Chapter 2
The men were staring at the monitor with excitement. I followed their gaze and felt my breath stop.
On the night–vision camera feed, Tyler was pressing the woman against the wall, their bodies intertwined, as if he wanted to devour her, expressing all his longing.
In five years together, I had never seen Tyler so passionate and wild.
As if sensing something, he suddenly looked toward the camera, quickly covered Olivia with his jacket, and grabbed a prop skull to throw at the camera.
“GET LOST! You think you can look at my Liv? I’ll gouge your eyes out if you keep staring!”
The screen immediately turned to static. One of the men sheepishly rubbed his nose.
“It was so dark, and he covered her up so well. What could we even see? Why’s he so angry?”
“The other day I joked about checking Emma’s body, and Tyler just laughed and nodded. But with Olivia, she’s clearly his precious treasure. Totally different treatment.”
I clenched my fists tightly, then let them go in defeat.
When faced with an unbearable truth, your first reaction isn’t anger–it’s denial.
Even after my manager reminded me three times that I could remove my makeup and clock out, I was still so shocked that I seemed to be frozen in place.
I couldn’t believe that the man they described–the one who played with people’s feelings–was the man I’d loved for five years.
An hour later, Tyler emerged from the escape room with Olivia in his arms.
The bright light clearly illuminated his handsome face, shattering my self–deception once and for all.
Olivia’s neck was covered in love bites. She noticed the wound on my forehead and said apologetically:
“I’m so sorry about that. My boyfriend has a bit of a temper. Don’t take it personally, he’s just extremely possessive
of me.”
“Tyler, hurry up and make it up to her!”
Tyler’s gaze met mine, and for a moment I thought he recognized me.
I waited for him to explain or at least deny the title of “boyfriend.” Anything to make me feel less like a complete joke.
Instead, he just pulled out a checkbook, scribbled some numbers, tossed it at my feet, and coldly said:
10:01
Five years Lies He Gave, A Lonely Grave I Paved
0.9%
Chapter 2
“Keep your mouth shut. If I find out you’ve been spreading rumors and damaged Liv’s reputation, you’ll regret it.”
We’d been together for five years. I could recognize his silhouette in the dim room.
Yet here I stood before him, my face merely painted with makeup for my NPC role, and he was busy warning me not to damage his “girlfriend’s” reputation.
Did he truly not recognize me, or had I never mattered to him at all?
Tyler put his arm around Olivia and walked toward a Bentley outside, attentively opening the door for her, gently fastening her seatbelt, and driving away.
Not once did he look back at me.
I stared at the luxury car and felt bitterness rise within me.
Because of our debt and his mother’s medical bills, we supposedly couldn’t afford a used car. Every day, we relied on taking the subway and walking to shuttle back and forth between the places where we worked.
Countless times when luxury cars carrying beautiful women passed us, Tyler would point and tell me:
“Emma, just wait. Someday I’ll let you ride in a car like that. My passenger seat belongs only to you.”
Back then, I thought that even if we were so hard to live our life, if I had his promise, I was the happiest woman in the world.
Now he had his luxury car, but the woman in the passenger seat wasn’t me.
And I became the most ridiculous woman in the world.
