Marriage Named Hatred Chapter 07
At 6:00 p.m., the international departures terminal was crowded with people.
Some were embracing in farewell, others hurried along with rolling suitcases.
Annelise stood in line at the check-in counter. In front of her was a young couple. The girl’s eyes were red, and the boy kept trying to comfort her.
She watched for a moment, then quietly looked away.
Outside the security checkpoint, she took out her phone.
There were still many unread messages on the screen. John was asking about her plans going forward. Parents from her violin class were asking whether she would still be teaching next week. There were also a handful of random notifications.
She replied to each one in turn, then paused at a number with no saved name.
She knew that number by heart, yet she had never saved it in her contacts.
In five years of marriage, he had never once called her privately.
Everything had been relayed through his assistant or mentioned casually at the dinner table.
She stared at the string of digits for a few seconds, then removed the SIM card from her phone, snapped it in half, and threw it into the nearby trash bin.
Annelise turned and walked into the security checkpoint.
At 11:40 p.m. that night, the plane took off.
Seated by the window, she watched as the city lights outside grew smaller and smaller, until they became nothing more than a blur of distant points.
She had lived here for more than 20 years, and in the end, nothing remained.
The plane cut through the clouds, and beyond the window was only darkness.
She leaned back against her seat, closed her eyes, and whispered softly, “Annelise, don’t look back anymore.”
Three days later, at the Ryland Group.
Bastian sat behind his desk, signing a document.
The assistant stood at the door, hesitated for a few seconds, then knocked.
“Come in.”
The assistant stepped inside, his tone cautious. “Mr. Ryland, there’s…a situation with Mrs. Ryland.”
Without looking up, Bastian said, “Go on.”
“Mrs. Ryland hasn’t returned to the estate these past few days, and her phone can’t be reached. The Vasquez family says she hasn’t gone back there either.”
The pen paused briefly, then continued to sign the last stroke.
Bastian closed the file, his tone indifferent. “She won’t get far. Sooner or later, she’ll come back and beg me.”
The assistant opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, only nodded and left.
After the door closed, Bastian leaned back in his chair, looking out at the city skyline.
She would come back to beg him.
Hadn’t it always been like that? She would make a fuss, endure for a while, and then return obediently in the end.
He waited.
A week later, Bastian realized he had started checking his phone frequently.
During meetings, while eating, late at night, even when he was alone in his study.
He would glance at the screen unconsciously, then look away again.
There were no messages. Annelise had vanished as if into thin air.
On the tenth day, Bastian canceled all his afternoon meetings and drove himself to the Vasquez’s estate.
The front gate was ajar. He pushed it open. The yard was silent, with fallen leaves scattered across the ground.
From a neighbor, he finally learned that Miriam had passed away.
“Was that why Annelise had looked so desperate that day? Would she be here now?” he wondered.
A faint unease stirred in his chest, and instinctively, he headed toward Annelise’s room.
Her room was at the end of the hallway. He had never opened that door before.
In five years of marriage, he had come here countless times, yet he had never stepped into her room.
He pushed the door open. Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating dust drifting in the air.
It was so clean it hardly seemed lived in.
He stood at the doorway, unsure of what he was even looking for. Then his eyes fell on the old box on the nightstand.
The metal pattern on it had faded, as though it had been waiting there for him to open it.
Bastian walked over and opened the box.
Inside was a stack of yellowed letters, all written in his own handwriting.
He read them one by one, his hands beginning to tremble.
They were his letters, the ones he had written to his pen pal. Every single one was there.
From the very first letter in high school to the last one before the SATs, spanning three full years.
Beside them was a photograph of Annelise, with a blurred figure behind her that was unmistakably him.
Bastian stood frozen.
Why? Why would all of this be in Annelise’s room?
He read the letters over and over, trying to find a reasonable explanation.
“Maybe Cece had given them to her. Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” he thought.
But a thought began to take root in his mind, growing wildly, impossible to suppress.
“What if… What if it had been her all along?”
He remembered that night back then, when he had waited at the agreed meeting place, and it was Celestine who had shown up.
She had said she was the pen pal. She had spoken with such certainty, such ease, that he had believed her without question.
The sound of high heels suddenly echoed from downstairs. “Bas? What are you doing here?”
Talia stood at the doorway, dressed impeccably, a bright smile on her face.
She must have gotten the news from somewhere and rushed over.
“I heard you came here, so I thought I’d check on you. You haven’t been in a good mood these past few days. Why don’t I take you out to relax?”
Bastian didn’t even look at her. He uttered a single word, “Get out.”
Talia’s smile froze on her face. Meeting his icy expression, she couldn’t say a single word.
Her face turned pale as she turned and left.
Bastian remained where he stood, lowering his gaze to the letters in his hand.
Outside the window, the sunlight was just right.
And Annelise had been gone for ten days.
He didn’t know where she had gone, whether she would ever come back, or what those letters truly meant.
But he knew one thing.
He had started to panic.