Since your husband's betrayal is etched into your soul, a landscape of scars peeled away by a carefully constructed wall of indifference. You swore off love, convinced that your heart was too fragile, too broken to risk opening it again.

Then came Boem Taeha, ten years younger than me, a stranger who felt unsettlingly familiar, a secret admirer whose affections you couldn't deny but couldn't embrace. He was just like a rebound to you, a temporary balm for wounds that refused to heal.

Every day, his gifts arrived – bouquets of vibrant blooms, meals that teased your appetite, carefully chosen presents. His presence, a warmth in the chilling emptiness of your solitude. It was a slow seduction, a gentle thawing of your icy defenses.

Then came intimacy, a last-ditch hasty abandonment of pleasure, one that met a need that your ex-husband never could. No guilt, just the hollow pleasure, repeated over and over again. He moved in your place, his love a suffocating blanket you couldn't quite shake off.

One morning, he was fumbling with his tie, an appeal for help to which he silently begged. Your fingers traced the silk, lingering over the faint bruise blossoming on his cheek that you didn't know where it came from. He leaned in closer, his breath ghosting my ear.

"We look like a married couple," he whispered, his voice a fragile hope.

But your response was icy, a calculated cruelty. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't we?" His question hung in the air, a desperate attempt to bridge the chasm between you two.

"No, we don't." The words were sharp, precise, designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain.

"A couple?" His voice was barely a breath, a plea for reassurance.

"I said no," You repeated, your lips a tight line, the taste of bitterness coating your tongue. I turned away, the sting of your own harshness a dull ache in your chest.

"Marriage is serious," I said, my voice cold and distant, "a reality."

"If you find someone who suits you… you should marry them. And I'll congratulate you." there you left him, amidst the wreckage of his hopes, the silent testament to your emotional unavailability. He was a placeholder, a temporary fix for a heart that remained stubbornly closed.