“Evelyn, I’m your mom now too. Call me ‘Mom,’ and I’ll give you a red packet! How about that?”
“Or I’ll buy you new clothes!” she added sweetly.
Evelyn clenched her fists. She stayed silent at first, then shouted, her voice trembling with rage, “I won’t call you that! You’re the mistress! You stole my dad!”
The woman’s smile froze and her father’s hand came down hard on Evelyn’s face.
“How dare you speak like that?! Is this what your mother has been teaching you?!”
The woman stepped in, her tone soft but tinged with defeat. “Don’t hit her. She’s just going through a rebellious phase—it’s normal that she doesn’t like me.”
Her father sighed, resting a hand on the woman’s stomach. “I hope our future child won’t grow up to be like this.”
That was the moment Evelyn realized—her father no longer had room for her in his heart. He had a new family now. She ran out crying, wiping her face as she went and from that day on, he barely reached out to her.
It took nearly a decade for Evelyn to come to terms with it. People leave. Parents, lovers—it doesn’t matter. In the end, everyone leaves.
By the time she graduated college and her mother announced she was remarrying, Evelyn accepted it without protest. She’d already learned to expect abandonment.
But then came Christopher.
Despite all her scars, she gave him everything—her trust, her heart, her love—without hesitation. And just when she thought she’d finally found someone to hold onto, she discovered the truth.
There was someone else.
For the sake of that other woman, Christopher belittled her, punished her and humiliated her. Even when Evelyn spiraled into depression, even after she attempted to end her life multiple times, he barely noticed.
No one in this world had ever truly cherished her—not her father, not her mother, not Christopher.
Love always has an expiration date. Once it’s over, it’s gone forever.
Evelyn had once fought against that truth, but now she’d experienced it so often that she’d grown numb.
When she finally opened her eyes, two days had passed. An IV drip was attached to her hand and a fever-reducing patch rested on her forehead.
The first thing she saw was Christopher’s hand reaching out, his palm hovering above her forehead as if to check her temperature.
Evelyn’s eyelashes fluttered as she slowly opened her eyes. For a moment, her blurry gaze locked with Christopher’s before he quietly withdrew his hand.