For several seconds, I could hear nothing except my own heartbeat.
Serena Song.
Nathan had spoken that name when we were twelve.
Years before the woman I knew as Serena supposedly entered our lives.
I looked at Mrs. Zhou.
“You know.”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“Know what?”
“Why Nathan knew Serena when we were children.”
The color disappeared from her face.
That was enough.
I stood slowly.
“Tell me.”
Mrs. Zhou looked toward my belly and then closed her eyes.
“That kidnapping changed Nathan.”
“I know.”
“No, Lily. You know what happened to you.”
Her voice trembled.
“You don’t know what happened after you were separated.”
I froze.
During the kidnapping, there had been several children.
But there had also been a girl who helped the kidnappers.
Not an adult.
A child.
A thin girl with dirty clothes who carried food into the room.
Nathan had secretly spoken with her.
According to Mrs. Zhou, her name had been Serena.
“She was the daughter of one of the extremists,” Mrs. Zhou said. “Her mother wanted to escape.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“Serena helped Nathan send information to the soldiers.”
Suddenly, pieces of a forgotten memory returned.
Nathan whispering near the wall.
A folded scrap of paper disappearing beneath a food tray.
The rescue team finding us much faster than anyone expected.
“Afterward,” Mrs. Zhou continued, “Serena and her mother were placed under protection.”
“And Nathan?”
“He believed Serena would be killed if anyone knew she had helped.”
I remembered his bloody hand clutching mine.
Don’t let Serena find out.
I had remembered the sentence incorrectly.
Not:
Don’t let Serena find out.
But:
Don’t let them find Serena.
My knees weakened.
I sat down again.
“So he knew her all along.”
Mrs. Zhou nodded.
“Years later, when Serena returned as a war correspondent, Nathan recognized her immediately.”
“And fell in love with her.”
Mrs. Zhou said nothing.
That silence hurt.
But unlike my previous life, I did not collapse.
I had already accepted that Nathan loved Serena.
The mystery did not change that.
“What are the seven days for?”
Mrs. Zhou looked at me.
“Because Nathan doesn’t know about the divorce papers yet.”
“What?”
“He left for an operation this morning.”
She swallowed.
“And before leaving, he gave me something intended for you.”
She took an envelope from her handbag.
My name was written in Nathan’s handwriting.
Inside was a military transfer application.
Nathan had requested reassignment to a border command thousands of kilometers away.
Alone.
No Serena.
No me.
Attached was another page.
A medical report.
My pregnancy.
He knew.
My hand began trembling.
“When did he find out?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Before the photograph.
Before Disneyland.
Before my divorce request.
“He knew I was pregnant and still—”
“Read the letter.”
I almost refused.
Then I opened it.
Nathan had written only a few paragraphs.
He said he knew our marriage had become a prison for me.
He admitted that accepting the marriage because of family pressure had been cowardly.
He admitted that every month when I demanded his “husband obligations,” he saw how desperately I was trying to save something he had never learned to give.
And then came the sentence that stopped me.
I did not give Serena the life I wanted to give you. I gave her the freedom I was too ashamed to give myself.
I stared at the words.
Nathan explained that what he felt for Serena had begun with guilt.
She had saved our lives as a child.
Years later, she returned carrying the same scars and the same reckless desire to enter dangerous places.
He protected her because he believed he owed her.
Then admiration became affection.
Maybe love.
He did not excuse it.
He wrote:
I betrayed you long before that photograph, because I remained your husband while my heart was elsewhere.
For the first time, Nathan had told the truth.
Too late.
But truth nevertheless.
At the bottom was another sentence.
When the child is born, I will provide everything required of me as a father. But I will not use the child to force you to remain my wife.
I folded the letter.
Mrs. Zhou whispered:
“Seven days.”
I looked at her.
“You expect this letter to change my mind?”
“No.”
Her answer surprised me.
“I want Nathan to have seven days to come home and face what he has done himself.”
He returned on the fifth day.
I was packing.
Nathan entered without warning and saw the suitcase beside the door.
Then his eyes moved to my belly.
Finally, to the signed divorce agreement on the table.
He became very still.
“My mother told you.”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Enough.”
He took off his military cap.
For once, Major General Nathan Zhou looked like nothing more than a tired man.
“I received the divorce papers yesterday.”
“And?”
“I signed them.”
I stared at him.
He placed the document beside mine.
His signature was already there.
No argument.
No delay.
No threat.
In my previous life, I had spent decades waiting for him to choose me.
In this one, when I finally chose myself, he did not stop me.
And strangely, that hurt more gently.
Nathan looked toward my suitcase.
“Where will you go?”
“My parents’ house first. Then perhaps Shanghai.”
He nodded.
“And the baby?”
I stiffened.
“Our child.”
His voice became quieter.
“I know.”
“If you don’t want me involved—”
“I’m not taking your child from you.”
Nathan finally looked directly at me.
Something complicated moved through his eyes.
“Thank you.”
There it was again.
Thank you.
The phrase that once made me feel like a stranger.
But this time, I understood.
Perhaps gratitude was the only language Nathan had ever learned for tenderness.
Unfortunately, it was not enough for marriage.
I picked up my suitcase.
Before leaving, I asked one final question.
“Did you love me at all?”
Nathan closed his eyes.
A long time passed.
“When we were children, I thought protecting you was the most important thing in the world.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
He opened his eyes.
“I cared for you. I respected you. I was responsible for you.”
His voice broke slightly.
“But if I say I loved you the way you wanted, I would be lying again.”
Oddly, I smiled.
“Thank you for finally not lying.”
The divorce became official two months later.
Serena never became Nathan’s wife.
I learned that much accidentally.
She returned to the border as a correspondent.
Nathan did not follow.
Perhaps they loved each other.
Perhaps they only carried too much shared history to understand the difference.
It was no longer my question to answer.
My daughter was born in spring.
Nathan visited the hospital carrying no flowers.
Only a tiny pair of ridiculous military-green socks.
I laughed when I saw them.
“You bought those?”
“The shop assistant said they were practical.”
“She’s three days old.”
He looked genuinely uncertain.
“I have no experience.”
“You’ll learn.”
And he did.
Not as my husband.
As her father.
Years passed.
I built a small design studio from the craft work I had once done alone while waiting for Nathan to come home.
It became successful.
Then larger.
Eventually, I stopped thinking of my second life as something defined by escaping him.
It became simply mine.
Nathan remained in the military.
We spoke about our daughter.
School.
Health.
Birthdays.
Nothing more.
On her tenth birthday, she asked why we had never married each other again.
Nathan and I looked at one another.
Then I answered:
“Because sometimes two people can care deeply about each other and still be happier walking different roads.”
Nathan nodded.
Our daughter considered this seriously.
Then ran away to eat cake.
He watched her go.
“Lily.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
In my first life, I would have traded everything to hear those words.
Now I only smiled.
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“You don’t hate me?”
“No.”
I thought of the dark album.
True Love.
A lifetime where I had measured my worth by whether I appeared in another person’s photographs.
“I wasted one life trying to make you love me.”
I looked toward our daughter laughing with her friends.
“I wasn’t going to waste the second one hating you.”
Nathan lowered his eyes.
And that was how our story finally ended.
Not with Serena.
Not with revenge.
Not with Nathan suddenly discovering that I had been his true love all along.
That would have been another lie.
I was reborn believing my greatest victory would be making Nathan regret losing me.
Instead, I discovered something far better.
I stopped needing his regret.
