Chapter 3

The next morning, Ethan woke up before the sun. Olivia was still asleep, breathing softly, completely unaware of the chasm that had opened between them. He moved quietly, methodically. He started in the living room, gathering his books, his old vinyl records, his engineering journals. He packed them neatly into boxes, taping them shut with a finality that felt both devastating and liberating. Each item he packed was a piece of their shared history that he was now claiming as solely his own. He was erasing himself from the life they had built.

He moved on to the small office they shared. Her side of the desk was a chaotic pile of papers and textbooks. His side was neat, organized. He started clearing out his drawers when he knocked over a stack of her notebooks. They fell to the floor, spilling open. As he bent to pick them up, his eyes caught on the handwriting. It was Olivia' s, but the content was not for her own studies.

It was a thick binder full of notes, research, and practice questions for the automotive junior engineer certification. Alex' s certification. Ethan remembered Alex mentioning how hard the exam was, how he was struggling to prepare. Olivia had created an entire study guide for him. There were hundreds of pages, meticulously organized, with color-coded tabs and handwritten summaries of complex technical concepts. Concepts she had always claimed were "too boring" or "too complicated" whenever Ethan had tried to share his own work with her.

He felt a fresh wave of hurt. It wasn't just about the time and effort, it was about the interest. She had invested more intellectual energy into her colleague' s career advancement than she had ever shown in his own lifelong passion. He had begged her for years to take even a passing interest in what he did, the work that paid for this apartment, for her education, for their lives. She had dismissed it all with a wave of her hand. But for Alex, she had become an expert.

He was still staring at the binder when his phone buzzed. It was a text from a number he didn' t recognize.

"Heard you saw Olivia' s gift. Hope you like it. I helped her pick it out. A man of your status should have a decent watch."

It was Alex. The arrogance, the sheer audacity of it, was breathtaking. He was not just satisfied with having Olivia' s attention, he wanted to rub Ethan' s face in it. Before Ethan could even process the rage, his phone rang. It was Olivia. Her voice was frantic, rushed.

"Ethan? Thank god you answered. Listen, I need a huge favor. Alex' s presentation is this morning, and his main data file got corrupted. He needs the raw performance data from your Project Phoenix. I know you have it on your personal drive. Can you please, please send it to him? His career depends on this!"

Ethan was silent. The request was so outrageous, so completely tone-deaf, that he couldn't form a response. She wanted him to send proprietary, confidential company data-the results of a project he had bled for-to the man who was actively trying to steal his girlfriend, just to save his presentation.

"Ethan? Did you hear me?" Olivia' s voice was impatient. "Just send the file. It' s not a big deal."

"No," Ethan said. The word was quiet but firm.

"What do you mean, no?" she snapped.

"I mean no, Olivia. That data is confidential. Sharing it would be a violation of my employment contract. I could be fired. I could be sued."

"Don' t be so dramatic! No one will find out. You' re just being selfish. This is important for Alex!"

"My career is important to me," Ethan stated, his voice now as cold as ice. "I' m not throwing it away for him."

He hung up the phone. He knew what was coming next. He calmly continued packing his things, the quiet sounds of tape and cardboard filling the apartment. Less than twenty minutes later, the front door slammed open. Olivia stood there, her face a mask of fury.

"What is wrong with you?" she shrieked, her voice echoing in the half-empty room. "Alex had to present with half his data missing! He was humiliated! All because you couldn' t do one simple thing for me! You' ve probably ruined his entire future!"

Ethan just looked at her. He looked at this woman, screaming at him for protecting his own livelihood, accusing him of ruining the future of the man she had spent his birthday with. In that moment, he felt nothing but a profound, hollow emptiness. Her priorities were laid bare, and he was nowhere on the list.