Putting a Ring on Someone Else

Naturally, Tristan couldn't stand to see the love of his life in tears. Infuriated, he bellowed at me, "Claudia! Didn't you hear what Sally said? She doesn't like what you're wearing. Hurry up and get out of those clothes!"

Glaring at Tristan, I ignored his demands. He was used to being able to order people around, so he couldn't stand the fact that I wasn't doing what he said. He signaled to his friends, who lunged at me and started ripping my clothes off.

While doing so, they even hurled insults at me.

"How dare you try to protest? Just who do you think you are?"

There were too many of them. I couldn't get away. My clothes were torn into pieces, with just a tiny bit of cloth left to cover the most important parts. My face was shoved against the floor as I was pushed around.

The whole time, I glared at Tristan with tears in my eyes, but he simply stood to the side and eyed me in amusement.

"Let go of me!"

I broke free of them and ran toward the door, but before I could even take a few steps, someone smashed something against the back of my head.

I fell to the floor, unmoving.

"Is she dead?"

"She asked for it! It's even better if she's dead. It's her fault for refusing to stop clinging onto Tristan!"

Amid my daze, I heard Tristan say, "She just loves putting on an act. Ignore her. Let's go!"

By the time I regained consciousness, the living room was empty. All that remained was the stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke that lingered in the air.

I touched the back of my head. The blood had dried.

I didn't know how long I'd been lying on the floor. With great difficulty, I crawled back onto my feet and headed toward Mom's bedroom.

Perhaps I was still a little out of it after getting hit in the head, or maybe it was just a force of habit, but when I opened the door, I instinctively called out, "Mom, I'm home…"

Nevertheless, once I saw the empty room, my heart deflated once more.

For a moment, I had forgotten that I no longer had a mother. Out of the three people in the family portrait that hung on the wall, I was the only one still alive.

After I had wiped my tears away, my eyes landed on a bunch of half-knitted sweaters.

Mom was an exceptional knitter. Before Dad started working as the Scott family's driver, Mom relied on her knitting skills to raise me and pay for my education. All our neighbors said she was extremely talented too, and they often sought lessons from her.

She was also generous with Tristan, often giving him the sweaters, beanies, and gloves she made herself.

However, Tristan said it was beneath him to wear such items. He gave away her entire summer's worth of labor to the dog his nephew raised, saying, "In our family, only the dog would use such lousy things."

Mom never knew that Tristan turned his nose up at her creations. Even as her health took a turn for the worse, she continued knitting away.

"While I'm still able, I'm going to make enough to last the next three years…"

Mom was afraid she wouldn't live past this year, and she still wanted to do something for Tristan and me.

Alas, Tristan had never once used anything she made for him. He came up with all kinds of excuses not to do it, claiming the items were either too childish, too unfashionable, or too dowdy.

And yet, when Sally gave him a pink hair tie, he posted over a dozen Instagram stories about it. It never left his wrist either. To this day, he was still wearing it.

Therein lay the difference.

He loved Sally, so everything that came from her was worthy of being cherished.

He hated me, so he hated everything related to me.

I put on one of the unfinished sweaters to immerse myself in Mom's scent.

Just then, someone shoved the door open.

With a scowl, Tristan interrogated me, "Why did you insult Sally, Claudia? Do you know she got so upset because of what you said that she couldn't sleep, and she even got a headache!

"Isn't it enough that you took me away from her for ten years? Why must you keep hurting her over and over again?"

Before I appeared in Tristan's life, he and Sally were childhood sweethearts. However, they were apart for a long time because Sally had gone abroad.

When she came back to the country, she started working at the company as Tristan's secretary. The two spent all their time together, and their relationship steadily became more intimate.

By the time I realized something was amiss, their relationship had progressed far beyond the realms of friendship. I didn't want to upset Mom, so I put up with it. However, that led to Tristan becoming even more blatant in his treatment of me.

"I didn't!" I refuted Tristan's accusations at once.

However, he took his phone out and played a recording.

"Sally, you're a stinking bitch who ruined someone else's relationship! You should go to hell! Tristan's mine. Don't think you can ever take him away from me!"

The voice did sound similar to mine, but I didn't expect Tristan not to be able to notice it wasn't my voice despite having spent ten years of his life with me.

Perhaps he never even considered trying to figure out if the voice truly belonged to me. He blindly believed anything Sally said.

"I've long since repaid the debt I owe you for the sacrifice of your pathetic dad's life, Claudia! I don't care if your mom has cancer or dies. It has nothing to do with me! Stop using her to force me to marry you! If you ever cause trouble for Sally again, I'll make you pay! You got that?"

I now knew just how worthless my parents' lives were to him.

I recalled what happened last summer.

Mom's cancer had relapsed, which meant she often felt faint and fatigued. Yet, when she knew that Tristan was visiting us, she rushed to the supermarket and bought a ton of groceries.

She spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen preparing a meal for him, only to end up fainting from her exhaustion.

At the same time, Tristan got a call from Sally. When I asked Tristan to take Mom to the hospital, he annoyedly retorted, "I didn't ask your mom to cook for me. How is it any of my business that she fainted?

"In any case, Sally's having a depressive episode. I need to be with her. Sally's not like your mom. She'll die if she doesn't see me."

When I finally got Mom to the hospital, the doctor said that if I'd brought her in any later, it would've been too late.

All along, my parents' lives—and my entire existence included—were nothing compared to a drop of Sally's tears, no matter how fake her crying was.

I let out a self-deprecating laugh. I felt indignant on behalf of my parents and my own blind foolishness of having been in love with him for a decade. Thinking of this, I couldn't resist tearing up.

I rarely ever cried in front of Tristan. His expression shifted slightly when he saw my tears streaming down my cheeks. It seemed like his attitude had softened a little.

It was right then that Sally walked over and leaned her head against Tristan's shoulder, pouting. "Tristan, my head is killing me…"

Hearing that, Tristan quickly consoled her, "Don't worry. I told you I'll make things right for you."

He looked back at me, his gaze icy. "Hurry up! Get on your knees and apologize, Claudia!"

My anger welled up inside of me, making my chest feel stuffy. My eyes were red with fury as I questioned, "Why should I?"

"Because you stole ten years that belonged to her!" Tristan retorted matter-of-factly, which only made me scoff in outrage.

Thoroughly disappointed in him, I didn't even want to speak to him anymore. Ignoring the two of them, I took out a suitcase and silently started packing things up.

However, Sally refused to stop targeting me. She abruptly walked up to me and snatched a sweater that Mom had completed.

"Why would such an old-fashioned design still be around? But on second thought, it looks like it suits my dog," Sally declared as she laughed loudly. She didn't bother to hide the mockery in her eyes.

I hurriedly tried to take the sweater back from her.

"Give it back!" I shouted.

However, Sally narrowed her eyes and asked with a scornful smirk, "Why do you care about a lousy sweater so much? Could it be… that it's what your dead mom left to you?"