The suitcase clicked shut with a finality that made my throat tighten.
I sat on the edge of the bed — not our bed, not anymore — and looked around the room one last time. The sunlight spilled in through the tall windows, casting golden streaks across the hardwood floor, but it didn't feel warm. It felt like a spotlight on my lie.
Two months.
That's how long I'd spent pretending. Smiling when I wanted to cry. Kissing him when I wanted to scream. Nodding, laughing, whispering soft reassurances, all while counting down the days in my head like a prisoner.
And now the last day had come.
The contract was up.
It should've felt like freedom, but instead, it felt like peeling off skin — painful, raw, necessary.
The paper sat on the desk, freshly signed. My name, in black ink, next to his. I'd waited until he left for his meeting to do it. I couldn't look him in the eyes and hand that over.
Because no matter how broken we were, no matter how much he'd hurt me… part of me still cared.
That was the hardest part.
For a while, after everything, I almost believed it. Believed the touches were real. Believed the mornings he brought me coffee meant something. Believed the quiet way he stared at me when he thought I wasn't looking meant he finally saw me.
But it didn't change the fact that he'd chosen himself over my family.
That he'd kept things from me.
That he'd broken something I wasn't sure could ever be fixed.
I picked up the ring — the diamond still beautiful, still heavy — and placed it on the contract.
No note. No goodbye.
He didn't deserve closure when I never had it.
I tiptoed down the stairs, each step echoing in my chest. The house was too quiet — as if it knew what I was doing. As if it could feel me slipping away.
I walked past the kitchen, past the couch where he used to pull me into his lap and kiss my neck while we pretended to watch TV. Past the wall where the broken picture frame had once hung — where he'd thrown something and nearly hit me.
He'd cried after that night. Quietly, in the dark, when he thought I was asleep. I heard him whisper my name, say he was sorry. Again and again.
But apologies don't stitch up wounds that deep.
I opened the door slowly, taking one last breath of the space I had lived in — survived in.
And then I stepped outside
My car was already packed. I started the engine, hands trembling slightly on the wheel.
This was it.
No fight. No final words. Just silence — the same kind he used to shut me out. Now it was mine.
As I pulled away from the estate, the city unfolding ahead of me like a future I didn't recognize, I let the tears fall. Not because I regretted it.
But because walking away from someone you once imagined forever with… hurts in ways you don't expect.
But I survived him.
And now, I was free.