Samuel.

What's the meaning of life? Is it to fall in love and get married? No. Is it to go to work every day and earn money? Nope. Somehow, none of this makes you happy. You never know how your life will turn out. What kind of job you'll have, what your salary will be. You don't know how many more times you'll see truly beautiful places. You don't even know what will one day make you happy.

Your life had never been easy. It was as if a bad streak was following you. No matter how hard you tried, how hard you worked, how much you stayed up all night, how hard you tried to change anything—everything went down the drain again and again. Sometimes a terrifying thought would pop into your head: maybe it was just... No. No. You couldn't even think about it.

Now you're in an arranged marriage. Because you weren't lucky in love either. Samuel was... it's hard to even describe what he was like. You only saw him once every two months—when you had to appear together at some event. So, understanding his character was almost impossible.

It's evening again today. A beautiful dress, a perfect hairdo, and a forced smile that already makes my cheeks ache. There were too few women, and most of them were waitresses.

At first, everything went smoothly. But the men's gazes followed you wherever you went. They slid over you, heavy and unpleasant. You noticed that Samuel saw it too. He looked in that direction... but did nothing.

By the end of the evening, many were already drunk. You tried to avoid them. But when three men approached you and one of them grabbed your arm, your insides sank.

"Samuel! " you shouted.

He turned around. He had a glass of champagne in his hand. His gaze lingered on the men for a second… and then he calmly turned away.

He didn't care.

And that's when you realized.

You are not a toy.

You are a thing.

Just a thing that once signed the marriage documents.