Chapter 5

When I pushed open the villa door, the sensor light in the entryway immediately lit up, the glaring light making me squint instinctively.

Lucas was sitting on the living room sofa, holding a finance magazine. I noticed faint dark circles under his eyes.

Seven or eight empty coffee cans were scattered at his feet, like some bizarre warning line.

Seeing me return, he closed the magazine with a sound like a judge's gavel.

"Where have you been all these days?"

I bent down to change into slippers, feeling a dull pain in my lower back from the abortion surgery.

"Dealing with some personal matters."

I returned to my room and sat at the dressing table. The drawer was stuck; I yanked it hard, and a photo album slid out, hitting my foot.

I sat on the bed and opened the album.

The first photo was from our wedding. I was wearing a white wedding dress, a happy smile on my face, while he stood beside me, expressionless, looking at the camera.

Flipping further, there was a candid shot of me secretly looking at his profile during a birthday party. In the photo, he was on the phone, his brow furrowed like a distant mountain, while my hand holding the cake was white with nervousness.

The album was full of photos of us together, and photos of him.

But none of just me.

In every photo, there was an unbridgeable distance between us.

When there was a knock on the door, I flipped the album face down on my lap.

"Come in."

Lucas entered with a bag that seemed to contain medicine.

"We're out of gastritis medicine at home. This is for you."

I didn't say much, just a flat, "Oh, thanks."

He stood at the door like a statue, his shadow stretched by the light, crawling up to the foot of my bed.

Seeing he wasn't leaving, I frowned and asked, "Anything else?"

He shook his head and then left the room.

I went over and picked up the medicine he had brought me, throwing it all in the trash, along with the photo album.

In 10 days, in this villa, I would only need to take myself away.