---- Chapter 1 I gazed at my mother's icy body lying in the morgue, my tears flowing ceaselessly down my face. My mother, Mariana Heimann, had raised me alone and never asked for anything in return. On the contrary, I had never done anything for her. I could not even fulfill her only wish before she passed. Knowing that my mother was dying, I begged Hayden Weatherford-the man with whom I'd been mutually in love for seven years-to marry me. I wanted my mom to rest assured that even after she was gone, someone would take care of me. ---- I begged him for a total of 57 days, but Hayden always failed to give me a proper answer. On the first day, his childhood friend Scarlett Needham's mother fell sick, so he had to rush over to visit her. On the second day, he was helping Scarlett move some furniture, so the talk about marriage had to be postponed to another day. On the 57th day, Scarlett was going ona trip, so he had to drop her off at the airport. If not for Scarlett posting an intimate photo of them holding up a marriage certificate today, Hayden would have continued playing me for a fool. I made up all sorts of excuses on his behalf, but I never would've guessed that he had already been married to someone else. ---- I knelt by my mom's bedside until the sky had gone dark. That was when my phone started ringing. It was Hayden on the other end, his tone as caring as usual, as he mentioned, "It's already dark outside. Why are you still not home? Send me your location and I'll drive over to pick you up." I was going to reply, but then my words stuck in my throat. Usually, I would definitely pretend to be unhappy to hear him cheer me up with sweet nothings, then wait joyfully for him to show up. But at that moment, I could no longer bring myself to flirt with him. Hayden's voice became tense. 'Where exactly are you, Lucy?" "At the hospital," I replied. Hayden paused for an instant before remembering ---- that I had been keeping my mom company at the hospital recently. "You... Wait for me. I'll head over to take care of Mrs. Atwell with you," he said before hanging up the phone. I suppressed the grief in my heart and got to work handling my mom's funeral affairs. Five minutes later, I received a message from Hayden. "Scarlett has gotten into a conflict with her family members, Lucy. I'm going to help her deal with it first, but I'll definitely visit Mrs. Atwell some other day!" I didn't feel any shock. Over the past two years, the words he had said the most often were, "Some other day, for sure". He hadn't turned up at our anniversary, promising to make up for it some other day.