Chapter 3

Jocelyn landed at JFK and went straight to the hotel suite she kept for late nights at the office, her hands trembling as she unlocked the door. The first thing she saw was an envelope on the desk. Her name was written on it in Ethan' s simple, clean script. Inside were the divorce papers, now signed by him.

Panic, cold and sharp, flooded her. She grabbed her phone, her fingers fumbling as she tried to call him. The call went straight to voicemail. She tried again. Voicemail. She sent a text.

Ethan, please. We need to talk.

No delivery receipt. She sent another.

I' m back from Aspen. Where are you?

Nothing. A horrifying realization dawned on her: he had blocked her number.

She raced to their condo, her heart pounding against her ribs. The place was silent, sterile. She walked through the rooms, a growing dread settling in her chest. All of his things were gone. His cookbooks, his chef' s knives, his clothes. The closet on his side was completely empty. It was as if he had been erased.

Then she saw it, lying on the center of his pillow. A single, handwritten letter.

Jocelyn,

I found the email. The one about me being 'safe' . I understand now. For ten years, I thought my love was enough for both of us. I was wrong. I' ve spent a third of my life trying to earn a place in your heart, but I see now that the position was never open. I was just a placeholder.

I' m not angry anymore. I' m just done. I' m done correcting a mistake that I was the only one who didn' t see. I hope you find the happiness you' re looking for. I' m going to find mine.

Ethan

She sank onto the bed, the letter clutched in her hand. The emptiness of the condo was suffocating. It was filled with the ghosts of his small kindnesses: the coffee he' d leave for her every morning, the way he organized the pantry, the quiet support he always gave.

That night, there was a scheduled Anderson family dinner at her parents' Upper East Side townhouse. She went, hoping for some semblance of normalcy, but the moment she announced Ethan was gone, the atmosphere turned celebratory.

"Good riddance," her uncle sneered, sipping his wine. "He probably wanted a fat settlement. I told you he was a gold-digger from the start."

Something inside Jocelyn snapped. "He took nothing," she said, her voice shaking with a fury that stunned them all into silence. "He took his last paycheck, which he earned, and his personal belongings. He didn' t ask for a single dollar. He just left."

She stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. "He was worth more than any of you could ever understand."

She left them gaping in the opulent dining room and returned to the vast, empty condo.

She walked from room to room, her eyes landing on the one thing he' d left behind: his landscape photographs hanging on the walls. There were breathtaking shots of Zion, Arches, the Grand Canyon. Places he' d always talked about wanting to visit, to truly explore.

His dream was never to be a sous-chef in her family' s restaurant. His dream was to be out there, under the open sky, with his camera.

And in that moment, she knew exactly where he had gone.