Chapter 2

My fingertips seemed to still hold traces of Tristan's gentle touch from last night.

His heartbroken sigh still echoed in my ears:

"How did you lose even more weight?"

So it wasn't heartbreak—it was fear.

Fear that I might actually fit into that ring. Fear that I might actually marry into the Foster family.

I turned my head. A nurse handed me a surgical consent form.

Bone reduction surgery carried extremely high risks.

Post-operative infection, nerve damage, even amputation after failure—all were common enough.

I shook my head and pushed away the pen the nurse offered me.

"I'm not going through with this surgery."

Relief bloomed across the nurse's face.

"Miss Smith, I'm so glad you've come to your senses. You're already very thin—there's no need to undergo such a dangerous procedure."

After saying goodbye to the nurse, I ran into Tristan at the hospital entrance... with Selene White.

Tristan's tone carried a hint of sternness, but more than that, heartache and indulgence.

"I told you to eat properly. Your checkup shows vitamin C deficiency. What if you become malnourished?"

Seeing me, he stopped talking.

And subtly removed the hand that had been resting on Selene's waist.

Selene's delusional disorder first manifested in my first year with Tristan.

That day, right in the middle of dinner, she grabbed a glass of red wine without warning and poured the entire thing on me.

She screamed and called me a homewrecker.

After two days at the police station and three days at the hospital, the result was:

She had delusional disorder, imagining Tristan was her lover.

It had reached the point where she'd attempt suicide over it.

Tristan said:

"Selene and I grew up together. She may have misunderstood certain feelings..."

"Selene's father died saving me. I can't just stand by and do nothing."

So we each compromised.

I accepted him placing Selene in the hospital, occasionally visiting to play the role of her lover.

He promised that aside from comfort, there would be no intimate actions.

The hand he'd just wrapped around Selene's waist had viciously pierced my eyes.

The two of them brushed past me.

Selene didn't see my face clearly. She just covered her mouth in shock and said:

"How can someone be that thin?"

She burrowed further into Tristan's embrace.

"Honey, are you worried I'll get that skinny, is that why you were scolding me? I'll listen to you from now on. I'll eat properly."

Hearing that intimate term of endearment, my stomach, which hadn't eaten in three days, suddenly cramped with pain.

Selene continued excitedly:

"Then I want strawberry cake later, and French cuisine..."

"Baby, why are you spacing out?"

Tristan withdrew the concerned gaze he'd fixed on me and said to her:

"Yeah, whatever you want to eat, I'll go buy it right away."

Less than a minute later, Tristan's assistant rushed over in a panic to support me.

"Miss Smith, Mr. Foster really can't get away..."

"I know. I'm fine."

I said this often.

He'd skipped our anniversary to feed Selene her medication.

I said: "I know. I'm fine."

He'd left home in the middle of the night to comfort Selene after she woke from a nightmare.

I said: "I know. I'm fine."

He'd abandoned me with a high fever to help Selene fix her toilet.

I said: "I know. I'm fine."

Over the past seven years, it was because of love that I was understanding, that I accommodated him.

But today, I truly was fine. And from now on, none of this would be my concern anymore.

I called my father.

"Dad, you were right."

"A ring that won't fit shouldn't get a second chance."