I didn't expect Cedric's "future" to arrive so soon.
After work, just as I reached my doorstep, I saw my ex-husband and Alaric squatting on the ground. Beside them was a massive bottle of mineral water, half-empty.
Alaric's eyes lit up when he saw me, and he spread his arms, rushing toward me.
I stepped aside.
Lowering my head, I sent a message to Cedric. When I looked up again, I saw tears welling in Alaric's eyes.
His reddened eyes looked pitiful and aggrieved as he asked, "Mommy, do you really not want me anymore?"
"You were the one who said you wanted Daddy and not me," I told him calmly. "I made it clear that day: I no longer have a son like you."
"Mommy—"
"Evelyn!"
My ex-husband suddenly stood up in anger, walking toward me to confront me.
"He's your biological son. How can you be so heartless?"
I looked at him impassively, my gaze making him falter. His tone softened involuntarily.
"Children say things without thinking. He doesn't understand. Don't hold it against him."
"I'm sincerely here to bring you home this time, Evelyn."
My ex-husband told me earnestly,
"I realize I was wrong. I shouldn't have treated you that way before. Come back with me, okay? Let's live together as a family of three."
I bit my tongue, finding it laughable. "Have you been to a hospital?"
"What?"
"I suggest you see a neurologist. Brain problems shouldn't be ignored; early treatment might buy you a few more years."
"You—"
"What?"
I took two steps back, meeting his angry gaze with a cold smirk.
"I admit I married above my station, but I was upfront with you before the wedding. If you couldn't accept my background, you shouldn't have married me. I wouldn't have blamed you."
"But what did you do? You swore you'd treat me well, only to throw me into your family's old house after the wedding, leaving me at the mercy of your mother's torment."
"You thought I was embarrassing and wouldn't let me work. You thought I was faceless and wouldn't let me make friends. For three hundred days a year, I was confined to that old house, waiting for your occasional visits."
"When your childhood sweetheart returned, even breathing in her presence was a mistake. You insulted me daily, even making me clean the floors with cold water while pregnant."
"Maybe your memory failed, but mine hasn't. I remember it all, crystal clear."
Grabbing a leftover wooden stick from nearby renovations, I swung it at him without hesitation.
Blow after blow landed heavily on him.
He didn't dodge. He just stood there, his eyes bloodshot. Blood seeped through his shirt, staining his suit pants in large patches of red. Yet he remained there, staring at me, stubbornly pleading:
"If you've vented your anger, will you come back with me?
"I was wrong. I truly realize my mistakes. I didn't know you suffered so much... Evelyn, will you come back with me?"
A soft chuckle broke the silence.
"What's an apology worth if it's just words?"
Cedric walked up behind me, his hand covering mine over the wooden stick.
He leaned close to my ear. "A little bruise doesn't mean anything. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't itch, and it won't even leave a scar."
"Evelyn, you know where men are the most vulnerable, don't you?"
With that, he guided my hand and swung the stick hard toward my ex-husband's lower body.
The entire hallway echoed with his agonized screams.
Shivering, he clutched himself in pain, rolling on the ground and banging his head against the wall repeatedly.
Cedric removed his glasses and used the hem of my shirt to wipe them clean before putting them back on.
Through the clear lenses, his sharp gaze bore down on the writhing man below.
"Can't even endure this?"
"When Evelyn was giving birth, the pain she endured was a thousand times worse than this. It's equivalent to breaking over a dozen ribs at once, yet she didn't scream half as much as you are now."
His thin lips parted slightly, and he spat out a word:
"Pathetic!"
