Chapter 1

At our seventh wedding anniversary party, my wife, Valerie, linked arms with her childhood best friend, Brody, drinking a cross-armed toast.

I clapped with cold detachment. In front of everyone, Valerie scolded me.

"It's just a harmless game between friends. Why are you so uptight? If anything was going on between me and Brody, you wouldn't have had the chance to marry me in the first place."

She stormed off in anger. That night, Brody changed his social media cover photo to an intimate shot of him holding hands with Valerie.

In the past, I would have charged over to Brody's place without hesitation, dragged Valerie out, and demanded to know if she truly loved me.

But this time, I didn't care anymore.

1

Valerie didn't come home until the next day.

At the time, I was out in the backyard cleaning up the aftermath of the party.

Yesterday had been our seventh wedding anniversary.

She used to say, "Everyone talks about the seven-year itch, but I don't believe in that nonsense."

"For our seventh anniversary, we'll invite all our friends and family over to show them just how happy we are."

Because of that single promise, I had started preparing three months in advance.

Every day after work, I dragged my exhausted body to cooking classes, learning to bake and mix cocktails for dishes I had never made before.

Yet my meticulously planned anniversary party became nothing more than a playground for her and Brody to flirt.

She had even stayed out the entire night for him.

"What happened to your finger?"

Noticing the cut on my index finger, Valerie asked casually.

I glanced down at my hand. "I cut it while chopping vegetables yesterday."

Valerie sneered. "You can't even handle a tiny thing like that. Is there anything you actually can do?"

The old me could never bear being seen as flawed in her eyes.

A single remark like that would have started a thirty-minute argument, followed by my almost obsessive drive to be perfect.

Now, even wasting half a breath felt exhausting.

Perhaps sensing my foul mood, Valerie bent down and reached for my hand. "Let me do it."

I pulled away from her touch, but she stubbornly reached out again.

As we jostled, I tripped over a patio chair and stumbled to the ground.

She let out a soft laugh. "So clumsy."

I said nothing, clutching my stomach in agony as my brows furrowed tight. A moment later, I coughed up a mouthful of blood, and her expression finally shifted in alarm.

Valerie frantically pulled me up. "What's wrong? We need to get you to the hospital!"

A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach, giving me a dreadful feeling. I didn't refuse her.

When we arrived at the hospital, we ran straight into Brody right in the lobby.

Looking pale and fragile, he leaned weakly into Valerie's arms. "Valerie, my stomach ulcers are flaring up again. It hurts so bad."

Valerie caught him instinctively before turning to me. "You probably just ate something bad and upset your stomach. It's no big deal. Just go register yourself at the counter. Brody's condition is serious and I'm worried about him, so I'm taking him to the ER."

I nodded calmly. "Okay, got it."

She froze, staring at me with a strange look in her eyes.

"You're not angry?"

I found it almost laughable.

Why would I be angry?

Was it because I wasn't screaming and throwing a fit like I used to?

The truth was, I simply didn't care anymore.

Whatever happened between her and Brody was none of my business now.

"If there's nothing else, I'm heading over."

I turned and walked away. The sound of her footsteps faded in the opposite direction, and I didn't look back once.

Later, as I coughed up more and more blood, the triage nurse spotted me and rushed me into an emergency room.

Years of heavy drinking at corporate dinners had finally caught up with me: I had a perforated ulcer.

The doctor asked, "Where is your family? You need emergency surgery to repair the perforation, and we need their signature."

Numbly pressing against my throbbing chest, I whispered, "I don't have any family."

I signed the consent form myself and was wheeled into the operating room alone.

From the anesthesia to the surgery, all the way until I regained full consciousness three hours later, Valerie didn't send a single text or call to check on me.