Chapter 4Time Goes On

“What is it?”

“A ring.”

A few seconds of silence followed.

Then, the doctor’s voice turned solemn. “A wedding ring?”

“Yes.”

The doctor snapped, “This is absurd! This is absolute foolishness!”

Rustling sounds came from the other side of the curtain.

Stella whimpered softly, “It hurts… It’s all your fault…”

Finn reassured her in a low voice, “It’s my fault. Hang in there. It’ll be over in just a second.”

I lay on the other side of the curtain, completely motionless. That wedding ring took me three months to design and another three months of monitoring the crafting process.

The day Stella put it on, she had held up her hand and stared at it for a long time, saying, “I’ll wear this ring for the rest of my life. Even if I lose everything else, I will never lose this.”

Now, it was stuck inside her body—proof of her reckless fun with another man.

After about ten minutes, I heard the doctor sigh with relief. “Alright, it’s out. You young people should know your limits, even when having fun!”

“Yes, thank you, doctor. We’ll be careful!” Finn answered hastily.

With that, the doctor’s and nurse’s footsteps faded away. Then, with a heavy clink, something was tossed into a metal basin.

Stella’s voice came. “Aren’t we keeping the ring?”

Finn replied, “It’s filthy now. What’s the point of keeping it?”

Stella paused for a moment before saying, “Fine. Throw it away.”

I closed my eyes. The ring she swore to wear for the rest of her life, which took me three months to design and another three months to craft, was thrown away, just like that.

Finn asked softly, “So how are you going to explain this to your husband?”

Stella chuckled. “Explain what? It’s nothing important anyway. I’ll just get another one later.”

She paused and smiled, her voice lowered. “In fact, I’ll buy one for you too.”

Behind the curtain, it went quiet for a few seconds.

Then, Finn’s smug laughter came. “You’re terrible.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Tears trickled from the corners of my eyes, slipping past my temples and into my hair.

I raised my hand and pulled off the wedding ring on my left hand, revealing a pale patch of skin on my finger. Then, I unlocked my phone, snapped a photo of the ring, and uploaded it to a secondhand marketplace app.

I titled it, “Wedding ring, selling at a low price.” In the deion, I wrote, “Ex-wife is dead, so the ring is just sitting around. I’m selling the man’s ring. I already threw her ring in the trash.” After that, I hit publish.

Outside the curtain, the footsteps gradually drifted away as Finn left with his arm around Stella.

I placed my hand over my stomach as I thought to myself, ‘Stella, from now on, we’re even.’

…

The day I was discharged from the hospital happened to be the day Stella’s “quarantine” ended. At eight in the morning, she sent me a message.

[Baby, coming home today. Wait for me.]

I stared at that message for a long time before I decided to reply. My fingertips hovered over the screen for a while as I typed, deleted, and typed again.

In the end, I sent a simple message.

[I’m really sick. We need to talk.]

Once the message was sent, I set my phone down, sat on the couch, and waited. However, Stella never replied.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. I got up and opened the door to find Finn, not Stella, standing outside.

“Long time no see, Connor. Aren’t you going to invite me in for a chat?”

Finn’s voice was as cheerful as ever, but his eyes were filled with contempt as he sized me up.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

When I didn’t step aside, he smirked, squeezed past me on his own, and slipped inside. He walked straight into the living room and sat on the couch like he was the owner of the house.

“Oh, don’t be such a stranger. You’re not looking too good, Connor. Then again, after finding out about all those disgusting things, who could have a good night's sleep?”