Chapter 3

Liquid dripped down my face.

I didn't bother with it.

Like a walking corpse, I pulled out tonight's lunch box of food I'd lovingly prepared.

Opened the lid, grabbed my fork, and mechanically stuffed the still-warm food into my mouth, chewing as if punishing myself.

But thinking about how this lunch box had also been at the lab tonight made my mouth, my stomach, churn with revulsion — like I'd swallowed countless needles.

I rushed to the bathroom and retched into the toilet.

As tears streamed from my eyes, the doorbell rang.

It was Ethan's supervisor.

"Fiona, Ethan's at City General Hospital. Get here quick!"

Instinctively, I asked: "What happened? Is he okay?"

Before he could answer, a strange woman's sobbing voice came through the phone:

"If it weren't for helping me get that corporate data, you wouldn't have been forced to drink so much you got gastric bleeding!"

"I'll go heat up some milk for you right now..."

Ethan's weak voice protested: "Don't... just stay with me. Let her do that kind of grunt work."

"Is that... appropriate?"

"Why wouldn't it be? Taking care of people is her only talent. Remember this — your hands are meant for writing papers, conducting experiments, winning awards. They shouldn't be wasted in a kitchen..."

My throat felt like it had been scraped raw, like a fire burning it over and over.

I stared at my gaunt, withered reflection in the mirror.

Suddenly I understood. In this genius physicist's eyes, I — his wife — was only fit for menial labor. Only fit to serve.

Elevate his mistress to the clouds.

Reduce his wife to a maid.

What a perfect arrangement.

"Fiona, Ethan's bleeding quite a bit. When are you coming?"

I wiped away my tears and spoke slowly into the still-connected call: "Boss, I won't be coming to the hospital. But feel free to invite me to the public denouncement when his affair with Miss Chloe gets exposed!"

I hung up. My heart felt no better.

I drifted ghost-like to the bedroom, gazing at the bright moon hanging high. Suddenly, I laughed softly.

Ethan had probably long forgotten that back then, I'd been the top student at our university besides him.

He'd already been specially recruited by the National Physics Research Institute.

For my sake, he'd secretly torn up that offer letter, insisting on going to another city with me for college.

I'd gotten angry at him for the first time: "Are you crazy? How can you waste your talent like this?"

He'd stubbornly shaken his head, his eyes redder than blood.

"Wherever you go, I go. Without you, I don't want anything!"

He'd even taken that offer letter covered in tape and knelt at my parents' door, kowtowing repeatedly.

"Uncle, Aunt, please believe me. Fiona is my entire life."

"I'd rather die than let her down."

When Ethan was serious, stars would appear in his eyes.

And I'd naturally believed him completely.

When he said forever, I thought he meant forever.

Later, I gave up my studies, became a homemaker, lost myself in his ever-ascending career, becoming increasingly marked by domestic mundanity.

I earned no praise, only insults calling me "useless."

Life really is full of reversals.

Just like tonight — I'd gone to the lab to tell him he was going to be a father.

What should have been a surprise turned into a nightmare.