"Tara, what exactly happened? Tell us everything!"
Everyone laughed, but Tara suddenly turned blunt:
"Look at you! A monkey stealing peaches!"
Ethan swiftly blocked her playful attack, scolding jokingly, "You’re so rebellious!"
Amid the banter, he accidentally grabbed the string of her swimsuit, and it slipped loose.
Tara screamed, and Ethan, almost reflexively, hugged her tightly and yelled, "Turn around! Don’t look!"
The waves rolled beneath them.
He gently helped her tie the string again, his fingertips brushing her bare back.
Their eyes locked, sparks flew. At that moment, I watched the man I loved, standing in the sun, become a protector of another woman.
And I, fully armed with my bitterness, hid in a shadowed corner like a cockroach, peering into someone else’s happiness.
It was pathetic to see the father of my child instinctively shielding another woman.
Beside me, Henry instinctively moved forward, but I stopped him firmly.
After a long hesitation, I called Ethan.
From a distance, I saw his phone light up.
He glanced at it.
The phone rang once, then again.
He simply stared, never answering.
Tara pouted as she read the note: “wife.”
“You promised to stay with me. Don’t be distracted, and neither can she. Otherwise, I’ll ignore you.”
Ethan smiled, raised his hand, and dropped the phone into a glass overflowing with water.
He arched an eyebrow and said, “My little princess, satisfied now?”
Seeing Tara finally nod, Ethan lifted her above his head and spun her around.
The sea breeze carried her gleeful screams.
By the time I put down the phone I had been recording with, my tears had soaked through my mask.
Six years of my relationship with Ethan had amounted to nothing.
I steeled myself for hell to come.
Tired from playing, the group sat down to chat.
Tara’s voice drifted on the wind:
“Actually, on the night of Ethan’s wedding, I got drunk and said I just wanted to marry anyone. But he got so angry, he came to me in Nicole’s wedding dress.”
“Funny, right? We just played house like we did as kids, worshipping the moon and heaven and earth.”
My heart twisted. I thought of the custom wedding dress I had been waiting for. Ethan had said it was stained, sent it to the cleaners, and then lost it.
Tara smiled:
“I was joking, saying that after praying to heaven and earth, it was true—I wouldn’t marry again. But I wanted a child, and I was scared of the pain. Guess what this idiot did?”