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“You don’t respect me enough to even give me the benefit of the doubt, Sierra,” I say, my voice laced with sadness. “That’s all I ever wanted. Just that.”

A sob escapes her, barely audible. But I hear it. Yet I don’t stop. I force myself to keep walking.

“You’re free to do whatever the hell you want.”

I grab the suitcase handle and open the door.

I don’t glance back.

I can’t afford to.

Because if I do—if I turn around—I’ll see the woman who’s been everything to me since the moment I first saw her standing alone, clutching a folder full of proof and also my heart, which I just left behind.

And I’m sure…

I won’t be able to walk away.

THIRTY-SIX

Sierra

Five months later

The winter sun bleeds through my window, cold and indifferent—just like the silence that’s wrapped around me for months.

A silence that doesn’t shift, doesn’t soften.

A silence that’s become my only constant.

Five months since he left.

Five months since I last saw him. Since I heard his voice. Since I felt him.

The night he walked out of his apartment, he didn’t just take his suitcase.

He took everything.

My breath. My fight. My sense of direction.

The ground beneath me cracked, and I’ve been walking through dust and ash ever since.

And the next day…

The divorce papers arrived. Signed. No note. No message. No email. Just the legal seal of goodbye.

So cold. So final.

I burned them. Of course I did. I didn’t even let myself read the whole thing. I just stood there, staring at the words as if they belonged to someone else—then watched them turn to ash in my kitchen sink, like maybe if I destroyed the proof, I could undo the ending.

Undo him walking away.

Undo me.

But nothing came after that. No new documents. No official filing. No text saying, „We need to talk.” No fight. Just silence.

And the sound of my own heartbeat filling the emptiness he left behind.

He blocked me everywhere.