Introduction

For five years, the hum of servers was the only soundtrack to my quiet exile in Havenwood.

I' d traded city lights for a beige cubicle in a tech support call center, a far cry from the life I once knew, after a spectacular fall from grace orchestrated by my ex-fiancée, Sophia Davis.

I found a strange peace, a quiet contentment, building a new life from the wreckage of the old.

Then, Sophia, flanked by her new fiancé, Mark, waltzed into my office, their expensive city clothes a stark violation of my humble world. She sneered at my surroundings, then offered me a "chance" to return to the city-as her pet project, if I' d just apologize.

The entire office fell silent, my colleagues watching, seeing my only escape.

I finally looked up, calm, and delivered the blow: "I'm married."

Sophia froze, her face contorting in rage, shrieking about me lying, about who I could possibly marry in "this wasteland." Mark mocked my hypothetical wife, suggesting some "desperate single mom."

My jaw tightened. "You don't get to talk about my wife," I growled, standing to tower over him.

Sophia, furious, spotted a box of clumsy friendship bracelets my colleagues' children had made for my wife, and deliberately stomped on them, grinding them into the dirty floor. "Pathetic," she spat, her vicious satisfaction palpable.

As she and Mark left, I stared at the crushed innocence, and for the first time in five years, a cold, hard anger began to burn.

How could I have let myself be so naive, to truly believe I had escaped her?