Chapter 2

The lawyer, a man named Mr. Harrison, was efficient. He asked a few questions, his voice calm and professional, and promised to draft the documents immediately. When I hung up, a sense of relief washed over me. It was so simple. One phone call.

I looked out the hospital window at the city lights. I had lost my memories, but it felt like I had gained myself. This amnesia wasn't a curse, it was a release. It had wiped clean a slate filled with pain and obsession. It was a chance to start over, completely.

I made another call, this time to a travel agency. I booked a one-way ticket to Paris, a city I had always dreamed of seeing but never had the courage to visit alone. My passion was painting, a talent I had buried under years of trying to be the perfect wife for Liam. In Paris, I could be an artist again. I could be anyone I wanted to be.

The next morning, the hospital discharged me. Liam didn't come. He sent his driver, an older man named Frank, who had worked for the Sterlings for decades.

Frank was quiet as he drove. The silence in the car was heavy. I decided to break it.

"How is Miss Hayes?" I asked, my voice neutral.

Frank glanced at me in the rearview mirror, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He probably expected tears or a tantrum. "She's doing well, Mrs. Sterling. Mr. Sterling has been with her all night." He paused, then added, "He was very worried."

He didn't say Liam was worried about Scarlett. He didn't have to. The unspoken truth hung in the air. Liam's world revolved around her. I was just an obstacle. It didn't hurt to hear it. It was just a fact, like the sky being blue. It confirmed my decision was the right one.

The car pulled up to a large, modern mansion. The Sterling estate. My home. It looked like a museum-beautiful, expensive, and completely devoid of warmth. This was the cage I had willingly lived in for three years.

I walked through the heavy front doors. The house was silent and immaculate. Everything was in its place, clean and sterile. There were no photos of us together. My art supplies were packed away in a dusty corner of the attic. The only personal touches were mine, small things I had tried to add to make it feel like a home, but they looked out of place, like wildflowers in a perfectly manicured but lifeless garden.

I remembered standing in this grand foyer on our wedding day, filled with a desperate hope that this would be the start of our life together. I had promised myself I would make him love me. I thought my devotion could melt his cold heart. What a fool I had been. The memory brought a bitter taste to my mouth, but the sharp sting of pain was absent.

I went up to the master bedroom. It was vast and impersonal. My side of the bed was neatly made, untouched. He rarely slept here. He had his own room down the hall.

In the back of my closet, tucked away behind a row of expensive dresses I never wore, was a small, locked chest. I found the key in a jewelry box. Inside was a single leather-bound diary.

My diary.

I sat on the floor and opened it. The handwriting was mine, but the words felt like they belonged to a stranger. It was a chronicle of misery.

October 12th. Liam came home late again. He smelled of Scarlett's perfume. He didn't even look at me. I cooked his favorite meal, but he didn't touch it. He just went to his study. I waited up for him, but he never came out.

November 5th. It was our anniversary. I bought him a watch he'd been looking at. When I gave it to him, he just said, 'I don't need this.' He spent the evening on the phone with Scarlett, laughing. I heard him. I cried in the bathroom so he wouldn't hear me.

January 22nd. Scarlett 'accidentally' spilled red wine on the painting I was working on for the gallery submission. She cried and said she was sorry. Mom and Dad told me it was just a painting and I shouldn't upset Scarlett. Liam told me to stop being so dramatic. I threw the ruined canvas away. I haven't painted since.

Page after page was filled with the same desperate yearning, the same casual cruelty, the same soul-crushing neglect. The girl who wrote this diary was starving for a single crumb of affection. She had abandoned her art, her friends, her entire sense of self, all for a man who treated her like she was invisible.

I read about the fights, the public humiliations, the lonely nights. I read about how she would meticulously learn his preferences, only for him to ignore her efforts. I read about how she would defend him to her only friend, Chloe, making excuses for his coldness.

Reading it was like watching a slow, painful death. The death of a person's spirit. My spirit.

Tears finally came, but they weren't for Liam or the love I had lost. They were for her. For the Olivia who had suffered so much, who had thought she was worthless. I cried for the years she had wasted, for the pain she had endured.

I held the diary to my chest, my body shaking with sobs. It was a eulogy for a life I was glad to leave behind.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the girl in the diary. "I'm so sorry for what they did to you. For what I let them do to you."

A promise formed in my heart, solid and clear.

"From now on, I will love you. I will protect you. I will live for you."

I closed the diary and put it back in the chest. I would take it with me, not as a source of pain, but as a reminder of what I had survived. A reminder to never, ever let myself become that person again.

I spent the rest of the day in peaceful solitude, packing a single suitcase with my essential belongings. I didn't take any of the clothes or jewelry Liam had bought me. I only took the things that felt like mine.

As evening fell, my phone rang. The caller ID read 'Hayes Home'. I hesitated for a moment, then answered.

It was Mrs. Hayes. Her voice was sharp, as always.

"Olivia, where have you been? We're having a celebration for Scarlett tomorrow night to celebrate her recovery. Don't you dare be late. And try to look presentable for once."

She didn't ask how I was. She didn't care. It was another command. Another performance I was expected to give.

The old Olivia would have eagerly agreed, desperate for a chance to please them.

But I was not the old Olivia.

"Okay," I said calmly, and I could already feel the storm that was about to break.