Chapter 2

It was morning already—what a very long night for me.

The storm was quiet already, but I'm not sure the storm in me could ever die down.

I stood before the mirror in my bedroom, staring at myself. I saw my eyes were without tears, but I couldn't remember when I stopped crying. My skin seemed drained of life, I looked half dead, and I knew I was tired. Not just the physical kind of tired, but that which sank deep into the soul. My dried lips pressed into a line, as though the slightest movement might cause me to shatter into pieces too small to gather back.

Three years. That was how long I had endured, how long I had told myself that love might grow if I walked it carefully. That maybe if I gave enough, if I forgave enough, if I endured enough, one day he would look at me and see more than a mistake. But three years of waiting, three years of hoping, had left me nothing but hollow.

My fingers felt the diamond ring on my finger, a very cruel reminder. A ring that should have symbolized devotion but instead was a chain that bound me to a man who never wanted me. My heart screamed to hold on because letting go felt like drowning, but my soul whispered a truth I could no longer ignore: if I stayed, I would break beyond repair.

Deep down I knew life behind our mansion was not definite for me to live happily. I knew how engaged I had been with the house itself for three years. Leaving the man I ever loved was one deep cut; leaving our home was another cut in the same spot.

 His footsteps echoed across the polished floor, steady, unhurried, and heavy with the same indifference that marked every interaction between us.

I wished I had the power to disappear that moment because I know listening to him might want to be a thread to hold me back.

Alex came in with a happy face, but his words to me were disappointing:

“You’re still here?” His voice was sharp and piercing, as though my presence was nothing more than a mistake he wished erased.

I turned slowly and carefully with a mind that my steady movements might keep me from collapsing under the weight of him. My red and filled eyes met his cold, unreadable eyes, and I forced my voice into a steadiness I did not feel.

“Where else should I be, Alex? This is my home too.”

He scoffed, loosening his tie with an attitude that seemed to strip away the last pretense of me. His expression always made me feel like my whole life was meaningless to him, and the disdain in his voice struck harder than any blow.

“This house was never yours, Emily. Stop pretending it was.”

The words lodged deep inside me, sharper than all other cuts his words had made to me, but I didn’t flinch, not this time. I had spent too many nights curled into myself in the silence of this room, my tears soaking the pillow while he slept peacefully in another wing of the house. Too many mornings I had woken with the fragile hope that he might look at me differently, that he might notice me, but he never did, and now, finally, I saw the truth.

I drew in a shaky breath, pressing strength into my voice until it sounded steadier than the trembling in my chest. “Then maybe it’s time I leave.”

His eyes flickered, just briefly, with something unexpected—surprise. He had not expected those words from me, not after years of my silence, my obedience, and my desperate attempts to hold our marriage together. I sensed he wasn't pained, but he never expected that confidence. He then gave the nonchalant looks he always gives and spoke back.

“Leave?” He repeated the word slowly, and then he made a weird laugh. “Don’t be dramatic, Emily. You knew what this was from the beginning. You agreed to it.”

My throat tightened, a painful knot that made it hard to breathe. Yes, I had known. I had known he didn’t love me when he put that ring on my finger. I had known that his heart belonged to someone else, that I was nothing more than a shadow standing in the place she left vacant, but I had been foolish enough to hope. I never knew it would only get worse with him.

Hope had been my poison.

“I agreed to be your wife, Alex.” My whole body was not stable, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “But I didn’t agree to live as if I don’t exist.”

Silence. He said nothing, and yet that nothingness was heavier than any insult, harsher than any cruelty. Silence meant there was nothing in me worth defending, nothing in me worth fighting for. His silence confirmed what I had always feared: I was invisible to him.

My eyes burned, but I refused to let the tears fall. Not this time. Tears had never moved him before; they would not move him now. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

With a trembling hand, I reached for the small suitcase I had hidden in the corner of the room. I had packed it while the dawn broke, every item folded with hands that shook so badly I almost gave up. Just one bag—that was all it took to carry three years of love, pain, and disappointment. I zipped it shut, the sound slicing through the silence like a final verdict.

“Emily.”

His voice was different this time, lower and uncertain. My heart betrayed me instantly, leaping with the same foolish hope that had chained me to him for years. I paused, my back still turned, daring to believe that maybe, just maybe, he would ask me to stay.

I turned, but his face was as cold as ever, his eyes empty of anything I had longed for. “Don’t make a scene,” he said flatly. “If you want to leave, then leave. It changes nothing for me, and I'm glad you finally discovered how worthless you are.”

The fragile thread inside me snapped.

I had wanted him to stop me. I had wanted him to fight, even if just once, for me, but he wouldn’t. He never would.

I swallowed hard, forcing my lips into something that might have been a smile if not for the ache twisting inside. “Then goodbye, Alex.”

Each step I took toward the door felt heavier than the last, as though I was dragging the ghost of my love behind me. My hand shook on the doorknob, but I didn’t hesitate. Not this time.

I walked past him, my suitcase rolling behind me, my heart splintering with every step. He didn’t follow. He didn’t call out my name. He simply stood there, cold and unmoving, while I carried the ashes of our marriage out the door.

And as the door closed behind me, a final thought echoed in my chest, bitter and haunting: "Is this an end to all that we have shared?"

This was the end, or so I thought.