I Finally Let Go of My Lost Love

At yet another Montgomery family dinner, Chris's new female assistant sat right in the chair that belonged to me.

I looked at my husband. She is sitting in the seat meant for the lady of the house. Do you have absolutely nothing to say about this?

Chris rolled his eyes, his voice dripping with his usual annoyance. "If you can't be bothered to show up on time, don't cry about losing your seat. Sit in one of the empty chairs. If you don't want to sit, then get the hell out."

I opened my mouth to argue, but Chris's inner voice flooded my mind before I could speak.

[Come on, get mad. Tell me you need me. Tell them you belong right next to me. Prove you love me. That is the only way I feel safe.]

This time, I refused to satisfy his twisted cravings.

I just lowered my head and slowly slipped the diamond wedding band off my finger.

"Since there isn't even a place left for the lady of the house, I guess I am no longer needed here."

"Let's get a divorce."

The heavy ring hit the mahogany table with a sharp, crisp clink.

Chris's face drained of color. Even his parents, who had been quietly enjoying the drama, suddenly looked panicked.

Six years.

I had lived like this for six solid years.

Every single time Chris used his words like poisoned blades to cut me down, I never needed him to coax me back. All I had to do was listen to his desperate, begging inner thoughts, and I would foolishly run right back into his arms to make peace.

Over time, his family grew completely used to this toxic dance. His mother would even laugh and joke about it. She would say that an awkward, stubborn man just needed a wife who wouldn't run away no matter how hard he yelled.

So the moment I took off the ring, Mrs. Montgomery practically leaped out of her seat.

"Sundra... what is wrong? Are you just in a bad mood today? You are normally never this petty."

Mr. Montgomery slammed his fork down, looking stern. "This is a family dinner. Even if you are throwing a tantrum, you do not joke about divorce. Put the ring back on."

I let out a soft, dry laugh. "Oh, you know it is a family dinner? So when exactly did Assistant Lily become a member of the family?"

The older couple instantly choked on their words.

Chris stood up abruptly. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle twitched. "Sundra, are you done being dramatic?"

"You want a divorce? Fine! Then get the hell out of my sight right now! This house doesn't welcome an ungrateful stray dog like you!"

Beneath those sharp, familiar words, his inner voice was a bleeding mess.

[Sundra, why? Why do you want a divorce? Are you throwing me away? Didn't you promise you would love me forever?]

[This is a sick joke, right? As long as I lose my temper, you will rush over and hug me. You always do.]

I had swallowed these agonizing, two-faced emotions for an entire decade.

When I first met Chris, he suffered from severe emotional trauma and a crushing inability to express affection. He literally could not voice his true feelings. He used the cruelest, most sarcastic words as a shield to attack anyone who tried to get close.

And I, like a fool, became the lucky girl who could hear his true thoughts.

Whenever he screamed at me to get out, his inner voice would be on its knees, begging: [Don't leave. I need you.]

Because my heart broke for him, I slowly fell in love with him.

Four years of dating. Six years of marriage.

Because I stayed by his side, he finally opened his locked-up heart. He stopped needing medication to function like a normal human being.

But over the past six years, a sick pattern emerged. He was gentle and polite to every stranger he met. Yet to me, his wife, he offered nothing but coldness and biting insults.

It was not like I never felt wronged. I cried. I hurt.

But his mother would always pat my hand and say that Chris was sick in the head. She told me he wasn't normal, that I needed to give him grace. She insisted his cruelty was just a front and that his heart belonged entirely to me.

Because I could hear his thoughts, I believed her.

Until his assistant, Lily, showed up.

Chris, a man who didn't possess a single romantic bone in his body, rented out an entire amusement park for Lily's birthday.

I had been admiring a certain diamond necklace for six months. He bought it without blinking and fastened it around Lily's neck.

He even brought her to our private family dinners.

His inner voice would chant over and over that he loved me, desperately craving my jealousy to soothe his deep-seated insecurities.

But as I looked at my seat, the seat I had earned through ten years of blood and tears, happily occupied by another woman while I was shoved into a corner...

I suddenly woke up.

I had been lying to myself this whole time.

Where a man puts his tenderness, that is where his love truly lies.

Looking at Chris's trembling lips, my face remained perfectly calm.

"Okay. I am leaving."

Ignoring his parents' urgent shouts, I turned and walked straight toward the foyer.

Just as my hand touched the door handle, a brutal grip clamped around my wrist, jerking me backward.

[Sundra, are you actually mad? I am so scared. Are you throwing me away?]

[If you leave me, I will die!]

[Please don't throw me away!]

The frantic, screaming thoughts swarmed my brain, wrapping tightly around my chest.

Shocked, I looked back at Chris. The rims of his eyes were a glaring, bloodshot red.

For a second, my heart wavered.

Then, his icy voice smashed into me.

"You can leave, but take off the shoes on your feet! I bought those for you!"

My entire body went rigid.

I looked down at the faded, well-worn flats on my feet.

He bought them for me right after we got married. He had simply dropped the box in the living room without saying a single word.

But his thoughts had leaked out from the bedroom.

[Wife, did you see them? Come ask me about them. Ask me if I bought them just for you.]

[I had them custom-made. Come praise me, wife!]

[I want you to be the happiest bride in the whole world.]

For six years, I cherished these shoes. I wore them everywhere. Not just because Chris bought them, but because they represented the fierce, burning love he couldn't say out loud.

But now.

I squatted down, my fingers numb, and slowly slipped the shoes off.

"Fine. They are yours."

Chris's face turned even darker. The red in his eyes looked like suppressed rage.

His mother hurried over, trying to run interference. "Sundra, you have been with Chris for ten years. You know he never means what he says. How could he actually let you walk out of here barefoot? He is just using this as an excuse to make you stay."

The moment the words left her mouth, Chris grabbed the shoes from the floor and tossed them straight into the roaring fireplace.

"You wore them for six years. I find them disgusting now."

His tone was incredibly light, but the words hit my chest like a sledgehammer.

Watching the flames swallow the leather, a suffocating pain seized my lungs. I couldn't breathe.

So the shoes I had carefully protected and cleaned for six long years meant absolutely nothing to him. They were just trash to be burned.

Catching sight of my tear-filled eyes, Chris's inner voice went into a frenzy.

[Wife, are you sad? You still care about me, right?]

[Just admit you were wrong. Just tell me this was all a joke. I will fill your entire closet with new shoes right now!]

[I will buy you so many beautiful shoes!]

I listened to his frantic thoughts with total numbness.

My heart did not flutter. It did not ache anymore.

No matter how beautiful the new shoes were, they would never be the first pair.

My relationship with Chris had finally reached the end of its rope. Just like that fire, it had burned until nothing remained but dirty, gray ash.

I walked out of the house barefoot.

Not a single person chased after me.

The only thing I heard was Lily's gloating voice drifting from the dining room. "Are you really not going to chase your wife? She looked pretty heartbroken."

"Chase her for what?" Chris scoffed. "Let her go. Give it half an hour, and she will come crawling back to apologize."

He didn't know I was actually leaving for good.

My company had offered a highly coveted position at the overseas branch. I took one of the spots.

My flight was booked for tomorrow.

By the time I got back to our townhouse, the soles of my feet were covered in tiny, bleeding cuts from the pavement.

I sat on the edge of the tub, mechanically pouring rubbing alcohol over the wounds. As the sting subsided, I looked around.

This used to be our warm, private sanctuary. Now, without me even realizing it, the house was stuffed with Lily's belongings.

"Sundra, Lily gave me this plush bunny. Put it on the sofa. I want to see it every day."

"Sundra, Lily picked out this tie. Does it look good?"

"This is the diffuser Lily told me to use in the living room. She said it smells exactly like her."

Whenever I lost my mind and screamed at him over these things, the smirk on his face would only grow deeper. He loved watching me choke on jealousy.

It was as if my pain was the only metric he used to measure my love.

And his response was always exactly the same.

"Sundra, Lily and I just have a professional relationship. Stop being so pathetic and petty."

Day after day, ground down by this endless torture, I gave him exactly what he wanted. I stopped being petty.

I was even ready to hand over my title as his wife.

After wrapping my feet in bandages, I pulled out a suitcase and began packing what little clothing I had left.

Just as I was zipping up the bag, Chris walked in.

He reeked of expensive whiskey, his arm slung heavily over Lily's shoulder.

The moment he saw me, he instinctively dropped his arm and opened his mouth to explain. But then his eyes landed on the suitcase beside my leg, and his pupils dilated in shock.

At the exact same time, his inner voice roared.

[Wife, why are you packing? Are you seriously throwing me away?]

[I messed up. I shouldn't have brought Lily to the family dinner. I just wanted to make you jealous.]

[Don't leave. I absolutely forbid you from leaving!]

His face was ghostly pale. His mind was screaming with endless, desperate love, but the words that left his lips were colder than ice.

"Sundra, I suggest you think very carefully about what you are doing. If you walk out that door, there are a million women lining up to marry me. But if you leave me, who the hell is going to marry damaged goods like you?"

His arrogant, condescending tone blew away the very last speck of hope in my soul.

I gave him a tired smile. "Okay. Then go find those other women."

Chris's hands balled into tight fists. Suddenly, right in front of my face, he wrapped his arm around Lily's waist and pulled her flush against his chest.

"Maybe I will just marry Lily then."

"She is sweet, gentle, and way more competent than you. More importantly, unlike you, she actually has a working body. Six years and your stomach is still completely flat. She has plenty of time to give me an heir."

His provocative words made my breath shudder.

Everyone knew children were my ultimate forbidden topic.

Six years ago, Chris suffered a massive mental breakdown and ran off into a blizzard. While searching for him, I fell through the ice of a frozen lake. The damage to my body was permanent. Getting pregnant became an impossible dream.

But I still wanted a baby. Desperately.

To get pregnant, I drank horrible herbal brews every single night. I went through five agonizing rounds of IVF.

Chris knew this better than anyone on earth, yet he still chose to use a child as a weapon to gut me.

My eyes burned with tears. "Chris, you are a monster."

Seeing my tears, a flash of panic crossed Chris's eyes. He took a subconscious step forward.

But Lily suddenly clamped her hands onto his arm, pressing her chest against him. Her voice was sickeningly sweet. "But Sundra, Chris is just stating facts, right?"

"It has been six years, and you haven't produced a single thing."

"Any other man would have kicked you to the curb years ago. Chris put up with it for six whole years!"

"He hasn't even said he is tired of you yet, and here you are throwing around the word divorce and packing your bags. Aren't you being a little too selfish? You have zero appreciation for how much Chris tolerates you."

Chris froze in his tracks.

The panic in his eyes was rapidly replaced by a chilling detachment.

He agreed with Lily. He actually thought I was being selfish and ungrateful.

"Sundra, it seems I really have been too nice to you."

His gaze swept over my suitcase.

Before I could even react, he lunged forward, violently snatching the bag from my grip. He yanked it so hard the zipper busted open.

My clothes scattered all over the hardwood floor. He stepped directly onto my clean shirts with his leather shoes.

Then, with terrifying precision, he reached into the bottom of the broken suitcase and pulled out a velvet box. Inside was a vintage emerald bracelet.

It was my late mother's heirloom.

He looked down at me from his towering height.

"Sundra, do I need to remind you? I spent five million dollars getting this bracelet back from the auction house."

All the blood drained from my face.

When my family went bankrupt, my mother had to sell her only family heirloom to pay off debts.

When she passed away, getting that emerald bracelet back became her dying wish.

When Chris found out, he pulled every string he had and spent a massive fortune to win it back for me.

Back then, I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. I told him I had no idea how I could ever repay him.

His voice was calm, but his eyes were overflowing with pure devotion. "Then just pay me back with yourself."

"Sundra, I want to marry you."

Using that emerald bracelet in place of a ring, he slipped my mother's legacy onto my wrist.

And now, he looked at me and said, "The only reason I gave this to you was because I was going to marry you. Now you want a divorce. You are no longer going to be my wife, so what right do you have to take it with you?"

"You don't seriously think a woman like you is worth five million dollars, do you?"

His brutal words smashed my pride into a million jagged pieces.

I swallowed the heavy, agonizing lump in my throat.

"Five million. I will find a way to get the money and pay you back..."

"I don't need your money!" Chris roared, cutting me off. "Sundra, do you think I give a damn about the money?"

"...You are the one who is throwing this family away. You are throwing everything away. So I am going to save this bracelet for a woman who actually wants to be my wife."

He grabbed Lily's wrist and brutally shoved the emerald bracelet onto her arm.

Just like he did when he asked me to marry him six years ago.

Lily turned her head slightly. Where Chris couldn't see, she looked me dead in the eye and mouthed the words:

[Dead people's jewelry. Gross.]

A violent surge of adrenaline exploded in my chest. I lunged forward, desperately clawing at her arm to get it back.

"If you think it's gross, then give it back to me!"

The second my fingers grazed Lily's skin, she let out an ear-piercing shriek and threw herself backward onto the marble tiles.

Her wrist slammed against the hard floor. The fragile, century-old emerald hit the stone and shattered into several jagged pieces.

My mind went completely blank. Chris froze, just as stunned.

Lily held up her slightly scraped arm, sobbing hysterically.

"Chris... it hurts so much..."

Chris snapped out of his daze and violently shoved me backward.

"Sundra, you are insane! That was your mother's dying wish, and you destroyed it just because you wanted to hurt Lily!"

I crashed heavily onto the floor. The violent impact sent a bizarre, sharp cramp tearing through my lower abdomen.

Trembling, I fought through the pain to explain. "I didn't push her. Lily threw herself backward on purpose to break the bracelet..."

"Shut up!" The veins in Chris's neck bulged. "You act like a lunatic, and then you try to frame Lily. If you hadn't attacked her like a rabid dog, the bracelet wouldn't be..."

A flash of pure terror crossed his eyes. At the same moment, his thoughts crashed into my head.

[What do I do? The only thing my wife cared about is broken.]

[I don't have a single way to make her stay anymore.]

[No... I refuse to just stand here and watch my wife walk away.]

Before I could process his thoughts, Chris grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me off the floor.

I was completely disoriented. He hauled me down the hall and violently shoved me into the dark, windowless wine cellar.

"You hurt Lily, and you are clearly out of your mind. You are going to stay locked in here for a day until you calm down."

The cramping in my stomach suddenly escalated into an excruciating, twisting agony.

I felt a warm stream of blood seeping between my thighs. Pure, unadulterated panic swallowed me whole.