Chapter 3

The morning air was rough, sharp, and almost mean. It was like the world was trying to tell me that I didn't belong anywhere. The weight of my bag dug into my palm as I tightened my grip on the handle.It wasn’t just luggage I was carrying; it was everything that remained of my marriage, of my hope, of my broken dignity.

The city stretched before me, alive with its usual rhythm. Cars honked, people hurried along the sidewalks, and the smell of coffee came from a café on the corner. It was the same city I had lived in for three years, yet it looked unrecognizable to me now. It was too loud, too bright, and too indifferent. To the rest of the world, it was just another day. But for me, it was the day after the end.

I forced myself not to look back. I knew the mansion was still there behind me, with the tall gates that I have lived with. That house had been my palace and my prison, my battlefield and my coffin. If I turned, if I allowed myself even a slight turn at all, I knew I would crumble. My heart, already fragile, would shatter completely.

So I walked forward. One step, then another. Each step was heavy, as if I dragged chains behind me.

The taxi pulled up at the curb, I felt so cheap because I haven't been in a taxi for years, its tires splashing through a puddle. The driver glanced at me in the mirror when I slid into the back seat. He stared at me a bit, probably because of my swollen eyes, sad puffy face, and wrinkled dress that still smelled faintly of last night’s perfume.

“Where to, ma?” His voice was thick but not unkind.

The question pierced me in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Where to? I had no answer. No home. No plan. My parents lived in another state, and I couldn’t show up on their doorstep with a suitcase and a broken marriage. I hadn’t spoken to most of my friends in years; they had all drifted away after the wedding, tired of my constant excuses for Alex’s absence.

Where does a wife go when her husband has made it clear she is nothing?

It felt like my mouth was heavy, but I had to force out words. “Just downtown.”

The driver nodded and pulled into the morning traffic.

I pressed my forehead against the cool window, watching the blur of buildings, the neon signs of early cafés, and the tangle of strangers’ lives rushing forward. Every corner seemed to whisper Alex’s name. There was the bookstore where I once waited for him for two hours, only for him never to arrive. There was the park where I once sat alone, sketching pictures of us that existed only in my imagination. I used to dream of exploring there with him, our hands intertwined, our laughter mingling with the rustle of the trees but they were my dreams. Only mine.

The phone buzzed in my bag, bringing me back to reality. My heart leapt stupidly, as though he might have changed his mind, as though he might finally chase after me. Maybe he would say he was wrong. Maybe he would say he couldn’t let me go.

With trembling fingers, I snatched it from the bag.

It wasn’t Alex.

It was Vanessa.

The message was short, cruel, and sharp as glass.

Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take good care of him now that you’re gone.

My vision blurred instantly. The tears came hot and relentless, dripping onto the screen until her words melted me completely. My chest caved inward, and I gasped, the pain so physical it felt like something inside me had cracked open.

He hadn’t just let me go. He had handed me over. Silent and early, he had given my heart to another woman without a fight.

I turned the phone off and shoved it deep into my bag, as though burying it could somehow bury the agony too, but the words had already dipped themselves into me, a scar I would never erase.

The taxi slowed and pulled up in front of a modest motel. The kind of place I used to pass without ever glancing at twice. Paint peeled from the sign, the windows were wet, and the air smelled faintly of damp cement. This was where I had landed, not because I chose it, but because I had nowhere else.

I handed the driver some of the bills in my wallet; my pride had disappeared all by itself. I was not the wife of a billionaire again. He gave me one last sympathetic glance before driving away, leaving me alone on the sidewalk.

Inside, the receptionist barely looked up from her phone as I signed the register. My handwriting was bad but still understandable. She slid a single brass key across the counter. “Room seventeen.”

The hallway smelled of old carpet and cleaning chemicals. My suitcase wheels rattled loudly against the uneven floor as though announcing my shame to the empty corridor.

When I closed the door behind me, the silence was suffocating. I dropped my suitcase by the bed and slid down to the floor, the strength in my legs giving way. The room was small, its wallpaper faded, its single lamp casting a weak yellow glow. But it wasn’t the room that broke me; it was the sudden realization that this was all I had now. Four walls that belonged to no one.

I stared down at my hand. The diamond ring still clung to my finger, a reminder of promises never kept. With shaking hands, I removed it and threw it across the room. It struck the wall with a sharp sound before disappearing into the shadows. The sound was far too small for what it meant.

That ring had once been my treasure, the proof that I was chosen, that I belonged. Now it was nothing but a mockery.

I hugged myself tightly, rocking slightly on the floor as though trying to hold my body together, piece by fragile piece. My chest ached with every breath.

I was no longer Emily Reed, wife of Alexander Reed.

I was Emily Carter again, all alone, unwanted, and forgotten.

And as the night deepened, I could not tell if I was hungry or not because the shame experienced filled my stomach already. Alex hadn’t fought for me. Not once. He had let me go like I am nothing.

And maybe to him, I always had been nothing to him, but I knew, as always, that this is never the end.