Introduction

Six years with Olivia Hayes, and we were finally making it official. I clutched our marriage certificate, crisp and new, ready to file the final paperwork at the city clerk' s office.

Then, the clerk told me the document was fake. My heart sank. Olivia Hayes, my fiancée, had been legally married two weeks ago-to Mark Johnson, my former best friend and a tech mogul.

I returned home to find Olivia humming, laying out macarons, a picture of domestic bliss, a complete lie. I later overheard her confessing on the phone how she never truly loved me; I was just "comfortable," a placeholder for Mark. My carefully constructed future shattered, replaced by cold certainty: I was leaving.

But leaving wasn't easy. Mark' s neediness spiraled, turning our home into his stage. He faked injuries, weaponized his sadness, and Olivia, caught in his web, defended him fiercely, even bringing up

my deceased father' s suicide to shame me. Her constant choice of him, and the chilling realization that my pain mattered less than his performance, twisted the knife deeper.

Why did she keep falling for his lies? Why did her compassion vanish when it came to me?

My escape plan to Seattle was set. But just as I was leaving, Mark' s ex-girlfriend, Sarah, attacked me. Olivia, seeing Sarah with a knife to my throat, still chose to believe Mark' s pathetic accusation that I staged it. That final betrayal solidified my decision. I blocked Olivia and left for Seattle, ready to start anew, free from her and Mark' s toxic charade.