After remarrying Eason Dassin, I became the perfect wife. The kind who never checked his phone, who never asked where he’d been. At our college reunion, when someone asked him about his biggest regret, Eason’s eyes flickered instinctively to Sophie Lane. A drunk classmate, inhibitions gone, slurred loudly, “Are you kidding? We all know Eason’s biggest regret is that he never got to marry the campus queen!” “He even divorced his first wife for her,” another chimed in, “but some people are like glue. They just won’t let go and practically begged him to take them back.” The atmosphere turned instantly awkward. Eason, expecting me to fly into a rage like I used to, started to formulate an explanation. But I just smiled and smoothed things over for him. "It's alright," I said. "Everyone has regrets." I have one, too. My biggest regret is that the first time we divorced, I was so blinded by rage that I walked away with nothing. In the new divorce agreement I had drafted, I would not be the one leaving with empty hands. 1 "Hillary, what's your biggest regret?" As we waited for our ride-share, Eason leaned against the car and asked the question out of nowhere. I was scrolling through my phone, and I didn't even look up. "I forgot." "You forgot?" He clearly didn't believe me. I didn't respond, and the silence between us thickened. After a long moment, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I just feel like… since we got back together, you've been different. Strange." "You're being too sensitive." Hearing his own words thrown back at him left Eason speechless. A flicker of anger ignited in his eyes. "Before we remarried, I promised you, over and over, that I would never let Sophie interfere in our lives again. I promised to keep my distance." "Even tonight, at the reunion, we came and left separately. What more do you want from me?" His patience had always been thin; this was a long speech for him. "How many times do I have to tell you? If it wasn't for Sophie's father, I never would have made it out of that little coastal town." I locked my phone and looked at him, my voice calm against his rising tide of frustration. "You don't have to explain. I know." I had heard the same speech a thousand times. It was why I tolerated him pulling strings to get Sophie a position at his hospital right after graduation, keeping her close by his side. It was why I put up with her constant presence in our lives, why there was always a third chair at our table, even on our wedding anniversary. It was why I accepted that they shared every mundane detail of their days, while my own messages to him were met with curt, one-word replies. But the day I came home early from a business trip and found them tangled together, naked in our bed… that was the day I stopped tolerating anything. I filed for divorce, willing to walk away with nothing just to be free of him. I never expected that, shortly after, my mother would be diagnosed with a malignant tumor that required immediate surgery. A complex, risky surgery that only one person could perform. Eason Dassin. So, I went to him. I begged him. More chilling than my own emotional relapse was his response. "Hillary, you know how busy I've been since my promotion to department head." "However," he added, a smug little smile playing on his lips, "if the patient were my mother-in-law, I would certainly make the time to operate myself." He leaned in. "So… have you learned your lesson?" I stared at him, and under his triumphant gaze, I nodded. We got remarried. But a shattered mirror can’t be made whole again. We shared a bed, but we were strangers. Just like tonight. "Eason! I knew you hadn't left! I told you he'd never leave Sophie all alone!" Sophie's college roommate waved from across the parking lot, half-supporting a stumbling Sophie as they approached. "She's too beautiful to go home by herself. I was worried. You always used to be the one to drive her, right?" She shot me a pointed, mocking glance. "You, on the other hand… you're not exactly turning heads, are you, Hillary? You'll be fine getting home on your own." Eason looked at the drunk, clinging Sophie, then at me. He was torn. It turned out that no matter how many times I saw it, his hesitation still burned like a brand on my heart. But unlike before, I didn't scream or cry. I just held up my phone, my face a blank mask. "My car is here. I'm leaving." As my driver pulled up, Eason helped Sophie into the back of his car. He rolled down the window and looked up at me. "Go home and wait for me," he said. "I'm performing your mother's final surgery tomorrow. We need to go over the details tonight." Unsurprisingly, Eason never came home. But this time, I didn't wait up for him like a fool. If a breakup is a kind of withdrawal, then I had been forced through the agony of it twice. The first time, I had a complete breakdown. I deleted his number, threw out everything that reminded me of him. But after years together, his ghost was everywhere. The love letters he’d written were still tucked inside the books he gave me, every word a promise. The scarf he spent a month knitting, his fingers raw and pricked from the needles, his goofy smile as he urged me to try it on. He knew I loved stargazing, so he spent two months' worth of his part-time salary on a telescope, and proposed to me under a once-in-a-century meteor shower. "Hillary," he had said, "I have no parents, no one. I want to be yours. I want you to possess me, to control me." But later, he had said, "I see Sophie as the only family I have in this world. Hillary, why do you have to be so possessive?" Family? What kind of family sleeps together naked in the same bed? I'd heard the rumors about them back in school. They said Eason was a genius, a top scholar, and that the university had only accepted Sophie as a favor to him. They came from the same small fishing town, childhood friends. The connection was too close for comfort. "Her father adopted me," he had explained. "I would have died without him. It's a debt I have to repay. But Hillary, trust me. In my heart, she will only ever be a sister to me." I believed him. And it cost me five years of my life. To be honest, the first time I saw him after the divorce, my heart still hammered against my ribs. His phone's lock screen was still a photo of us together. It was as if nothing had changed. This remarriage was my second, self-prescribed round of withdrawal. I couldn't forgive him, couldn't pretend it never happened. But I also couldn't just walk away, couldn't make a clean break. Not yet. So, I decided to use a dull knife. Slow, painful, but thorough. And after six months, I was finally numb. Once my mother's final surgery was over, I could divorce him again, this time without any baggage. I had the papers drawn up already. A seventy-thirty split of our assets, in my favor. He was the one who broke our vows. It was only fair that he pay the price. But the next day, Eason vanished. The surgeon who was forced to take his place was sweating bullets. "We can't reach Dr. Dassin! You're his wife, you don't know where he is?" His voice was grim. "I have less than a ten percent chance of success with this procedure. You… you need to prepare yourself." Eason's phone went straight to voicemail. I called over a hundred times, my fingers moving mechanically, dialing the same number again and again until I was numb. And then, finally, someone picked up. "Eason, where the hell are—" "Oh, is this Hillary? Eason had to take me back to my hometown last minute. He's in the shower right now." My world went silent. My brain was pure static. The phone slipped from my hand, the screen shattering on the marble floor. In that split second, through the crackling speaker, I thought I heard Eason's voice. "Who was that? Was it Hillary?" "No, darling," Sophie cooed. "Just a spam call." For the next three hours, I knelt outside the operating room, praying, begging for my mother’s life. When the light above the door finally went out, a doctor came out holding a single sheet of paper. The death certificate. I handled the funeral by myself. For seven days, I moved through a fog. On the eighth day, Eason finally came back. "I'm sorry, I—" Before he could finish, I swung my hand and slapped him across the face, hard. "You bastard, Eason!" I screamed, my voice raw. "You killed my mother!" The force of the blow snapped his head to the side. But to my surprise, he didn't get angry. He just patiently explained, "Your mother's prognosis wasn't good. Even if the surgery had been a success, she would have suffered through endless rounds of chemotherapy." "Sophie's father was suddenly on his deathbed. If I hadn't gone with her, she might not have seen him one last time." I was shaking with so much rage I could barely form a sentence. I never imagined the cruelty could go deeper. "You grew up without a father," he said calmly. "It's normal that you wouldn't understand that kind of bond." I stared at him in disbelief, unable to connect the man in front of me with the loving person I once knew. He knew. He knew my father had died in his mistress's bed when I was eight years old. It was the deepest wound of my life. He had held me then, promising to protect me forever. In that moment, something inside me snapped. I grabbed anything I could reach and hurled it at him, screaming for him to die. He just watched me, his eyes cold and distant. When I was done, he said, "You know, Hillary, I prefer you like this." "Stop pretending," he added, turning to leave. "It's pointless." After he was gone, I collapsed onto the floor amidst the wreckage and sobbed until I had nothing left. I started to hate him. I hated him for taking the very knife I had given him and plunging it into my heart without a second thought. Then my phone buzzed. It was a text from Sophie. [Hey, Hillary. Heard about your mom. So sorry for your loss~] [It's all Eason's fault, really. I told him my dad just had a little cold, but he insisted on dropping everything to come home with me.] [But then again… you're the one who just had to have him back, right? If there's anyone to blame, it's yourself.] The messages sent me over the edge. I grabbed my phone and stormed into the hospital. I reported Eason and Sophie for their unprofessional conduct. I reported Eason for gross negligence, for abandoning a patient for personal reasons, resulting in my mother's death. But the hospital administration didn't launch an investigation. They just "invited" me into an office. They told me it was a "private matter" and they couldn't get involved. Their words were a veiled threat: Eason was a star surgeon, an asset they had paid a fortune to recruit. I should just drop it. Eason arrived while I was arguing with the hospital director. "How is this not his fault? My mother would still be alive if it weren't for him!" Eason said only one thing. "I apologize. My wife has been under a great deal of stress lately. Her mental state is… unstable." The looks of sympathy in the room instantly curdled into something else. They took a subconscious step back, creating a physical distance between us. Soon, it was just Eason and me in the small office. "Hillary. Apologize." I had cried so much my eyes were swollen nearly shut, but I could feel the weight of his condescending stare. "You shouldn't have made a scene here. What if this gets out? It could ruin Sophie's reputation." "So, I want you to apologize to her." I was done talking. I turned and reached for the door. I would go to the media, to the press. I would expose their dirty secret. Then I heard him sigh softly behind me. "Lili," he said, using my old nickname. "You're not leaving me any choice." As the youngest department head in the hospital's history, a celebrated prodigy in the medical field, it had taken him seven years to climb to his position. It only took him seven days to have me committed to a psychiatric hospital. I lost count of the times I insisted I wasn't sick, only to be met with higher doses of tranquilizers and tighter restraints. So I stopped fighting. I became calm. I waited for my chance. And finally, I got it. I escaped. I had no money, and I was still wearing the hospital's drab patient gown. People on the street avoided me like the plague. I finally found a kind girl in a nearby mall and begged to borrow her phone. But as I held it, I hesitated. Who could I call? The police? In my current state, they would most likely contact my sole legal guardian: Eason. That would only lead to being locked up again.
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