WHEN THE FOG CLEARS
The moment I nodded to agree to the divorce, Julian was soothing his lover over the phone.
Word has it that he looked up and said: “It’s my fault to you. In the future, if you ever need anything, just say the word and I will help if I can.”
Everyone envied me deeply. Evelyn and Julian had been in love since they were eighteen, and marrying into high society made me a wealthy, pampered wife.
Hardly anyone remembered that I had abandoned everything for him, traveling alone across the continent to London.
When he married me, he had knelt for a day and a night just to beg his mother’s approval.
Little did he know, we had no future left.
I lowered my head, staring at my phone buzzing incessantly with incoming messages:
【When are you coming back to London? I’ll come pick you up.】
【Evelyn, the year I turned seventeen, I said—a lifetime commitment, unchanging.】
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, fireworks bloomed in waves—bursting, then fading into nothingness.
Ever since 2012, at precisely 7:27 PM every July 24th—marking exactly seven years—Julian’s anniversary fireworks had never once stopped.
The fireworks were always lit for a fixed duration of 15 minutes, because Julian and I met when we were fifteen.
Looking down from the window, crowds of people familiar with the news gathered along the riverside, cheering, hugging, and celebrating…
They watched the fireworks in each other’s arms, sharing intimacy and joy… It had everything to do with me, yet nothing to do with me at all.
Inside the dimly lit room, the man across the long dining table was dressed in a sharp suit, his tall frame illuminated by the blue glow of his phone screen, making his handsome features appear even more chiseled and sharp.
I watched him for a long time before finally opening my mouth, my voice sounding as though it had traveled across distant mountains and thick fog, finally clear at last: “I agree to the divorce. The joint application has been filled out; let’s meet at the court tomorrow morning.”
Hearing this, he looked up from his phone and stared at me: “Today is our anniversary, let’s not talk about this.”
I unclipped my wedding ring and placed it on the table: “There is no day more fitting than today. Let it end right where it began, Julian.”
He paused in silence, pushed back his chair, and stood up: “Alright… I’ll come pick you up tomorrow morning.”
The apartment was massive. Before he even stepped out the door, I heard him answer a phone call, his deep, low voice coaxing the person on the other end:
“Yeah, she agreed. Alright, wait for me at home—”
The sound of the door closing was very soft, entirely consistent with his usual style.
I sat alone at the table, quietly gazing out the window until the very last spark of fireworks fell, before finally standing up.
At that moment, my phone chimed softly. An elegant, gentle female voice asked cheerfully: “Miss Evelyn, today is your seventh wedding anniversary with Julian, you guys must still be doing wonderfully together! What kind of gift did he prepare for you this year?”
“Let me guess, it’s…”
I reached out and swiped away the calendar reminder; the cheerful voice stopped abruptly.
Unlocking my phone without a moment’s hesitation, I entrusted all the real estate properties under my name to real estate agents to be put up for sale.
Back when I first arrived in London, Julian was terrified I would feel wronged, so he racked his brains to give me a sense of security.
His mother hadn’t liked me much back then, and she didn’t even show up when Julian and I got married.
At that time, Julian utilized all the liquid assets at his disposal, handing me everything he possibly could.
The two largest properties were deeded directly to me, one of which was this very luxury flat, worth around fifty million pounds even back then.
Later, after Julian’s biological father passed away, he took over the family conglomerate, growing the business larger and larger. Every once in a while, he would buy another property under my name and set up trust funds for me.
Back then, he would always feel guilty: “Evelyn, you followed me here all alone, my heart aches for you. I always want to give you more, but I feel like it’s never enough.”
I touched his forehead and said: “Julian, I don’t care about these things.”
After all, when I first met him, he was just a teenage boy who would get into fistfights over a cheap pair of soccer cleats.
I reassured him: “You’ve given me too much. Even if you abandoned me right now, I wouldn’t starve out on the streets.”
Now, those words had proven prophetic. Husband and wife in the end are like strangers going separate ways; at least I had my dignity and financial security, spared from freezing on the winter streets.