Chapter 2

Ethan came into the kitchen later, looking for food.

"Smells good," he said, peering into the oven. He didn't mention her silence, her pale face.

He didn't notice the unshed tears in her eyes.

He just seemed hungry.

Sarah watched him. He ate the lasagna she' d made, the one he supposedly loved.

He ate it like it was any other meal, on any other night.

Not their fifth wedding anniversary.

"This is great, Sar," he mumbled around a mouthful, reaching for his phone again. Scrolling.

She remembered a time when he couldn't take his eyes off her. When her touch was the only thing that calmed his pain after the transplant.

He' d clutch her hand, his eyes wide with fear and gratitude. "Don't leave me," he' d whisper.

She hadn't. She had stayed. For Michael's heart.

Now, he barely saw her. The man she married, or thought she married, was gone. Replaced by this arrogant, dismissive stranger.

When did it start? The neglect was gradual, a slow erosion.

After he fully recovered, after his architectural firm took off again, buoyed by the story of his miraculous survival.

He became a success story. And he started to believe his own hype.

The gratitude faded, replaced by entitlement.

She remembered him complaining about a colleague' s wife. "So needy," Ethan had said with a sneer. "Always demanding attention."

Was that how he saw her now?

She still checked his pulse sometimes, when he was asleep. A habit she couldn' t break. Just to feel Michael's heart, steady and strong.

Ethan stirred. "You okay? You' re being weirdly quiet."

"Just tired," Sarah said. Her voice was flat.

A flicker of something, maybe shame, crossed his face. "Yeah, well, that client dinner was a killer."

He pushed his plate away, half-eaten. "I'm beat. Going to bed."

He walked out, leaving her alone with the cooling lasagna and the wreckage of their anniversary.

She felt so utterly alone. Abandoned.

Like a piece of medical equipment, vital for a time, now no longer needed.