Chapter 3

Mark' s voice followed me out the door, sharp and laced with a threat.

"You' ll be back, Olivia! You always come back! Just remember, don' t you ever, ever bother Sarah again!"

I didn' t turn around. His words felt distant, like they were meant for someone else. The Olivia he was talking to, the girl who would have been crushed by his disapproval, was gone. She had died in the hospital room, or maybe when David tore the head off her teddy bear.

I felt a strange sense of calm settle over me. It wasn't happiness, not yet. It was the quiet peace of a decision finally made. The endless, exhausting effort of trying to earn their love was over.

I kept walking down the long, winding driveway. I was free.

I pulled out my phone and sent a simple text to the HR department.

I resign my position, effective immediately.

Mark' s words about me being a parasite echoed in my head. He was wrong. I had worked hard at the company, pulling long hours, contributing to major projects. My salary was fair, but I had never been a financial drain. They had provided a home, yes, but I had provided my loyalty, my effort, and my entire heart. It was a trade I had made willingly, foolishly.

I walked until I reached the main gate. I didn't have a car, Mark had always insisted on driving me. I didn't have a destination, I had always assumed my home was with them.

I just stood there for a moment, breathing in the cool air, and then I started walking again.

Later that evening, from the sterile comfort of a hotel room my mother had booked for me, I logged onto my laptop. I went through my photos, deleting every picture of me with Mark or David. The smiling faces, the holiday trips, the birthday parties. All of it, gone in a few clicks.

Then I saw a photo of a dress I had loved, a beautiful blue silk gown they had given me for my twenty-first birthday. It was hanging in the closet back at the mansion. Sarah was probably wearing it right now. I thought about the soiled clothes I' d left behind, the defaced photos, the torn bear.

"I' ll pay it all back," I whispered to the empty room. Not the money, but the pain. The humiliation.

My phone buzzed. It was a message from Mark. It wasn' t an apology. It was a picture.

He and Sarah were standing in the stargazing dome at the far end of the property.

My heart gave a painful throb.

Mark had built that dome for me on my sixteenth birthday. We had spent countless nights there, just the two of us, looking at the constellations. He taught me their names, their stories. He had pointed to a distant star and told me it was ours.

"No matter what happens, Olivia," he had said, his voice soft in the darkness, "that star will always be there. Just like I' ll always be here for you. It' s our secret spot. Forever."

Now, in the photo, he was holding Sarah in his arms, in our spot. They were kissing. His message was a single, cruel line.

She loves the stars, too.

That was the moment I knew, with absolute certainty, that nothing was sacred. Nothing had ever been truly mine. Everything I thought was a promise was just a placeholder. Every special memory was just a template, ready to be reused for the next person who caught their fancy.

I looked at the picture of them in my dome, under my star, and I didn't feel rage anymore. I felt empty. The last flicker of hope, the tiny, stupid part of me that thought maybe this was all a terrible misunderstanding, was finally extinguished.

I accepted it. I accepted that the twenty years of my life I had dedicated to them meant nothing. It was a sunk cost. It was time to cut my losses and walk away.

I closed the laptop. The past was a closed book.

It was time to start a new one.