Stolen Hearing

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My boyfriend of eight years and his first love were getting their kicks in our walk-in closet.

Keep it down, Jane Lincoln whispered, her voice tight. What if she hears us?

Jake Sandberg dismissed her concern. Jane, don't get distracted.

Jane started to cry, and Jake quickly kissed her.

Don't worry, Jane, I took her hearing aids.

"She can't hear us, it's okay, don't cry."

But Jake didn't know I had just returned from the hospital. I had used all my savings to get a cochlear implant surgery.

I had just returned from the hospital after my cochlear implants external processor was activated and adjusted. Opening the front door, I heard strange noises.

Stumbling footsteps mixed with gasps, followed by the sound of a closet door closing. My boyfriend of eight years and another woman's voices intertwined.

"Keep it down, what if she hears us?"

Jake was unconcerned: "Jane, don't get distracted."

Jane started to cry, and Jake quickly kissed her.

"Don't worry, Jane, I took her hearing aids."

"She can't hear us, it's okay, don't cry."

So, the missing hearing aids had been taken by Jake, all to make me a part of their twisted game.

I accidentally knocked over a glass vase near the entrance.

When the sharp sound of shattering echoed, the commotion from the closet finally stopped.

I stiffly knelt to pick up the pieces.

"Ouch." A shard sliced my finger.

Tears welled in my eyes from the pain.

After a long moment, a tall figure stopped in front of me. "Why didn't you say you were back?" Jake's voice was hoarse, his eyes still clouded with lingering desire.

"Such a grown woman, crying over a tiny cut from a shard."

He looked at me with disdain.

My lips trembled, so many words wanting to spill out, but in the end, I just said:

"Jake, I can't find my hearing aids."

Hearing this, the man opposite me pretended to search for a moment. When he emerged from the bedroom, he held up two hearing aids.

"Dummy, you need to keep track of your own hearing aids. What if I hadn't found them for you?"

I snatched the hearing aids from his hand, pretending to put them on. When he wasn't looking, I slipped both into my pocket.

My heart hammered furiously, my breathing erratic. I walked past him, seemingly casually, heading towards the bedrooms walk-in closet, feigning confusion.

"In the bedroom? Why didn't I see them earlier?"

Jake had left in a hurry, leaving the closet door slightly ajar. Through that crack, I could even see Jane's panicked, tear-filled eyes.

Pain, like a cornered beast, savagely tore at my heart. I was practically suffocating.

I instinctively reached out, my fingers trembling as they brushed the closet door. Through the narrow gap, Jane held clothes to cover her body, one hand clamped over her mouth as if terrified she might scream.

My mind was a blur. I completely disregarded our upcoming wedding, focused only on tearing down the humiliating charade before me.

Just as I reached to open the closet door, an uncontrollable wave of nausea surged through my throat.

I pushed away Jake, who had rushed over anxiously, and hurried to the bathroom, retching dryly into the sink in front of the mirror.

"What's wrong? Did you eat something bad? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Jake leaned in, feigning concern.

It had been a while since my last period. When I had my cochlear implant surgery today, I coincidentally had an ultrasound scan. The results showed I was seven weeks pregnant.

I had been excited the whole way home, wanting to tell Jake the good news in person. The child we had hoped for for five years was finally coming.

I looked at the man in front of me, whose concern seemed genuine, and couldnt help but deceive myself.

Perhaps, if I just pretended not to know.

As soon as he knew I was pregnant.

We could start over, couldn't we?

I was about to speak.

The sound of something falling echoed, from the direction of the bedroom.

Jake's hand, resting on my arm, stiffened.

"You go wait for me in the underground garage."

"I'll tidy up and come down, then I'll take you to the hospital to get checked."

I nodded. Before leaving, I used another less-used phone to call my main one. I set the spare phone to silent and placed it face down before turning to leave.

In the empty underground garage, I sat quietly in the passenger seat, my phone beside me, still on the call.

"Jay, I know you still resent me for leaving you to go abroad back then, but I truly had no choice."

"I know you're about to marry Ruth."

"But what about me? Jay, I'm having your baby. Can you really bear to let our child be born without a father?"

The woman's crying and the man's incredulous voice came through the phone.

"Jane, is what you're saying true?"

What a coincidence.

"Jay, I know your responsibility to Ruth, but are you really going to abandon all these years of love between us?"

Only responsibility?

"How could I abandon you!" Jake blurted out.

My heart sank completely.

The day Jake and I first met was also the first time I saw Jane Lincoln.

I was six years old. My grandparents took me to buy my first pair of hearing aids. The staff stubbornly refused to sell them to us.

Because we didnt have enough money.

Countless crumpled fifty-cent, one-dollar, five-dollar, ten-dollar, twenty-dollar bills piled up like a small mountain C it was their life savings. But it still wasnt enough.

My grandparents were so desperate they knelt, begging them to sell to us first, promising they could write an IOU. I knew it was because I was about to start elementary school, and they didn't want my education to suffer because I couldn't hear. They didn't want other children to look down on me.

Amidst the stalemate, a childish voice broke the silent air.

"Daddy, sell them to them."

Jake, who had come with his father, Mr. Sandberg, pleaded with him. Standing beside him, Jane Lincoln, in a beautiful princess dress with elaborate braids, looked at us with pity.

Her gaze held no malice, yet it felt like a needle pricking me. I instinctively clutched my old, faded, stiff clothes.

And so, we received a pair of burning hot hearing aids. And a thin IOU, heavier than a mountain.

Thats how Jake, Jane, and I met.

Children's preferences are brutally straightforward. So I knew early on that Jake liked Jane.

I watched him chase away the little boys who tried to befriend her, awkwardly giving her cheap but pretty hair clips.

I watched him participate in make-believe games he usually found boring, just so he could play Mommy and Daddy with Jane. In their endless games where they were the main characters, I was always either a bystander or the villain.

Once, Jake pushed me down according to the script. Perhaps he didn't control his strength well, and I fell hard to the ground. Rough sand scraped my palms and knees; fresh blood seeped from the wounds, and I cried from the pain.

Jake, who was originally walking towards Jane, suddenly turned around, carrying me on his back, and sprinted towards the infirmary. The slender boy's body erupted with infinite potential. Leaning on his shoulder, I was so stunned I even forgot to cry.

For a moment, I thought I was the heroine of a high school drama.

"Hmph, Jane's into cop movies lately. She keeps saying she only likes heroes."

"Now I guess I'm a hero too, right?"

"Hey, Ruth, considering I saved you, you owe me big time. Make sure you praise me to Jane when you get back."

Those unspoken, fervent girlish feelings were doused with a bucket of cold water, the chill plunging straight to my heart.

I stiffened and said, "Okay."

Later, in our junior year of high school, Jake's father went bankrupt and committed suicide. Jane unilaterally broke up with Jake and moved abroad. I stayed with the penniless Jake, helping him start a business and rebuild his fortune.

He confessed his feelings to me, then proposed. I thought I had finally emerged from Jane's shadow.

I was naive.

I waited in the underground garage for a very, very long time, so long that Jake messaged me to say he had an emergency and couldn't accompany me to the hospital.

Because Jane was upset. He was taking her to set off fireworks in the suburbs.

I silently went upstairs, washed up. When I instinctively sat on the bed, those filthy memories instantly flooded my mind.

So dirty, so dirty.

I ran to the bathroom and vomited until I was dizzy. As I collapsed to the floor, I saw a silver men's ring lying by the drain.

Four years ago, I used my meager savings to buy Jake a silver ring as a birthday gift. It was during the hardest time of his startup, when the dual pressure of mental stress and financial struggles was almost crushing him.

The six-foot-tall man, upon seeing the small silver ring I gave him, actually got tears in his eyes.

He held me very, very tightly, so tightly I could barely breathe. But I only thought to comfort him.

He solemnly promised me: "Ruth, I will definitely make sure we live a good life."

Later, he treasured that silver ring as if his life depended on it, never bearing to take it off. He said seeing the ring was like seeing me; he wanted to see me every minute of every day.

But now, that silver ring lay quietly in a corner of the bathroom, left to dust and grime that dulled its shine.

I picked up the ring.

I slept in the guest room for a night. As I drifted in and out of sleep, a figure climbed onto the bed.

"Ruth, why weren't you waiting for me in the living room today? And why did you sleep in the guest room?"

In the past, no matter how late Jake came home, I would always wait for him on the sofa in the living room. Sometimes I would wait all night. After so many years, it had become our unspoken habit.

"I don't know why, but the bedroom smells really bad."

The smell of infidelity.

He was so close, I easily caught his scent.

The rose perfume, unmistakable even through the faint scent of gunpowder.

Roses were Jane Lincoln's favorite.

Disgusting.

Perhaps out of guilt, he didnt speak for a moment, then wandered into the kitchen. The kitchen was empty, the stove barren.

"Ruth, why isn't there any porridge today?"

Jake's work schedule was demanding; he often forgot to eat, leading to stomach problems over time. I researched many remedies, finally settling on several recipes for stomach-nourishing porridge, along with various other stomach-friendly meals. For years, I had tirelessly tried new ways to care for his health.

I didn't speak, just turned over and continued to sleep. Not having to get up early felt quite nice. Jake finally realized something was off with me and leaned in, coaxing.

"Come on, Ruth, you're not still mad about yesterday, are you? It was all work-related."

"You know, I do it all for our future."

"Are you still feeling unwell? Should I take you to the hospital now?"

"No, I'm much better."

"Then how about I book our favorite restaurant for dinner tonight? Candlelight dinner?"

"Sure."

It was a good opportunity for us to talk, to discuss the baby.

Just as I finished washing up and opened my phone, I saw a message from Jane, asking to meet that afternoon. As if afraid I wouldn't go, she even sent me a photo of her and Jake kissing under a sky full of fireworks.

I went as promised. Jake, oblivious, drove me to the intersection. As we parted ways, I casually asked him:

"Have you lost anything recently?"

He looked around blankly, then shook his head.

My heart turned to ice, inch by inch.

I got out of the car, casually tossing a silver ring into a trash can.

I pushed open the door of the cafe and saw Jane, in a white dress, waving to me from her seat. She was as beautiful as ever.

I immediately noticed the diamond ring on her hand. When choosing wedding rings, I really liked the promise behind it: "One life, one love." But Jake thought it was tacky and dragged me to the shop next door to pick out a different diamond ring.

It wasn't the ring that was tacky; it was me who wasn't worthy.

"Ruth, long time no see."

"Honestly, it was quite a shame you gave up on going abroad as an exchange student back then."

In high school, a well-known alumnus offered to sponsor my overseas study, on the condition that I work for his company after graduating college. It was a very rare opportunity; if I accepted, a brilliant future was within reach.

But I still refused.

At that time, Jake was at a low point: his father had gone bankrupt and committed suicide, and Jane had moved abroad, unilaterally breaking up with him. I felt I couldn't leave him then.

Memories slowly faded. A waiter brought two drinks.

"Tequila Sunrise. It's a very refreshing alcoholic drink. Try it."

Jane pushed a bright orange drink towards me. She was clearly smiling, but her fingers trembled slightly as she pushed the glass.

"Jane, you're very perceptive, and very smart."

I didn't take the drink.

She took a deep breath, her face instantly paling, but she still forced a smile.

"Ruth, do you know?"

"I thought I'd have to explain for ages to Jay about going abroad, but I didn't expect him to just throw himself into my arms, unable to control himself, the moment we reunited."

My fingers suddenly tightened, and the wound I unintentionally touched throbbed even more fiercely.

"Do you know the first thing he said to me?"

"He said, 'Jane, I hate you.'"

"'But you're not allowed to leave me again.'"

Jane recalled the anecdote and burst into laughter.

I blinked furiously, a strained, ugly curve on my lips. It was quite funny.

I started laughing too.

But Jane, opposite me, suddenly stopped laughing and looked at me haughtily.

"Ruth, you're crying."

"You damn bitch, you're here! You stole my money and ran back to the country, and now I've finally found you!"

A sudden change. A burly man with a scarred face, appearing from nowhere, lunged and slapped Jane.