You Hurt Me, So I Erased You from My Memory

"Do you think Silas will blame me for this?"

Before I could get an answer, Silas walked in.

He was taken aback by the scene before him, his eyes sweeping back and forth over me.

After a long pause, he finally said.

"Sue is still young and naïve. Your father's condition was beyond saving. Maybe ending things sooner was a mercy."

"I'll make sure to give your mother more money in the future."

The beeping sound from the monitor continued, each beep announcing my father's death.

I stood there, rooted to the spot. Besides the sadness and grief, there was also a sense of relief.

Silas ignored me and walked away, carrying Sue.

I collapsed on the ground, exhausted and kept apologizing to my father. Still, I wondered who had ever been sorry to me.

I pulled out a business card and made the call.

"Mr. Fox, please come pick me up tonight."

The same crematorium, the same ceremony.

This time, I left my father's ashes in the memorial hall.

When I returned to the Gills' residence, Silas wasn't back yet.

Those nine girls kept whispering in my ear that Silas was furious and I was doomed.

I paid them no mind. They persistently followed me, asking if I was really going to get a divorce.

I didn't answer, simply opening the bedroom door.

"Choose. Everything in here is yours."

When I said that, they swarmed in and the room was instantly emptied.

Only a few old photos of Silas and me from our younger days lay scattered on the floor, ignored by everyone.

I locked myself in my room and didn't come out all evening.

Silas sent Aunt May to ask about me then, but I simply had her hand him my divorce agreement.

"Another divorce."

"It's been a hundred times already, Juliette. Aren't you tired of playing this game?"

Silas tore the divorce agreement to shreds.

"Let her starve! Don't give her food until she stops acting up!"

Silas thought my divorce talk and my saying I didn't love him was also fake.

Still, love could truly run out.

Ten years. I really couldn't love that man anymore.

Now that I was alone, what else couldn't I let go of?

That night, I climbed out the window and entered Lester's car.

Silas didn't see me bustling around the dining room the next morning.

There was no toast he loved to eat on the table, nor was there any coffee I made by myself and there were no ironed and matched clothes on the hangers.

Silas rushed upstairs in a hurry and opened my room, but found it empty.

He picked up a few group photos on the ground and panicked.

"Aunt May! Where is Juliette?"

Aunt May rushed over after hearing the sound and she hadn't put down the spatula in her hand. She looked at the empty room and shook her head to indicate that she didn't know.

"I'll call her mother."

Aunt May was stunned and asked subconsciously.

"Sir, isn't Juliette's mother dead? She was cremated the day after."

Silas' mind flashed back to the scene of me holding the urn and his breath hitched momentarily.

He slowly bent down and gathered the photos from the floor. His eyes were empty, hollow like all life had drained out of him.

For ten years, he never thought that I would really leave him.