Chapter 9

Elena’s pov

Two days passed without a single word from him.

I stayed at Mom’s apartment and tried to build a rhythm out of ordinary things. Coffee in the morning. A shower. Answering the emails from the lawyers with the shortest possible replies. 

I didn’t call him. 

I didn’t text. 

The silence on his side was complete, and I told myself I wasn’t going to be the one to break it.

Mom watched me carefully without hovering.

“You don’t have to keep checking your phone,” she said on the second morning when she caught me looking at the screen again.

“I’m not waiting for him,” I said.

“I know you’re not waiting the way you think you are. But you’re still checking.”

I set the phone face down on the table. “It’s habit. That’s all. My hand just keeps reaching for it.”

She poured more coffee and sat across from me. “Has he sent anything at all? Even through someone else?”

“No. Just the lawyers. Polite. Efficient. They want a temporary address for formal correspondence. 

They said Mr. Voss prefers to keep communication through counsel for the time being.” I gave a short, empty breath. “No personal note. No question about how I am. Nothing that sounds like the man who was talking about ordinary mornings three days ago.”

Mom wrapped both hands around her mug. “He’s staying behind the lawyers on purpose.”

“Yes.”

“That tells you something about where his head is.”

“It tells me he’s done talking to me.” I leaned back in the chair. “He made his decision the night he told me to leave. The rest is just paperwork to him. Clean. Controlled. Already finished.”

She studied my face. “And how are you with that?”

“I don’t know yet.” I rubbed at the empty spot on my left hand where the rings had been. 

“Part of me keeps expecting him to realize something was wrong with those papers. To ask one question. 

To look at me like I’m still a person he knows instead of a problem he solved. But there’s nothing. Just the formal language and the silence.”

“He’s protecting his version of events,” she said. “The clean one. 

The one where this was mutual and calm and no one got hurt in public.”

“I know.” I stared at the table. “That’s what makes it worse. He’s certain enough that he doesn’t even need to check. 

He looked at a folder for a few minutes and decided the entire truth about me. And now he’s moved on to the next step like the conversation is over.”

Mom was quiet for a moment. “You’re allowed to be angry about that.”

“I keep trying to get there. Mostly I just feel tired.”

That evening I finally opened the public article again. The same photograph from the reception. The same word, amicable. 

A few vague sentences about careful consideration and best wishes. No one reading it would guess I had been told to leave before the night was over. 

No one would guess he had looked at me like I was already a mistake he needed to correct.

I turned the screen toward Mom when she came into the living room. “This is still up. It’s still the only version most people are going to see.”

She glanced at it, then sat down beside me. “Close it.”

“I’ve closed it three times already. It doesn’t change anything.”

“I know. Close it anyway. You don’t need to keep absorbing their version of your life.”

I closed the tab and set the phone face down. “Has anyone else called today?”

“Two more reporters. I told them the same thing I told the first one. You’re not available. 

They can print whatever story his side is feeding them. You’re not required to help them tidy it up.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for protecting you,” she said. “That’s not optional. That’s basic.”

I managed a small breath that was almost a laugh. “I keep thinking about how sure he was. Like the folder answered every question he could ever have about me. 

He didn’t hesitate. Not once. He didn’t even look uncertain.”

“That certainty isn’t your responsibility,” Mom said. 

“It’s his. And the fact that he hasn’t reached out, hasn’t asked a single follow-up question, hasn’t shown even a moment of doubt, that’s also his. You’re allowed to stop giving him the benefit of explanations he never asked for.”

I nodded slowly. “I know you’re right. It just doesn’t feel finished. In my head it’s still sitting there, waiting for a different ending. 

Like there’s a version where he comes back and says the papers were wrong and we start over from the part before the folder.”

“It may not get a different ending,” she said gently. 

“You might have to build the next part without one. 

That doesn’t mean you’re weak for wanting it. It just means you might not get it.”

The words settled heavily, but they were honest. I didn’t argue with them.

Later, after Mom had gone to bed, I sat on the edge of my old mattress and looked at the dark phone screen. No messages. No missed calls.

The silence he had chosen was steady and complete. 

He was certain. He was already moving forward behind the protection of lawyers and a public story that made everything look clean.

I set the phone on the nightstand and turned off the light.

The quiet in the room felt different from the quiet of the hotel. This one belonged to me, at least. 

He didn’t get to fill it. He had already made his choice, and the choice was distance.

I lay back and stared at the ceiling, letting the fact of his silence settle next to the rest of what had happened. 

He wasn’t coming to the door. He wasn’t going to ask if the papers might have been wrong. 

He had decided, and he was standing behind that decision without looking back.

The first days after he told me to leave were already showing me the shape of what came next.

He would stay silent.

And I would have to learn how to live inside that silence without waiting for it to break.