My Sister Framed Me, I Joined The Army

At my sister's engagement party, a woman from my husband's unit, Liana Pearce, drugged me and my sister's fiancé. The humiliating footage was projected for everyone to see. My sister slit her wrist on the spot, fury and shame nearly killing her. I was frantic, sick with guilt, but my husband, Tristan Locke, slapped me across the face in front of everyone. "You've already gone this far, and you still have the gall to call Liana a slut?" When Liana still wasn't satisfied, Tristan locked me in the spare room. The day I came out of that dark room, he was waiting for me. He smoothed the loose strands of the hair behind my ear and murmured, "Be good, don't make a scene, and I'll give you whatever you want." I bit down hard on his arm, accusing him of his unfairness. He knew. He knew I had been framed. He simply kicked me away and walked off without a backward glance. The next day, I received a severed finger and a note written in blood from my sister at the psychiatric hospital: Sister, if you don't die, then I will die first. I broke completely. When I returned to the base, Liana and Tristan were in the garden, mouth to mouth, feeding each other wine. Liana looked at me with open contempt. "Oh dear, your wife is back. Watch yourself!" "So what if she's back? She's a slut," Tristan said, and the wine glass in his hand smashed against my forehead. The warm blood cooled slowly along my brow, and the last shred of love in my heart died with it. A moment later, a reply from Section 9 lit up my screen: Section 9: In four days, we welcome you back. I slipped my phone back into my pocket. When the blood from my temple slid down along my brow bone, I didn't even raise a hand to wipe it away. The warm trickle ran into my eyes, staining my vision a blurred red. The soft lights along the garden path made everything feel hazy and unreal. Tristan's wine glass had already shattered at my feet, shards scattering everywhere, and one of them had cut into my calf, though I felt no pain at all. Sinking to the ground, I tried to grab hold of Liana, but only managed to catch her purse. Liana stood at his side, her white dress immaculate, her eyes rimmed red at exactly the right shade. "Tristan, let it go." She tugged gently at his sleeve, her voice soft as water. "Maybe Selene didn't mean it." Tristan's face was terrifyingly cold. "Didn't mean it?" He stared down at me, eyes full of revulsion. "She's worn that corpse face since the moment she arrived, and now she knocks your purse out of your hand. If that isn't trying to humiliate you, what is?" I lowered my eyes. Liana's clutch had fallen open on the ground, lipstick, a powder compact, and a bottle of perfume rolling out across the path. Along with an unopened box of condoms. A moment ago, I had only been walking past them. I was so tired. So tired that even breathing felt like there was a stone pressing on my chest. All I wanted was to go back to my room, shut the door, and get away from that cloying, suggestive scent clinging to the two of them. But just as I passed, Liana leaned in close and whispered to my ear with a quiet laugh, "Selene, you're so pitiful. What good is clinging to the title of Mrs. Locke? He loves me now. The one who isn't loved is the mistress." Then she stepped in front of me and bumped into me on purpose, lowering her voice, "We can go through a whole box of these in a single day. Just admit it. You aren't loved anymore." I didn't argue. Tristan walked up to me and looked down from above. "Look at you, half dead already. Get on your knees and apologize to Lia." My lashes trembled. Once, I would have rushed to him and demanded to know what right he had, asked him whether he had forgotten the vow he made kneeling at my mother's grave. But now I only bent my knees, very softly. The instant I knelt, broken glass drove into my palm, and blood welled up between my fingers where they pressed against the ground. Liana drew in a quiet breath, as though she couldn't bear to watch. Tristan only sneered. "If you'd been this obedient from the start, none of this would have happened." I knelt there and watched him bend down to pick up Liana's clutch, watched him take a tissue and carefully wipe away the bit of dust that had clung to its surface. So meticulous. So gentle. As gentle as he had once been when he straightened the train of my wedding dress. Back then, Tristan had cradled me in the palm of his hand. On our wedding night, he kissed the corners of my eyes, his gaze churning with raw desire, yet he held himself in check, gentle past gentleness, asking me again and again whether it hurt, whether I was uncomfortable. Later, when he came home from missions, even at three in the morning with mud still on his boots, he would scrub off every trace of gunpowder before slipping into bed and pulling me into his arms. He used to say, "My money is yours. My seed is yours. Even my life is yours. Selene, this is what my love means." And after that? Liana took a bullet for him on the front line, and the day he carried her back, I cooked soup for her with red eyes and thanked her for saving my husband. But from that day on, Tristan's gaze grew colder by the hour. He started saying that Liana was alone in the world, that he owed her his life. That as Mrs. Locke, I should be magnanimous, sensible, willing to make every possible accommodation for her. Then she moved into our home. And then, she moved into our bedroom. Liana glanced at the box of condoms he had just picked up, then suddenly leaned into Tristan's chest with a smile, her words clearly meant for me. "Tristan, do you remember that time? Right after we won the battle, in the tent at base camp..." Tristan's fingers stilled. Liana tilted her face up to him, her eyes glistening like spring water. "Your shoulder was still bandaged then, but you couldn't bear to let me wait." Tristan didn't deny it. He even let out a low laugh and reached up to ruffle her hair. "Little wildcat, so wild you scratched my back to ribbons." "And right now, I want you. Badly," Liana said, her voice growing more honeyed as she lifted her wine glass and drained it in one go. My stomach lurched. Not from disgust. From pain. The kind of pain that felt like someone was slowly cutting open my chest, dragging out flesh that had long since rotted, only to expose it again to their laughter. I had been kneeling too long, and my vision pulsed with darkness, but Liana's coquettish voice still reached my ears. "They used to call you a seven-round man, didn't they? I want one more than that tonight." Tristan laughed indulgently. "Whatever you want." In that moment, I finally stopped hearing anything at all. The world hit mute. Just before I collapsed, all I saw was the moon shattering in the night sky. When I woke, I was lying on the bed in the master bedroom. Tristan was sitting at the edge, his brow furrowed. When he saw my eyes open, he seemed to let out a breath. "You're awake?" His voice was unusually soft. "Selene, as long as you stop making trouble from now on and behave yourself, you'll still be Mrs. Locke." I looked at him in silence. "Lia is in poor health, and she was wounded for me. It's only right that I take care of her. As for the rest..." He paused, as though bestowing upon me an explanation. "Your body has been weak all these years. My not touching you was for your own good. She's sharing some of that burden for you, so you should be grateful." So even betrayal could be dressed up so righteously when it came from his mouth. I didn't cry. I only stared up at the ceiling, my heart strangely calm. I was thinking that if a person truly couldn't go on, before leaving, she ought to say a proper goodbye. Tristan and I had built our own memories in many places. Outside the City Hall, beneath the Old Linden Tree, the Riverside Bench by the water... Suddenly, I wanted to revisit every one of them, one last time. Three days. Enough to bury all our past where I had once loved him.