Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Billionaire Regretted Losing His Invisible Wife: Kabanata 441 - Kabanata 450

Mia's POV"These are—" I open the box, and the cardboard edges are soft from years of handling, the corners worn down to a lighter brown. "These are things.""Things?""Moments." I lift the lid slowly, and inside there's chaos—photos stacked unevenly, some face-up, some face-down, ticket stubs from the aquarium, a dried flower from Madison's first school play pressed between two pictures, a tiny hospital bracelet. "Weird moments. Things that happened that I took pictures of because they were—" I search for the word, my fingers hovering over the pile. "Because they were them."I pull out the first photo, and I have to smile before I even hand it over. The edges are slightly sticky from where Alexander once got peanut butter on it."That's Alexander at two and a half." I pass it to Kyle. "He decided he was a dog."The photo shows Alexander on all fours on our old kitchen floor—the one with the yellow linoleum that came with the apartment. He's face-first in Gas's metal bowl, his cheeks

MiaI'm kneeling in the garden now, though I don't remember deciding to kneel. One moment I was standing at the edge looking at the too-long grass, and the next my knees are pressing into the earth.The dirt under my fingernails. I don't notice it happening. I think about how I'll have to scrub them later with the nail brush, the one with the wooden handle that sits by the kitchen sink.My hands know what to do—wrap around the stem as close to the base as possible, feel for the resistance, pull straight up or dig deeper if it won't come. This is muscle memory from years of helping Mom in this garden.The dandelions come up with their long thick taproots, the kind that go down forever, searching for water in the drought. Sometimes they break off halfway and I can feel the snap in my fingers, that small vegetable violence.The crabgrass is harder—those shallow spreading roots that seem to go on forever, each clump revealing more, like pulling on a string and finding it attached to a wh

MiaThe words came through the phone and landed somewhere inside my skull but didn't connect to anything."Ms. Porter was found unconscious in her cell during a routine check at approximately 4:17 a.m."My eyes were open but I wasn't seeing the room anymore. I was seeing the back of my own eyelids from the inside, that strange red darkness you get when you close your eyes against bright light. The room was dim. And something was happening to my vision, tunneling inward, the edges going soft and dark.I blinked. Once. Twice. The room came back.The gray blanket was still half-covering me, one corner twisted around my left leg. My coffee mug was on the table where I'd left it—I could see a film forming on the surface of the water, that oily shimmer that happens when water sits too long. Kyle was still asleep at the other end of the couch,.Everything was exactly as it had been thirty seconds ago."Medical personnel arrived immediately but were unable to revive her. Time of death was det

MiaI needed to get out.The walls of my apartment were closing in—not dramatically, not in that suffocating way people describe in books—just a gradual pressing that made my lungs work harder than they should. The air felt used. Breathed too many times by too many people.I looked at Kyle still standing by the coffee table. His hand was on the edge of it."I'm going out," I said."Okay.""The kids might wake up soon." I glanced at the hallway. The doors were still closed. "If they do—""I'll handle it.""Alexander needs help with his shirt. He always puts it on backwards. And Ethan won't eat if his food is touching on the plate. Madison—""I know."I stopped. Looked at him."You know?""I've been watching." He said it simply. "I know Alexander puts his shirt on backwards. I know Ethan doesn't like his food touching. I know Madison counts to seven before she takes her first bite of anything.""Okay," I said.I moved to the closet by the door. Pulled out Gas's leash. The metal clasp ma

MiaKyle's phone rings again. The third time in ten minutes. He glances at the screen, then silences it without answering, setting it face-down on the coffee table with a soft click that sounds too loud in the quiet apartment.I'm loading the dishwasher, fitting plates into their slots with more precision than necessary, the ceramic edges clinking against each other in a rhythm that's almost meditative. The morning light comes through the kitchen window at an angle that turns the soap bubbles iridescent, tiny rainbows that burst and reform as I work."You can answer that," I say, not looking at him. "It's not important.""Your business is always important.""You think my business is what matters most to me."It's a statement, flat and certain, and something about the way he says it makes me turn around.He's standing now, no longer on the couch but closer to the kitchen, his hands loose at his sides."I know your business matters most to you," I correct. "That's fine. That's who you