He counted the days-i counted the ways to love him

The first time my husband brought another woman home, I convinced myself it was a mistake. The second time, I told myself not to cry. By the third— I learned how to stay silent. Silence became survival after marrying Ethan Vale. Because loving a man like Ethan was like standing too close to winter for too long. Eventually, you stopped feeling how cold you were becoming. The mansion was quiet when I heard the front door open downstairs. 2:13 AM. I stared at the ceiling of the guest room, my body stiff beneath the blankets. Home. He was finally home. For one pathetic second, my heart still reacted. Still hoped. Even after everything. I hated myself for that most of all. The sound of laughter floated upstairs softly. A woman’s laughter. Young. Breathless. Intimate. My throat tightened immediately. I closed my eyes. Not again. Please not again. But deep down, I already knew. Ethan never came home alone anymore. The bedroom door down the hallway opened. Then his voice followed. Low. Smooth. Careless. “Keep your voice down.” The woman giggled. “Why? Your wife sleeping?” A long silence answered her. Then Ethan laughed quietly. Coldly. “She stopped caring a long time ago.” The words pierced through me so sharply I physically flinched. My fingers curled tightly around the blanket. Stopped caring. If only he knew. God. If only he knew how much I cared. Enough to destroy myself slowly. Enough to sleep in the guest room while another woman touched my husband in our bed. Enough to pretend my heart wasn’t breaking every single night. I pressed my hand against my mouth as footsteps entered the master bedroom. Their bedroom. No. Mine too. At least it used to be. The door shut. And then silence. Brief. Cruel. Followed by muffled laughter. The sound of kissing. The bed creaking softly. I shut my eyes harder. Don’t listen. Don’t think. Don’t cry. But some pains refuse to be ignored. Especially the kind that humiliates you before it destroys you. A soft moan slipped through the walls. Then another. My breathing became uneven. The ceiling above me blurred as tears filled my eyes silently. I never cried loudly anymore. I learned early that grief sounds uglier when nobody comes to comfort it. So I cried the same way I loved Ethan— quietly. Always quietly. --- Three years ago, everyone called me lucky when Ethan Vale married me. The Ethan Vale. The heir to one of the wealthiest companies in the country. Women loved him. Men envied him. And me? I was just the girl who trapped him into marriage after our families signed an agreement neither of us could escape. At least that was how Ethan saw it. A trap. A prison with my name on it. He never shouted at me. Never hit me. Never truly looked at me enough to hate me loudly. And somehow that hurt more. Because Ethan treated me like something unavoidable. Like rain. Like traffic. Like an inconvenience he learned to tolerate. The first year, I tried. God, I tried so hard. I learned how he liked his coffee. Black. No sugar. I memorized the brands of ties he wore most. I waited for him after work with dinner growing cold on the table. I started sleeping lightly just to hear when he came home. I loved him in embarrassing ways. Small ways. Invisible ways. And Ethan ignored every single one. Until eventually— silence became easier. Because rejection hurts less when you stop speaking first. Another sound echoed from the bedroom down the hall. The woman moaned louder this time. I sat up abruptly, my chest tightening painfully. The walls felt too thin. Too cruel. I pushed the blanket away and walked toward the bathroom quietly, my legs weak beneath me. The mirror showed a woman I barely recognized. Pale skin. Tired eyes. A marriage hanging around her neck like chains disguised as diamonds. I looked older than twenty-four. Sadness ages people faster than time ever could. Another muffled laugh reached me. I turned on the sink quickly just to drown the noise. Water rushed against porcelain while tears slid silently down my cheeks. I hated this version of myself. The woman who stayed. The woman who still loved him after hearing another woman scream his name from the bed they once shared. But love is humiliating like that sometimes. It teaches your heart to kneel before people who would never bend for you. I gripped the edge of the sink harder. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stop loving him? Why did my chest still ache whenever he walked past me? Why did I still notice the color of his ties… the exhaustion in his eyes… the rare moments his voice softened accidentally? Maybe because Ethan wasn’t cruel all the time. Sometimes he looked at me with something dangerously close to guilt. Sometimes he paused outside the guest room door late at night like he wanted to knock. But he never did. And eventually, almost matters just as little as never. I wiped my tears quickly when I heard footsteps approaching. My body froze. The bathroom door opened slightly. Ethan stood there. His white dress shirt hung open slightly at the collar. Dark hair messy. Lips red from another woman’s kisses. Beautiful. He was still painfully beautiful. His eyes landed on me. Then the running sink. Then my face. For a moment, neither of us spoke. We rarely did anymore. “You’re awake,” he said flatly. Not Are you okay? Not Did we wake you? Just that. I swallowed hard. “I couldn’t sleep.” His jaw tightened slightly. From down the hallway, the woman called lazily, “Ethan?” He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes remained on mine. And suddenly the room felt too small for all the things we never said. I wanted to scream at him. Ask him why humiliating me had become so easy. Ask him if he ever felt guilty. Ask him if there had ever been a single moment during our marriage where he saw me as more than a mistake. But the words stayed trapped inside me. Because silence had become part of who I was. Ethan exhaled slowly. “You should sleep.” That broke something inside me. Not because the words were cruel. But because they were so painfully empty. Like I wasn’t his wife. Like I was just someone existing nearby. I laughed softly before I could stop myself. A small broken sound. His brows furrowed. “What?” I shook my head quickly. “Nothing.” Nothing. My pain was always nothing. My love was always nothing. Ethan stared at me for a few seconds longer before looking away first. He always looked away first. “Don’t wait up for me anymore,” he muttered quietly. Then he turned and walked back toward the bedroom. Toward her. Toward the life he actually wanted. And I stood there alone in the bathroom listening to the sound of my own heart breaking in silence. Again. And again. And again. Until I whispered the truth I would never be brave enough to say to his face. “I would’ve loved you gently,” I said through tears. “So gently.” But some people only know how to destroy the things that love them.