Chapter 2

My hand paused as I poured milk.

Before, every morning, I would smile and say to him, "Good morning, hope you have a happy day!"

He would never say anything else, just a simple "Mhm."

But that would make my whole day happy.

I pushed the milk mug toward him. "Nothing."

Douglas took a bite of toast.

"It's early in the morning, what's got into you? Why are you sulking?"

I sat opposite him and took a sip of milk.

"I'm not sulking. I'm in a perfectly good mood."

He put down his mug.

"Alice, you've been off since last night. Tell me, how did I offend you?"

I looked up. "You're the one who's off, paying attention to my 'little moods' now?"

Douglas frowned. "Don't be so snarky. Just tell me what's wrong."

I placed my phone on the table. It showed the first screenshot I'd taken last night.

The message I sent him: "A kid complimented my smile today, and I wanted to tell you."

Below it, his reply to Aurora: "She's like this every day, has to report every little mundane thing."

Douglas's expression froze for a moment, then suddenly darkened.

"You dared to go through my phone without permission?"

I said, "How do you explain this?"

"I'm asking you, how dare you snoop through my chat records on your own initiative?"

I let out a cold laugh.

"I was looking at your iPad. You didn't set a password, so I was looking at it fair and square."

Douglas threw the toast back onto his plate.

"Alice, do you know what privacy is? What invasion is? What boundaries are?"

I couldn't even bother to react anymore.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? My chat records, my photos, being forwarded by you to another woman for her to comment on—what do you call that kind of behavior?"

Douglas stood up, his chair scraping back a few inches.

"Don't try to change the subject. It's your own fault for being nosy. If you hadn't secretly looked, you wouldn't have known, and then none of this would be happening, would it?"

Douglas reached for my phone. I took a step back and put my phone back in my bag.

"Don't touch it."

Douglas's hand stopped mid-air. "Alice, you look really awful right now."

I looked at him. "However awful I look, it's not as awful as what you did."

He tugged at his tie.

"I just casually vented a bit. Do you have to make such a big deal out of it?"

"Are my private photos 'venting' too?"

Douglas was silent for a second.

Then he said, "If you bring this up to argue, you'll only be embarrassing yourself."

I didn't say anything else.

Because I realized, he wasn't unaware that he was hurting me.

He just thought I wasn't even worthy of being angry.

After that, we gave each other the silent treatment for three days. I never shared any more of my daily life with him.

That evening, Douglas came home from work, carrying a paper bag.

I was sitting on the sofa, preparing my lessons.

He tossed the paper bag in front of me. "I bought this for you."

I opened it. Inside was a scarf, a discount item from the mall, with the tag still on.

One hundred ninety-nine dollars.

I had once admired a cashmere scarf, over eight hundred dollars, and he said it wasn't necessary.

"Why wear something so expensive to work at a kindergarten? The kids will just get it dirty."

But in his chat records with Aurora, I saw he'd bought her a perfume that cost over three thousand dollars.

Aurora had asked: "Won't Alice get angry if she finds out?"

Douglas replied: "She wouldn't understand these things."

I put the scarf back in the paper bag. "Return it."

Douglas's action of unbuttoning his cuffs paused.

"Alice, don't be so dramatic. I buy you something and you give me attitude? Adults should know when to stop."

I closed my lesson planner. "So, what do you consider 'stopping'?"

He sat opposite me, his expression showing a hint of impatience.

"You're too clingy usually. What's wrong with me complaining to a friend?"

I looked at him.

"Then how would you feel if I sent videos of you picking your nose, crying after failing a promotion, and kneeling in the bathroom throwing up and having diarrhea when drunk, to my male colleagues for their enjoyment?"

Douglas's face completely darkened. "You wouldn't dare."

I said, "So, you know it's not okay."

He picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip.

"Alice, whether you get over this or not, it is what it is. What you're saying now is pointless. Are we just not going to live our lives anymore?"

I was extremely calm. "Yes, we're not."