Hua Nhung stared at me.

“Punished you how?”

I immediately changed the subject.

“Restaurant. Aren’t you hungry?”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Ky Duong.”

“I’m starving.”

That ended the interrogation.

Or at least postponed it.

That night, we ate until almost eleven.

For the first time in years, I didn’t look at the clock.

I didn’t send anyone my location.

I didn’t receive ten messages asking when I would return.

I ordered another dessert simply because I wanted one.

When we left the restaurant, Hua Nhung suddenly stopped.

“What?”

She pointed across the street.

A black car.

The same one I had seen outside my apartment.

Before I could get a clear look, it drove away.

Hua Nhung crossed her arms.

“Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”

I laughed.

“Maybe General Manager Bui has suddenly developed an interest in urban parking.”

But the next morning, Chau An called.

His voice sounded exhausted.

“Miss Ky…”

“Former Mrs. Bui.”

He coughed.

“Yes. Former Mrs. Bui.”

“What happened?”

A long silence.

Then:

“General Manager Bui asked me where you went yesterday.”

I nearly dropped my coffee.

“Why?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“He asked me whether you always stayed out so late.”

I stared at the cup.

“And?”

“I told him that before the accident you almost never did.”

Another pause.

“Then he asked why.”

I smiled.

“What did you say?”

Chau An sounded as if he regretted being born.

“I said because he used to call you every twenty minutes.”

I burst out laughing.

“What was his reaction?”

“He was silent for five minutes.”

Then Chau An added:

“And this morning he asked me to recover all his old phone backups.”

That was less funny.

Over the next week, Bui Dien began appearing everywhere.

At the coffee shop near my apartment.

Outside the bookstore.

In the parking lot of the mall.

Always at a distance.

Always pretending he had another reason to be there.

Finally, on Friday evening, I walked straight toward his car and knocked on the window.

It lowered.

Bui Dien looked up at me with the same cold expression he had worn at the Civil Affairs Department.

“What?”

I leaned down.

“Are you following me?”

“No.”

I looked around the nearly empty parking garage.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Meeting someone.”

“Who?”

He remained silent.

I smiled.

“Your imaginary friend?”

His face darkened.

“Ky Duong.”

“Mr. Bui.”

I crossed my arms.

“You asked for the divorce.”

“You got it.”

“So stop behaving like a divorced husband with surveillance privileges.”

For some reason, that sentence made his expression strange.

“Was I really that bad?”

I stopped.

He didn’t sound angry.

He sounded genuinely confused.

I straightened.

“You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“You once sent three cars behind me because I went to buy vegetables alone.”

His eyebrows tightened.

“You changed my suitcase password because you didn’t want me going on a business trip.”

His face became more rigid.

“You waited outside the bathroom because twenty minutes without seeing me made you anxious.”

Silence.

“And whenever I wanted space, you treated it like proof that I loved you less.”

Bui Dien looked away.

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“No.”

I smiled faintly.

“It doesn’t sound like the man standing in front of me now.”

That was the strange part.

Without his memories, Bui Dien could finally see his old behavior from the outside.

And he didn’t like what he saw.

Three days later, he came to my apartment.

This time, he rang the doorbell.

Progress.

I opened the door halfway.

“What?”

He held a cardboard box.

“These were in my study.”

Inside were photographs.

Receipts.

Movie tickets.

A ridiculous keychain shaped like a duck.

And a notebook.

My handwriting covered half the pages.

His covered the other half.

I recognized it immediately.

During our first year of marriage, we had written messages to each other whenever our schedules didn’t overlap.

Bui Dien opened one page.

His old handwriting said:

Where did you go? You were gone for thirty-seven minutes.

Below it, mine:

Supermarket. Please stop timing me.

Another page:

Don’t accept the Shanghai trip. I don’t like sleeping alone.

My response:

It’s work, not abandonment.

The next pages became less playful.

More arguments.

More apologies from me.

More promises from him.

Bui Dien closed the notebook.

“I was controlling you.”

“Yes.”

He sat very still.

“And you stayed.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I looked at him.

“Because every time you crossed a boundary, you wrapped it in love.”

His face changed.

“You said you worried because you cared.”

“You were jealous because you cared.”

“You needed to know where I was because you cared.”

I shrugged.

“After a while, I forgot that love is supposed to leave room for another person to breathe.”

Bui Dien stayed silent.

Then asked:

“Did I ever scare you?”

I thought carefully.

“Not in the way you mean.”

“But you exhausted me.”

That answer seemed to hurt him more.

He left without asking me to come back.

For almost a month, I didn’t see him.

Then Chau An sent me a message.

General Manager Bui remembered something.

I stared at the screen.

What?

The reply came:

Your wedding.

More memories returned gradually.

Our first meeting.

His ridiculous pursuit.

The first time I rejected him.

Our honeymoon.

Then the ugly parts.

Arguments.

His jealousy.

The night he tried to stop me from traveling because he couldn’t tolerate being alone.

When Bui Dien finally called, his voice was different.

“I remember.”

I sat down.

“How much?”

“Enough.”

Silence stretched between us.

Then he said:

“I owe you an apology.”

“You do.”

“I thought loving someone meant keeping them close.”

I didn’t answer.

“I was wrong.”

“Yes.”

He laughed bitterly.

“You really don’t make things easy for me.”

“I spent three years making everything easy for you.”

That silenced him.

Six months passed.

My one billion remained safely invested.

I traveled.

Started a small consulting company with Hua Nhung.

Went on business trips without anyone changing my suitcase password.

Sometimes I came home after midnight.

Sometimes I stayed in all weekend.

Nobody counted the minutes.

Bui Dien didn’t ask to remarry.

Not at first.

He started seeing a therapist.

Chau An told me accidentally, then immediately begged me not to say he had told me.

I didn’t.

Nearly a year after the divorce, Bui Dien asked me to dinner.

I agreed.

Public restaurant.

Separate cars.

Clear boundaries.

He was already waiting when I arrived.

No bodyguards.

No driver parked nearby.

No assistant checking my schedule.

Just him.

After dinner, he placed a small box on the table.

I frowned.

“If that’s a ring, I’m leaving.”

“It isn’t.”

Inside was a car key.

I recognized it.

The little red convertible I had wanted before marriage.

Bui Dien had once refused to let me buy it because he said it wasn’t safe enough.

I looked at him.

“What is this?”

“Yours.”

“I can buy my own car.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

He smiled slightly.

“Because I finally remembered something.”

“What?”

“The day you wanted to buy it, you said driving with the roof down made you feel free.”

He pushed the key toward me.

“And I told you freedom was overrated.”

My fingers stopped.

Bui Dien lowered his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

I pushed the key back.

“Keep it.”

His expression fell.

Then I smiled.

“I already bought one.”

For several seconds he stared at me.

Then he laughed.

Really laughed.

Not bitterly.

Not angrily.

“Of course you did.”

When we walked outside, my red convertible was parked by the entrance.

I opened the door.

Bui Dien stood beside it.

“Ky Duong.”

“Hmm?”

“If one day I ask you to marry me again…”

I raised an eyebrow.

He corrected himself immediately.

“No. Forget it.”

I laughed.

“Good recovery, General Manager Bui.”

I drove away.

Maybe one day I would forgive him completely.

Maybe we would even become friends.

But I no longer needed the answer immediately.

The accident had erased Bui Dien’s memory.

The divorce erased something from me too.

The belief that love had to mean surrendering my freedom just because someone was afraid to lose me.

He had forgotten our marriage.

I finally remembered myself.