Chapter 3

Julian vaguely felt I had changed, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He meticulously cleaned the amulet and handed it to Seraphina. “This is my most precious amulet. It’s yours now.”

“Julian, Anya seems upset. You should go back to her,” Seraphina gently advised.

“Whether she’s upset or not, what does it matter to me?” Julian said. “Let’s go!”

…

The clock on the wall struck midnight. Julian still wasn’t home.

In the past, I would have called everyone around him, asking about his whereabouts and persuading him to come home. After all, he’d had two brain surgeries and couldn’t stay up late.

Now, I was busy getting rid of everything, unwilling to waste time on insignificant people. I instructed Martha to inventory all the gifts I had given Julian over the years. They filled five large boxes. There were watches worth tens of thousands of dollars, calligraphy and paintings, and 136 custom-made suits. There were also 238 love letters Julian had once written to me.

I had once tried to use these passionate letters to awaken his love and memories. But I hadn’t known that my roommate, Seraphina, had secretly sabotaged me, delaying my visit to Julian in the hospital. When I rushed to the hospital with the love letters, a conscious Julian was holding Seraphina’s hand tightly. His eyes were full of deep affection. “Seraphina, I’ll be good to you my entire life!”

“I’ll make you a superstar!”

I was shocked and heartbroken, desperately wanting to prove my identity with the love letters and the amulet. Instead, I was met with Julian’s cold accusation, “What a scheming and manipulative woman. How dare you secretly replace my name in the love letters I wrote for Seraphina with yours?”

“And you even deliberately got the same tattoo on your chest as mine and stole the amulet I gave Seraphina?”

“You’re utterly despicable!”

The boy who once loved me so deeply now only believed Seraphina’s fabricated lies, looking at me with nothing but disgust and disdain. No matter how his friends explained, Julian was convinced that I had painstakingly tried to steal Seraphina’s place. He even threatened to cut ties with them if they continued to speak on my behalf!

Thinking about the eight years I spent chasing Julian, the hopeless waiting, and his mockery, tears blurred my vision. If he truly loved me, how could he have no physical memory of me, mistaking someone else for his girlfriend? How could he hurt me so deeply, not giving me an ounce of trust?

Ultimately, Julian didn’t love me enough, which was why he so easily fell for someone else’s manipulation!

I suppressed the bitterness in my heart and tossed my wedding ring into the trash. Then I doused the discarded items with gasoline.

Martha, the housekeeper, retrieved the ring from the trash. “Madam, this is the lily wedding ring Mr. Hayes personally carved for you when he was sixteen. You can’t throw it away!”

“And these gifts and love letters were once Mr. Hayes’s most cherished possessions. He won’t be able to bear it if you burn them.”

“Please give Mr. Hayes more time. He loves you so much, he’ll definitely regain his memory!”

“Whether Julian regains his memory or not, I don’t want him anymore.” I tossed the lit lighter onto the clothes. “The Julian I loved died when he was sixteen. He’s never coming back.”

The soaring flames illuminated my cold eyes, filled with endless sorrow, but more so, with a hopeful anticipation for the future. In 62 hours, I would vanish completely with my son, leaving Julian with absolutely nothing!