“Then why are you flying alone in three days?”
He couldn’t answer.
I laughed.
It sounded horrible.
“You wore that stupid bow tie.”
His eyes dropped.
“You told me it was the best day of your life.”
“Claire…”
“And the entire time, you were waiting for me to sign.”
His face changed.
The soft, sick Ethan disappeared.
Something harder replaced him.
“You don’t understand what I was dealing with.”
“You’re right.”
I picked up my purse.
“I don’t.”
“And I never will.”
THE ANNULMENT PAPERS
One of the attorneys placed documents onto the tray.
Annulment.
Trust freeze.
Fraud complaint.
Financial restraint orders.
Ethan looked at them.
Then at me.
His voice sharpened.
“You’ll regret doing this.”
That was the final piece.
Twenty years of history vanished in one sentence.
The boy I had loved would never have spoken to me that way.
Maybe that boy had never existed at all.
I looked at Ethan one final time.
“No.”
He frowned.
“I regret the twenty years before this.”
Then I walked out of Room 407.
THE HALLWAY FELT LONGER THAN ANY WEDDING AISLE
I had imagined walking toward Ethan down an aisle for most of my life.
Flowers.
Music.
Family.
White dress.
Instead, our real wedding happened beside an IV pole.
And my real escape happened under fluorescent lights at Willowcrest Medical Center.
Each step down that hallway felt like walking out of a life I had believed since I was eight years old.
It hurt.
But strangely—
the farther I walked from Room 407,
the easier it became to breathe.
I had entered Willowcrest Medical Center believing cancer was going to take Ethan away from me.
Instead, the truth did.
