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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: The Missing Hair Clip

That night, the rain was light, almost tender.

I stepped into the quiet, holding a crescent-shaped claw clip. Without much thought, I set it gently by the car door — a small, random mark, the kind only a woman who notices everything would notice.

The car had once been spotless. A precious gift from my parents, meant to help my husband drive Grab when we were still clawing our way through hard times. He used to care for it as if it were the most valuable thing we owned.

Then everything shifted when he joined "the company." Not just any company — the kind with central air, glossy business cards, and pretty young women who looked at him as if he were the sun itself.

He began traveling for work, disappearing for days. When he came back, the car would be layered with dirt, dried mud clinging to the tires, a film of dust so thick on the windshield you could almost plant vegetables on it. And he never cleaned it. As if the care it once had no longer mattered.

I, the woman who hates dirty cars, picked up the bucket and sponge without being asked. It became a quiet habit, as natural as breathing.

Back then, I was learning to drive. I had already failed my first test, but I was determined to try again. My younger brother — who used to admire his brother-in-law — sat beside me during practice.

Once, circling the neighborhood, I said softly, "I think my husband might be cheating."

He shook his head at once. "He'd never do that, sis."

I smiled faintly, unsure if I believed him or was just talking to fill the silence. Maybe I was overthinking — spending too much time on TikTok. Or maybe it was that quiet, stubborn instinct women carry, honed from years of hearing what is not said.

Then came the day. Another trip. He took the car. Returned. Filthy again.

I drove it to the wash. My brother sat beside me.

And this time… the clip was gone.

No explanation. No proof. Just absence. But the feeling? It was deafening. It howled inside me.

The air in the car felt colder after his trips. The scent no longer mine. A faint trace of cheap perfume lingered. And the hollow space where love used to live.

Some things don't need to be spoken aloud.

A claw clip might mean nothing to one woman…

But to another, it's the siren call of betrayal.

I remember it clearly—right after Lunar New Year, when we had just returned from visiting my parents in the Central Highlands.

He insisted we head back to Saigon early because of "urgent work."

I didn't argue. I told myself we'd celebrated enough. Even though my father's death anniversary hadn't arrived yet, I went along.

He drove nearly ten hours without pause—no coffee breaks, no roadside meals. Just the long, twisting roads ahead of us, the hum of the engine, and a silence so thick I could almost see it. His eyes stayed locked forward, sharp as steel.

When we reached our apartment, he dropped the kids and me at the door. No hug. No kiss for our children.

No warmth.

Just urgency—like a gust of wind.

No, not a gust.

A cold wind.

Later, when the truth began to unravel like a thread from an old sweater, I learned why.

Why the rush?

Why the silence?

He had to make it in time…

To pick her up.

His little mistress.

To take her out for a New Year's date.

"The Night the Clip Disappeared"

They say women grow stronger in silence—unseen, unshaken, unyielding. I used to believe it was a quiet kind of nobility, a shield forged from swallowing every shard of pain and burying it deep inside. I thought silence meant endurance, that it was the secret language of protection, of keeping a family whole when everything else threatened to fall apart.

But the truth is far more brutal.

Silence is not the absence of knowledge. It is the weight of knowing too much and still choosing to stay. It is the desperate, fragile act of clutching to the last flicker of light in a house already drowning in shadows. It is the sound of a heart breaking softly in the dark, hoping no one will hear.

And me?

I've learned that sometimes silence is no longer strength. It's surrender. A quiet concession to a love that no longer sees you, that walks through your life like a stranger passing a ghost.

So I left the clip that day. Not out of hope, but as a witness. A silent testament to all the moments I held on when I should have let go. It was my quiet rebellion, the only proof that I was still here, still fighting even when he chose to disappear.

When I returned to that room, my breath caught not in shock, but in the cold realization that it was gone. The clip, once a symbol of my presence, had vanished. I didn't scream or cry. My tears had long since dried, replaced by a hollow emptiness that settled deep in my bones.

That chill was worse than any words or accusations. It was the silent scream of betrayal, wrapped in the faint scent of someone else's cheap perfume, lingering like poison in the air. The car he once drove, once ours, now smelled foreign, alien and cruel.

No longer familiar.

No longer mine.

And in that cold, quiet moment, I understood. Some lights are meant to go out.

"The Night I Could No Longer Cry"

I opened his phone.

The glow of the screen lit my hands, and for a moment I thought I might see what I'd been dreading.

But there was nothing.

No messages.

No call logs.

No chats.

It was spotless—so spotless that the emptiness felt staged, like a showroom bedroom no one had ever slept in.

I'd lived with him long enough to know this wasn't how his phone usually looked.

He was careless with it—screenshots of memes, long threads of family banter, half-typed messages that trailed off mid-thought.

But now, every trace of life had been wiped away.

My stomach tightened.

A clean phone isn't a sign of innocence.

It's a sign of someone who knows what they're hiding.

And then—one thing remained.

Camellia. A name I didn't recognize.

But there it was, glowing in green, like a small beacon cutting through the dark ocean of emptiness.

A leaf floating on murky water—beautiful, out of place, impossible to ignore.

I tapped it.

Her profile picture bloomed on the screen.

A camellia flower in a pale blush hue, petals soft, edges almost translucent.

Behind it—a woman.

She wore a white blouse, crisp as if just ironed.

Her makeup was subtle, precise.

Her hair fell over one shoulder in a way that seemed accidental but probably wasn't.

And her eyes…they didn't dart away from the camera.

They met it directly, with the calm certainty of someone who knows she's wanted.

I copied her name and searched Facebook.

Trà Mi. Her bio was short: Employee at a solar energy company.

The same company he once described to me as quiet and uneventful, where people barely spoke to each other.

But her photos told another story.

In one of them,he was sitting across from her at a café, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

She was smiling—not the wide, friendly smile of co-workers, but something smaller, softer.

A smile that said: This is ours. They can't touch it.

I stared at that image until my hands went cold.

The picture didn't just tell me something—it screamed.

And yet, there was no rush of tears this time.

The reservoir had run dry.

I had already cried in too many empty rooms, into too many pillows, over too many nights when he came home smelling faintly of perfume that wasn't mine.

I took a breath, slow and deliberate.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

Then I pressed Call.

When She Told Me Everything

I met her.

We sat across from each other in a quiet café, the kind of place where no one asked questions and the world outside faded into the background.

She was younger, impeccably dressed, her makeup flawless soft, understated, with red lipstick that stayed perfectly in place. She looked at me not with guilt or shame, but with a strange kind of calm, as if I were the one intruding on something that had nothing to do with me. Like I was a stranger trying to rewrite a love story that wasn't mine to touch.

Then she began to talk.

About the meals they shared—the ones he cooked with a careless smile, the kind that never once reached my kitchen.

About the way he held her, the kind of touch I hadn't felt in years.

About the small apartment they rented just a few streets from my own home, where laughter and secrets were whispered behind closed doors.

About the motels he booked in the middle of busy workdays, where time stopped and promises were made in the shadows.

"He says we're compatible. Even in bed," she said quietly, as if those words were a confession and a victory all at once.

"He told me, 'With you, I can finally be myself.'"

I nodded slowly, the weight of those words sinking deep into my chest.

Strange.

We had shared more than a decade of life, and yet, in all that time, he had never once told me who he really was.

What he wanted.

What he dreamed of.

Just silence.

I looked directly into her eyes—dry, empty, as if they had never cried for anyone.

And I said:

"If you really love him,

If you're serious about being with him,

I'll file for divorce.

Just say the word."

She looked down, the fight draining from her face.

It took her a moment before she whispered:

"I'm sorry.

I'll quit.

I'll leave the company.

I swear… I'll never contact him again."

I smiled—not because I believed her, but because in that moment, I finally pitied myself.

For once, believing that pain alone could teach others to stop.

For once, thinking that heartbreak could be a warning, not a beginning.

The Daylight Didn't Reach That Place

We met at a quiet café.

I wore a simple outfit. My eyes were swollen from a sleepless night.

She, on the other hand, arrived with red lipstick, a calm aura—like I was the one interrupting something sacred.

She said:

"He told me you two haven't been happy for a long time.

That you nag him. That you don't understand his feelings or his job.

He said he needed someone who listened. Someone like me."

I didn't say a word.

What hurt more—what she said, or the fact that I had once believed I knew him better than anyone?

"You know what?" she continued.

"Every day after work, he buys groceries. He cooks for me.

He even… washes my underwear.

He says he wants to take care of me in a way no one ever has."

I turned my face away, swallowing my tears.

Not because he loved someone else—

But because the man who once promised to grow old with me…

Was now kneeling down to do laundry for another woman.

As if they were soulmates from a past life.

That Night…

I came home and laid beside my son. I held his tiny body close, sobbing silently.

My daughter knew.

She didn't say a word.

She gently pulled the blanket over me, then turned away and faced the wall.

In the dark, I could hear my heart breaking.

But in that moment, I knew…

I couldn't die.

I had two children who still needed their mother.

And after everything—

I deserve a life that is not built on betrayal.

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