“Alexa, have you made up your mind?” the mentor’s voice carried a hint of disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to marry Marcel in three days?”
Two days before the art exhibition, my former mentor approached me and asked if I was interested
in pursuing opportunities abroad.
At that time, I said, “I was going to get married and wanted to accompany him to develop here.”
The mentor was very regretful, and she said that if I changed my mind, I could always find her.
“Yes, I have made up my mind,” I looked at the door that had not been opened again, “I will go with
you.”
Now I understand, some things cannot be forced, so let it go.
It has been enough for so many years of wishful thinking.
I returned home, tidied up my belongings, and wiped away the traces of my life.
When Marcel came back, he visibly paused for a moment upon seeing that half of the house was
empty.
He looked at me and said, “Why did you suddenly start packing things?”
I lowered my eyes and said, “I’m tired of looking at it, I want to change.”
Marcel breathed a sigh of relief and placed a card next to me, saying, “Since you’re tired of it, let’s change it. You can choose whatever you want to change to.”
“The partner gave some perfumes and cosmetics, so if you like any, you can pick them.”
I looked at those exquisitely packaged high–end products, without exception, they were all complimentary gifts.
I shook my head, but before I could say anything, Marcel eagerly spoke up.
“By the way, Alexa, Nyla’s rental house had a power outage, and she will be staying here for one night.”
“Can I let her sleep in the guest bedroom?”
I burst into laughter, clearly having done everything else, and now you still have to put on a show in front of me.
4.84%
Anyway, I couldn’t stay for many days, so I nodded and said, “Don’t let her into my room.”
I entered the studio and saw Marcel, whom I had painted over the years – happy, disappointed, confident, and excited. Clearly, the face in the painting was no different from before, but the person
depicted in the painting was never the same again.
I moved in a paper shredder and turned all the paintings into pieces of shredded paper.
Everything should have ended.
While I was shredding paper, my phone suddenly lit up and I received a message from an unknown number. I opened it and saw that it was from Nyla.
In the picture, she was wearing pajamas, snuggling in Marcel’s arms, and the two of them were in
an ambiguous posture.
“Do you know that it is the one who is not loved that is the intruder?”
“I heard that you really wanted him to come to your art exhibition? But every time he refuses you,
he would be all over me.”
“By the way, you didn’t know, but every time you brought two portions of food, Mr. Doyle and I would eat them together. After finishing one portion together, we often couldn’t help ourselves… and then when we got hungry, we would eat the other portion.”
“And, do you still like those leftover cosmetics that I picked out?”
I closed my eyes and realized that I, his girlfriend of many years, was just a pawn in the game
between him and Nyla.‘
My gaze
before.
fell upon the cosmetics on the table… In my memory, Marcel had given me cosmetics
At that time, he always couldn’t remember our anniversary, and I got angry. I didn’t talk to him for
a week.
Later, he came to me with a suitcase of cosmetics to apologize. He said he was a straight guy and couldn’t remember the thoughts of young girls. If he did anything wrong to make me angry, I could hit him or scold him, just as long as I didn’t ignore him.
But today I just realized that he wasn’t like that with everyone.
He remembered the time of Nyla’s menstrual period every month, remembered Nyla’s birthday, and even remembered to give her gifts to please her.
Chanter 3
4.84%
He would also share an ice cream cone with the woman he liked, would kiss the back of his lover’s
hand, and would go shopping with her during work hours.
The only person who could make him willingly do these things was not me.
For the next two days, I didn’t go back home and focused all my attention on the preparation for the
final art exhibition.
Marcel initially praised me for not caring about the details and not being concerned with Nyla. But
he started asking, “Alexa, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you responding to any messages?”
later on,
I looked at the chat history with Marcel, and from beginning to end, it was filled with long paragraphs of green. The number of times he messaged me was few and far between.
So I replied evasively, “I was busy with work.”
On the day of the art exhibition, the assistant Lacey, who had gone to pick up the painting, suddenly
called me.
“Alexa, is the final painting not being displayed anymore?”
I sat in the car on the way to the airport, quite surprised. “Why would you say that?”
