Chapter 3

I took a deep breath: "After you got out of prison, you found me being forced by gang members to be their girlfriend.

"You worked your way up to become their boss and warned them not to disturb my studies.

"Back then you waited for me at the school gate every day. Have you forgotten?"

Matthias looked down.

"Later, the teacher told you to stop bothering me. You were upset and almost took it to the administration.

"But he said...

"Don't you know how much you'd ruin my future—an ex-con gang member marrying me?"

I smiled bitterly: "You didn't sleep that night. The next day you became an apprentice at a hardware store near the school.

"You built it up bit by bit into what it is today.

"You were eighteen that year. You said you'd make your love a force that lifts me up. How am I supposed to forget that?"

The room held only my questions and his silence.

After a long while, he turned back:

"That's your problem." The door closed.

Those memories—I was the only one still treasuring them.

Beautiful memories can kill too, apparently.

I don't know how long I stood there.

When I came to, I had already drafted a divorce agreement.

Unsurprisingly, Matthias was at Rachel's place.

I came to the door. Rachel's laughter drifted out:

"What did you mean by publicly announcing you're giving me the seal that was meant for Christiana? Don't forget, I'm your father's woman now."

Through the crack in the door, I saw Matthias pull Rachel onto his lap.

He looked at her with the same tenderness he once showed me:

"I want everyone to know that my love for you, Matthias's love, is a force that lifts you up."

The divorce papers fell to the floor.

At eighteen, starting as an apprentice, he said he'd make his love lift me up.

At twenty-eight, holding the woman his mother said looked so much like me, his words were identical.

Christiana, you really haven't grown up.

The man who once stained his hands with blood to keep you from being defiled.

Now he can mock you for not going out and sleeping with someone.

Only you still cling to his former purity, unable to accept his change.

"What are you doing here?"

Steve's childish voice came from behind me.

I snapped back to reality and quickly left.