Chapter Five: Moving On
526 Words
“Come on, Tristan… please don’t deny your Grandfather's wish to see you. It’s been so long already. Can we just move on—once and for all? Seven years have passed!”
Loisa’s voice was filled with exhaustion as she spoke on the phone. She had been trying for a while now, but it felt like her words were simply passing through her son.
“Hello, son… are you still there?” she asked again when he didn’t respond.
On the other end, Tristan remained silent. Cold. Detached. Like he wasn’t even listening.
“Son… I’m begging you. Please come home. Your Grandpa is old now… don’t wait until it’s too late to fulfill his wish.”
A deep sigh escaped Tristan’s lips.
“Okay then,” he finally said, his voice flat. “I’m coming home, Mom… with my wife. I want you to meet her.”
And just like that, he ended the call.
Loisa froze.
For a moment, she just stared at her phone in disbelief.
“Wife…?” she whispered.
Inside Tristan’s mind, there was no hesitation.
It was a lie—but a necessary one.
A shield.
A way to protect his pride.
Seven years ago, everything in his life shattered on the very day his brother’s wedding was supposed to take place.
The day he left Hacienda Leviste… was also the day he stopped being the same person.
He left not because he was weak—but because staying would have made him do something unforgivable.
He had seen it.
He saw Marcus and Vanessa together—completely exposed, tangled in betrayal inside a room they never thought he would enter.
The image was burned into his memory forever.
Chaos erupted after that.
At first, his grandfather wanted peace—he wanted them to forgive and forget. But Vanessa revealed the truth that changed everything: she was pregnant… and Marcus was the father.
So the wedding pushed through.
Because of responsibility.
Or maybe because of guilt.
Tristan no longer cared.
Love? Betrayal? Family?
Everything had turned into a joke in his eyes.
Because what he believed in… what he protected… what he gave his heart to—Vanessa—was the same person who broke him.
He loved her genuinely. Even when she was a spoiled brat, even when she was temperamental, he stayed.
He gave her time. Effort. Respect.
And in the end, he was still replaced.
Still betrayed.
So he left.
And promised himself he would never be that foolish again.
Now, seven years later, his mother’s voice still carried the same plea.
But this time, there was a difference.
He had a plan.
If they wanted him to come home… then he would come home.
But not like the broken man they remembered.
Not as someone who lost everything.
He would return as a man who had moved on.
A man who had won.
Even if it was a lie.
Tristan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
A wife.
That was what he told them.
But now the real question hit him—
Who would even agree to pretend to be his wife?
- Writer
