Chapter 157
The air was thick with tension; something dangerous hung between us. My body trembled slightly. I took a deep breath and forced my voice to be steady. “I haven’t changed. You have.”
Suddenly, I found it all absurd. After everything, Jonathan finally realized something was amiss. Were we even really husband and wife? They say the closest people can become the most distant, and now I understand that. Our dreams couldn’t have been further apart, even sharing the same bed.
Since waking from my suicide attempt, we’d spent enough time together for me to understand who he was now, but he knew absolutely nothing about the woman sleeping beside him. If we had truly been in love, he would have noticed the changes long ago, but he hadn’t.
I stared at him, eyes filled with cold sarcasm. “What exactly seems ‘off’ to you, Jonathan? That I’m not running after you like I used to, begging for your attention, waiting for you to just look at me? That I’m not acting like some bitter wife, following you around and freaking out every time you talk to another woman? That I’m not a complete mess of a ‘love-drunk’ idiot anymore? That I’m not throwing away my pride and my life, just trying to squeeze into yours? That I stopped loving you so pathetically, and now you don’t know what to do with me?”
Jonathan didn’t say a word. He just stared, stunned. Since losing my memory, I hadn’t really opened up to him. All I’d done was push him away. Because deep down, I knew something with painful clarity—he might be my husband, but he wasn’t someone I could trust.
Inside, I was still that 18-year-old girl who used to look down on those girls who lost themselves over love; girls whose entire world revolved around a man, who let love dictate every part of their lives. How could I ever become one of them? That’s why, instinctively, I rejected him.
But I hadn’t expected that, in a moment like this, I’d suddenly spill everything I’d been holding in—fear, frustration, all of it—messy and unfiltered. “Jonathan, please… I’m begging you. Just let me go.”
I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him, and turned my head. My hair brushed against the sheets, two silken textures meeting. It felt like something was slipping through my fingers, fast.
“I don’t want anything else right now, I just want a divorce. I mean it; I can’t live like this anymore. I know you’re angry about what happened tonight, angry that I was with Frederick. But all those days and nights I spent watching you with Alicia, acting like you were more than just close… Do you think that didn’t hurt me?”
Jonathan let out a deep breath, like he was trying to hold something back. “I told you, there’s nothing between Alicia and me except a sibling bond. It’s not the same with Frederick. He stayed close to us under the guise of being a friend, but he already confessed to you. He’s had feelings for you for a long time,” he said.
“So what if he did?” I cut him off. “Has he ever acted on it these past five years? When he found out I got married, did he try to interfere?”
I looked Jonathan straight in the eye, not holding back. “No, right? All these years, he never once got in the way of our lives. After I married you, he stopped contacting me completely. When I reached out to him again, we were practically strangers, and I almost didn’t recognize him! And now, someone who’s barely been in my life—you think something is going on between us? That we’re being inappropriate? If that’s how you see it, don’t you think your expectations are a little unfair? Jonathan, have you ever considered that your standards only apply when they benefit you? You’re lenient with yourself and harsh with others. Is that what this is? Just your double standards showing?”