added magnanimously. "I've paid three months' rent for you already. After all, you did say that we were once deeply in love. Think of it as the last thing I do for you."

I replied: "Okay."

There was no flicker of emotion in my heart at all. Before I put the phone down, I looked at his social media once more.

He was acting lovey-dovey with a different woman each day. It was clear that he was very satisfied with his current life.

Unexpectedly, I bumped into him when I left the hospital. He was normally impeccably dressed, but he hadn't even buttoned his shirt up properly.

I stood on the spot and watched curiously as he rushed into the emergency room with a woman in his arms.