VICTORIA ~
After dealing with everything, I returned to the party only to see Brandon protecting Elese, loudly accusing another person.
From their words, it wasn't hard to tell that the person had accidentally spilled some wine from their glass on the corner of Elese's clothes, and Brandon was insistently demanding an apology.
Looking at the scene before me, I suddenly remembered several years ago.
At that time, Brandon and I were attending the same banquet. As we passed by the champagne tower in the middle of the party, Elese directly pushed me. I lost my balance and fell onto the champagne tower.
The wine glasses shattered, and wine mixed with blood flowed down my body. I sought help from Brandon, but he scolded me loudly in front of everyone.
"Can't you walk properly! Can't you see such a big champagne tower?"
"You still crashed into it; don't you know how important this party is? I really don't know why someone as useless as you is still alive!"
"If I were you, I'd just bash my head in right here!"
Those were his exact words.
Coming back to the present, looking at all this before me, I just found it extremely laughable. I simply turned and left, heading home.
Brandon didn't come home all night. I wasn't surprised, as this wasn't the first time.
*
In the morning when I was washing up, I saw Brandon returning with breakfast, and Elese was walking behind him.
Seeing me coming out, he put the breakfast on the dining table and surprisingly offered an explanation.
"We played too late last night. Elese was afraid to be alone, so I sent her home."
"It was already midnight, so I just slept at her place for the night."
"That's right, Victoria, you're not angry, are you?"
Elese was holding onto his arm, challenging me as she spoke.
I nodded, not saying a word. Brandon seemed to have noticed my coldness; he put the breakfast on the table and spoke softly.
"Victoria, didn't you always want to see that newly released movie?"
"I happen to have time today; I'll take you to see it."
That movie had received rave reviews since its release, and I had asked Brandon many times to take me to the cinema to watch it, but he always refused.
He always says he had many things to deal with at the company, but not many days later, I saw him on Elese's Instagram.
[The best movie deserves the best you.]
The photo didn't show faces, but looking at the intertwined hands in the picture, even without showing faces, I could recognize it was them in a cinematic center.
Smelling the faint perfume on Brandon, I directly refused.
"No need, I have something to do today."
Seeing me like this, a flash of embarrassment crossed his eyes; he wanted to say something more.
Meanwhile, Elese had already sat down on the sofa, looking at me innocently.
"Victoria, when you say you have something to do, is it to meet your college classmate?"
I looked at her, puzzled. The fact that I was preparing for divorce was known only to me and the lawyer, so how did she know about this?
To think she knows that this lawyer was my college classmate baffles me.
Seeing my puzzled look, Elese again looked at Brandon helplessly.
"Brandon, don't be angry. I heard from a friend the other day that they saw Victoria and a college classmate at a coffee shop behaving..."
She deliberately paused, then spoke again as if afraid.
"Intimately..."
"But maybe my friend saw wrong. Victoria loves Brandon so much. How could she cheat on her first love?"
As soon as she finished speaking, Brandon's face immediately fell. He raised his hand and smashed the vase on the table, looking at me angrily.
"Victoria! You refuse to go see the movie with me because you want to go out and meet another man in private!"
"How can you do this to the child in your belly!"
I lowered my head to look at the broken pieces of the vase on the ground. Before I could speak, Elese spoke again, pretending to be generous.
"Brandon, don't be angry; we should talk calmly."
"We can't blame Victoria for doing this; after all, isn't Victoria's mother also because of an affair...?"
This time, before she could finish speaking, I grabbed a tissue from the side and threw it at her. I could tolerate her slandering me, but not my mother.
The place where Elese had been hit by the tissue immediately turned red; Brandon hurriedly raised her arm to look at it with concern.
Seeing Elese's aggrieved appearance, he immediately pointed at me and scolded angrily.
"Victoria, you've really disappointed me!"
"Even if what Elese said isn't true, you can't raise your hand against her! Don't you know..."
He wanted to continue his endless accusations but was directly interrupted by me.
"So, you know what she said isn't true!"
Brandon's face immediately became embarrassed, but he quickly regained his composure, pointing at me self-righteously.
"Yes, I saw it that day too."
"You're wrong to hit Elese. Apologize to her quickly, or we'll go get a divorce right now!"
A chill immediately spread throughout my body. I looked at him in disbelief but still chose to make one last attempt at reconciliation.
"Brandon, I've made an appointment for an abortion; will you come with me tomorrow?"
Brandon immediately sneered, as if I was telling some kind of joke.
"Abortion?"