Chapter 3 Drowning Her Sorrows

• “You went too far, Anna. How could you hit her? When did you become so violent?”
• Justin abruptly turned around and pinned his eyes on me, the wrath and reproach in his gaze plainly visible.
• All at once, my heart felt as though it had been sliced into ribbons. I gaped at him, my face drained of all color.
• Haha, it's glaringly obvious that I can't compare to Mabel in his eyes! But I'm his fiancée! We're getting married tomorrow, yet he had no qualms about being intimate with another woman in our new house. To make matters worse, the woman even turned out to be my best friend since my university days!
• “Get out of here, Mabel Quintrell! This is my marital home. Scram now!”
• As though I had lost my mind, I rushed forward and grabbed her arm to drag her out of my house.
• “That's enough! Snap out of it, Anna Garcia!”
• Justin shot forward and shoved me to the floor while shielding Mabel in his arms.
• The pain radiating from my butt paled in comparison to the agony within me. Getting to my feet, I looked at him with a bitter smile. At that very moment, I wholly understood that my importance to him was far beneath that of a homewrecker.
• “I hate you, Justin Xenakis!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, exhausting the last vestiges of my strength.
• Spinning on my heels, I ran out of the community. I sprinted relentlessly, blocking out any reminiscence of the scene I had witnessed earlier with the vigorous exercise.
• Nonetheless, the scene that had just transpired kept playing in my mind. On the night before the wedding, the bride-to-be's fiancé and best friend were caught in the act, and they even had a child together. I thought that such a melodramatic affair would only appear on television, but it was actually happening to me at that very moment, and I was the betrayed bride-to-be.
• We had been together for seven years. Initially, I thought that we would live happily ever after starting tomorrow, never to be separated until death. But all my hopes were destroyed after witnessing everything that night. He was no longer the Justin Xenakis who professed to love me and be with me forever.
• Subsequently, I went to the bar.
• The stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol hung in the air. The music was cranked to the maximum as though trying to burst the patrons' eardrums. Men were swaying to the beat on the dance floor while I sat in the corner guzzling glass after glass of the strongest liquor. At that moment, my emotions were on the brink of snapping.
• Well, well... How absurd that I witnessed my fiancé and best friend fooling around the night before our wedding! Haha, it's truly laughable and pathetic! Throughout the past seven years, I'd never once suspected that they were hooking up, for they were the people I trusted the most. But now, it's precisely those two people who betrayed me at the same time. Is there anyone else who's more pathetic than me in this world?
• My mind flooded with the image of Mabel frantically undulating atop Justin with nary a stitch on her body. Justin's rapturous expression, on the other hand, was both ludicrous and repulsive.
• Oh, and there's Reese as well. It turned out that Reese is Justin's child! Not only did they hook up, but they even had a child together! I've always assumed that Mabel's reluctance to talk about Reese's father stemmed from hurt, so I've been cautious and avoided that topic. Now, I finally know how laughable I've been! Were they too good at keeping it under wraps, or was I too stupid? It'd been so many years, yet I never had the slightest inkling.
• As my emotions were a chaotic mess, I threw my head back and guzzled the hard liquor. The burning sensation in my throat had tears pouring down my face, but my chest remained tight without a hint of respite to be found.