At six the next morning, Ta Canh Tham was still asleep.

I stood beside the bed for several seconds.

Three years.

That was how long I had slept beside this man.

I knew the rhythm of his breathing.

The way his eyebrows tightened when he dreamed.

The exact temperature he preferred the room at night.

Yet I had never really known what place I occupied in his heart.

I turned away.

My luggage was already downstairs.

There wasn’t much.

Documents.

Several pieces of jewelry that belonged to my mother.

My old sketchbooks.

And the design tools I had locked away after marriage.

I left everything Ta Canh Tham had bought me.

Including the wedding ring.

I placed it on his bedside table.

Underneath was a single sheet of paper.

Divorce agreement.

No letter.

No accusations.

Nothing else.

At 8:40 a.m., my plane left for Paris.

Two hours later, Ta Canh Tham boarded his flight to Iceland with Kieu Tam Nghi.

He didn’t call me that day.

Or the next.

Apparently, he truly believed I was still at home waiting.

On the third day, I received a message.

The northern lights are beautiful. Next time I’ll bring you.

There was a photograph attached.

A sky filled with green light.

In the lower corner, reflected faintly in a car window, was the figure of a woman standing beside him.

Kieu Tam Nghi.

I didn’t reply.

I was sitting inside the studio I had abandoned three years earlier.

Everything still smelled faintly of wood, metal and polishing powder.

My former assistant, Sophie, cried the moment she saw me.

“You actually came back.”

“I did.”

She hugged me.

Then pulled away and looked at me carefully.

“Are you staying?”

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

The Paris High Jewelry Association had already prepared my return.

What I had expected to be a quiet meeting became something much larger.

Three luxury houses wanted collaboration rights.

A Swiss auction company wanted to relaunch Eternal Night.

And one of Europe’s largest jewelry groups offered me creative control of a new collection.

All under one condition.

L.M. had to return publicly.

I agreed.

Five days later, Ta Canh Tham returned home.

He called me at 7:13 p.m.

Once.

Twice.

Then seventeen times.

I answered the eighteenth.

“An Nhien.”

His voice was different.

“Where are you?”

“Paris.”

Silence.

“What?”

“Paris.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Working.”

He seemed unable to understand the word.

“Working?”

“Yes.”

“Come home.”

“No.”

Another silence.

Then his voice hardened.

“Stop acting impulsively.”

I smiled.

“I left five days ago.”

“You didn’t even tell me.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to Iceland with Kieu Tam Nghi either.”

His breathing stopped.

“How did you know?”

“I saw the group chat.”

This time, the silence lasted much longer.

Finally:

“An Nhien, listen to me. That trip was promised before we married.”

“I know.”

“There is nothing between us.”

“I know.”

“She’s getting engaged.”

“I know.”

My calm answers seemed to make him increasingly uneasy.

“If you know everything, why did you leave?”

I looked at the Paris skyline outside my window.

“Because knowing the explanation doesn’t make the choice acceptable.”

He lowered his voice.

“I told you I would compensate you.”

“I don’t need compensation.”

“Then what do you want?”

“The divorce.”

He laughed once.

A disbelieving sound.

“You’re ending three years of marriage over a trip?”

“No.”

I answered quietly.

“I’m ending it over three years.”

He stopped speaking.

The next morning, my return was officially announced.

The headline appeared across several European fashion publications.

L.M. RETURNS AFTER THREE-YEAR ABSENCE.

Within hours, Chinese media picked it up.

By noon, Ta Canh Tham called again.

This time, he didn’t mention Iceland.

He said only:

“You’re L.M.?”

“Yes.”

“You never told me.”

I almost laughed.

“You never asked.”

He went silent.

Before marriage, he knew I had studied jewelry design in Paris.

But he had never cared enough to ask what I had done there.

After we married, whenever I opened a sketchbook, he would say:

“You don’t need to work. The Ta family can support you.”

So I stopped talking about it.

Eventually, he mistook my silence for emptiness.

Three weeks later, my first returning collection was unveiled.

Its name was:

Departure.

The centerpiece was a necklace composed of two lines of diamonds that began intertwined and gradually separated.

At the end, each line held its own stone.

Separate.

Complete.

The collection sold out before midnight.

Ta Canh Tham arrived in Paris two days later.

He waited outside my studio for nearly four hours.

When I finally came downstairs, the irony almost made me smile.

He had once made me wait three years.

Now four hours already seemed unbearable to him.

“An Nhien.”

He stepped forward.

“You blocked me.”

“Yes.”

“I came all this way.”

“That was your decision.”

His face tightened.

“Are you really going to divorce me?”

“Yes.”

“What about Grandmother?”

My heart softened for one second.

Then steadied.

“Your grandmother asked me to give you time.”

“I gave you three years.”

“She never asked me to give you my entire life.”

He looked away.

After a moment, he said:

“I ended things with Tam Nghi.”

“There was apparently nothing to end.”

He flinched.

“I won’t see her again.”

“That’s between you and her.”

His voice became rough.

“What do you want me to do?”

I looked at him.

For years, I had dreamed of hearing that question.

Now I finally knew the answer.

“Nothing.”

His eyes changed.

“That’s impossible.”

“No.”

I smiled faintly.

“It’s freedom.”

The divorce was finalized four months later.

Only afterward did I hear what happened with Kieu Tam Nghi.

Her engagement had never been as secure as she claimed.

The Iceland trip was partly her attempt to prove to her fiancé that Ta Canh Tham would still choose her whenever she called.

It worked.

Too well.

Her fiancé canceled their engagement after photographs from Iceland surfaced.

Then she turned to Ta Canh Tham.

But by then, he wanted nothing to do with her.

For the first time, both of them had lost the person who had always tolerated their games.

A year later, I returned to North City for an exhibition.

Ta Canh Tham attended.

He stood quietly at the back of the hall.

After everyone left, he approached the display containing Departure.

He stared at the necklace for a long time.

“Was this about us?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

His expression changed.

“It was about me.”

He looked at me.

I continued:

“The moment I realized leaving someone doesn’t mean losing yourself.”

He lowered his eyes.

Then he whispered:

“I thought you would always wait.”

“I know.”

That was the tragedy.

He had not believed I was happy.

He had simply believed I would stay.

I walked past him.

Three years earlier, I returned from Paris because I thought love meant choosing someone over everything else.

Three years later, I returned to Paris because I finally understood something better.

Real love should never require you to disappear so completely that the person beside you forgets you ever had a name of your own.

Ta Canh Tham lost Mrs. Ta.

But Paris got L.M. back.

And this time,

I had no intention of abandoning her again.