Chapter 256
Rosalie said calmly, “Nobody’s perfect. Everyone has their flaws. I make mistakes, too. No matter what we’re already divorced. We should go our separate ways and have nothing to do with each other. I don’t want to end up like your parents.”
The thought of his parents made Theodore’s eyes dim.
“My dad was right. I ended up walking the same path he did.”
Rosalie’s heart tugged. She hung her head low, and fell silent.
People never learn their lesson. Many things happened in the past to prove that what they did was a mistake that would result in painful. consequences, yet those who come after them continue insisting on doing the same things.
Perhaps that was a wicked streak in humans, carved in their genes. The more they know it’s a mistake, the more they would choose to do
it.
That was the way to go, according to their logic.
“But there is a difference,” Theodore went on to say. “My mother really loved my father back then, and it was precisely because of her deep love for him that she ended up broken–hearted and depressed. But things are different for us, Rose. You don’t love me, which is why you can be even happier after divorcing me. You once said that you had enough of such a marriage. You’re now free.”
Rosalie was stunned, at a loss for words. Her heart trembled, and she felt suffocated.
Theodore furrowed his brows as he stared at Rosalie, who remained silent. “You don’t love me, do you? That’s how we’re different from my
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parents.”
He sounded uncertain, and his tone was doubtful. Even he questioned the truth of his statement upon seeing the look in Rosalie’s eyes.
Rosalie gripped the hem of her shirt tight, and clenched her fists. She could feel her palm sweat.
‘Theodore Spencer,‘ she thought, ‘I loved you for so many years, but you have no clue.
‘Would anything change if I told you that I love you? Would you leave Cynthia and stay with me? You wouldn’t, because you don’t love me.
‘If I told you the truth, I’d look as miserable and pitiful as your mother.
‘In that case, what’s the point of telling you that I love you? I’d rather preserve my dignity and give you a good reason to divorce me–and tell you that your wife doesn’t love you.
‘That is best for everyone.”
“Rose,” Theodore called out to her and grabbed her wrist, “do you love
me?”
He didn’t know where that surge of courage came from, but his eyes. shone like burning flame, reflecting his eagerness to hear her answer. Her hesitation made his heart race.
Rosalie saw the urgency in Theodore’s eyes, and thought she was seeing things.
Did he want her to say that she loved him? Would he have a change. of heart if she did?
Yet at the next moment, she thought back on the countless times she had mistakenly thought so throughout their one year of marriage.
She had mistakenly thought that this man before her cared for her, but ended up realizing it was nothing but wishful thinking on her part.
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He only cared for Cynthia.
He often gave women wrong ideas. His eyes looked too tender, too misleading.
Rosalie reminded herself that she couldn’t keep making the same mistakes and living in her own fantasies.
“Don’t you already know the answer to that?” Rosalie said as she lifted her head, looking at him with hazy eyes. “The day you asked for a divorce, you asked me if I’ve always treated you as a brother. I’ve‘ already told you yes, and I don’t want to keep repeating myself.”
She couldn’t say that she didn’t love him, because she was scared that she might break down and cry, thereby exposing herself.
All the more she couldn’t admit that she loved him.
Theodore forced himself to smile as he felt his heart drop.
“I understand. That’s good. Since you don’t love me, you’ll only be unhappy being stuck with me. Our divorce is the best possible outcome. Don’t worry, we’re nothing like my parents.”