Chapter 2

The lawyer, a man named Mr. Harrison, was efficient. Two days later, a courier delivered a thick envelope to my hospital room. Inside were the initial divorce filings and documents to legally renounce the Reed family name and any connection to them. Holding the papers felt solid, real. It was the first step.

"Are you sure about this, Mr. Miller?" Mr. Harrison had asked over the phone. "Divorcing Olivia Reed and cutting off the Reeds... that' s a significant change."

"I' ve never been more sure of anything," I had replied, and it was the absolute truth. I didn't know much, but I knew I couldn't go back to the life they described.

The day I was discharged, no one came to pick me up. I took a taxi from the hospital, not to the grand Reed mansion, but to the immigration office. The decision to leave the country had come to me as clearly as the decision to divorce. If I was starting over, I needed a new canvas, a new world, far away from the shadows of my past. I filled out the paperwork for a visa to Europe, my hands steady. Every form I signed was another chain breaking.

From there, I went to the main office of Reed Tech. I didn't go to see Olivia. I went to see her assistant, a woman I vaguely remembered from the hospital visit named Clara.

Clara looked up, surprised to see me. "Mr. Miller. I didn't expect... Ms. Reed is in a meeting."

"I' m not here to see her," I said calmly. "I just need you to witness a signature."

I placed one of the documents from my lawyer on her desk. It was a power of attorney, giving my lawyer the right to handle all my affairs. Her eyes widened as she read the first paragraph.

"You' re... leaving?" she whispered, her professional mask slipping for a moment.

I just nodded.

She looked at me, a flicker of something I couldn't name-pity, perhaps-in her eyes. "Ms. Reed... she once told me to cancel your credit cards because you bought a set of expensive paints. She said you didn' t deserve to waste her money on a useless hobby."

Her words didn't hurt. They were just facts, more proof that my decision was the right one. They confirmed the coldness I had felt from Olivia, the utter lack of respect she had for me.

"Thank you for telling me," I said. I signed the document, and she witnessed it, her hand shaking slightly.

My final stop was the house I supposedly shared with Olivia. The taxi pulled up to a modern, glass-and-steel mansion that felt more like a corporate headquarters than a home. It was beautiful, sterile, and completely unwelcoming.

I let myself in with a key I found in the wallet the hospital had given me. The inside was just as I expected: minimalist, pristine, and cold. There was not a single personal touch, not a misplaced book or a comfortable throw blanket. It was a showroom, not a home.

I walked through the silent rooms. There was nothing of me here. The art on the walls was abstract and chosen for its investment value, not for its beauty. The colors were all muted grays, blacks, and whites. It was Olivia' s space. I was just a ghost who had haunted it.

I went upstairs to what must have been my studio. It was a small room at the back of the house, with poor lighting. Canvases were stacked against the wall, some blank, some with unfinished sketches. A layer of dust covered everything. It was clear no one had been in here for a long time.

In the corner, on a small, dusty desk, I found a leather-bound journal. I opened it. The handwriting was mine, I recognized it from the legal documents I' d just signed. But the words were from a stranger, a man who had poured his heart out onto the pages.

October 12th: Olivia came home late again. I made her favorite dinner, but she didn' t even notice. She just walked past me and went to her office. Liam called her. I heard her laugh on the phone with him. She never laughs with me.

November 3rd: It was our anniversary. I bought her a first-edition copy of her favorite book. She glanced at it and said, 'Thank you, Ethan,' without looking up from her laptop. Later, I saw it on her assistant' s desk. She' d given it away.

December 25th: Christmas at the Reeds. Dad gave Liam a new sports car. He gave me a gift certificate to a department store. He told me to 'buy something sensible.' Mom hugged Liam and told him how proud she was of his latest app. She didn't say a word to me all night. Olivia stood with them, smiling. They looked like the perfect family. I wasn' t in the picture.

I read page after page, a chronicle of relentless emotional neglect and quiet desperation. I saw a man who tried so hard, who loved so deeply, and who was given nothing but scraps of indifference in return. He painted her portraits she never looked at, learned her favorite songs she never listened to, and remembered every little detail about her while she forgot he existed.

The pain in the words was so raw, so profound, that I felt my own eyes well up with tears. I wasn't crying for a life I remembered, but for the man who had lived it. This stranger, this earlier version of me, had suffered so much. He had been starved of love, of simple kindness, and it had broken him.

I sank to the floor, the journal in my lap, and wept. I cried for his unrequited love, for his loneliness, for the boy who was never truly wanted by his adoptive parents. My body shook with sobs, a release of a sorrow that wasn't mine but was stored in my bones.

When the tears finally stopped, a new feeling took their place. Not anger, not pity, but a fierce, protective resolve. I would not let that man' s suffering be in vain. I would live the life he never could. I would be happy for both of us.

I stood up, wiping my eyes. The moonlight streamed through the dusty window, illuminating the room. I picked up the journal and held it to my chest. "It' s okay," I whispered into the empty house. "I' ll take it from here. I' ll make it right."

Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number, but the name was saved in the contacts: Mrs. Reed.

Ethan, your father is hosting his annual birthday dinner tomorrow night. Your attendance is not optional. Don't embarrass the family.

The old obligations, the old chains, were already trying to pull me back. But this time, the pull felt weak, distant. I looked at the message, then back at the journal in my hand. A new conflict was coming, but for the first time, I felt ready to face it.