Chapter 4

Maybe because I had been unusually quiet, James kept trying to strike up a conversation, but I replied curtly every time.

Not long after, his phone rang.

He deliberately angled himself away while replying, but through the reflection on the car window, I still caught a glimpse of the screen.

Sure enough, Cassandra's bunny avatar appeared the moment I looked.

"James, a pipe burst at home, and I'm soaked. Can you come over?"

After reading the message, his throat bobbed visibly. Mindful that I was still there, he quickly turned off his phone and smiled at me, trying to cover up the flash of guilt in his eyes.

From then on, his mind was clearly elsewhere. He nearly ran a red light more than once.

Halfway through the drive, he suddenly slammed on the brakes and looked at me with an apologetic expression. "Darling, something urgent came up at the company. Why don't you take a cab home first? I'll come back to keep you company once I'm done, okay?"

It sounded like a question, but he clearly was not offering me a second option.

Before I could respond, he had already opened the door, helped me out onto the roadside, and sped off in a hurry.

As the exhaust faded into the distance, I felt a bitterness that I couldn't put into words.

James must have forgotten that this was the outskirts of town. With the snow falling, there was no way to get a cab.

I had once believed he was my salvation.

After all, he had broken three ribs fighting for me. He had drunk himself into a stomach bleed to shield me from alcohol. He remembered every one of my cycles. His social media was filled with nothing but me.

Even his friends mocked him for being hopelessly devoted to me alone.

I never imagined that my savior would become the one who pushed me back into the abyss.

Everything that happened in the pool that day had been Cassandra's setup. She pulled me under and screamed that I had pushed her.

I thrashed in the water, trying to explain myself over and over, but all I got in response was James's icy stare and the determined look on his face as he swam straight toward Cassandra.

His betrayal cut deeper than even Morgan's indifferent rejection ever had.

With no way to get a cab, I was forced to trudge home through the biting wind and falling snow.

…

The moment I got home, Cassandra sent me a private message.

There were countless photos of James asleep, along with all kinds of intimate pictures of the two of them. "Elsa, so what if you're pretty? A substitute is still just a substitute. You only deserve whatever scraps I don't want."

Her every word dripped with provocation.

Even though I had braced myself, actually seeing those photos still made my eyes burn red as a wave of grief swallowed me whole.

I forced myself to look through every message Cassandra sent. After rubbing my aching eyes, I turned off my phone and went inside to pack.

There was a lot to deal with. It took me two full hours to finish sorting everything.

In the end, I packed only a few changes of clothes into my suitcase. Everything else went straight into the fire pit.

Among the items were ninety-nine handwritten love letters he had written for me. Even in the raw, unpolished scrawl, his love shone through. There were also the Elarian pearls he had spent a fortune winning at auction, meant to symbolize a lifetime together.

…

After that, I lit the fire and burned everything to ash.

Since I was going to fake my death and leave James, I would erase every trace of myself from this place.