Adrian's POV
The front door slammed behind me so hard the windows rattled.
"Maya!" I shouted, dropping my briefcase. It hit the floor with a crash. "Maya, we need to talk!"
Silence.
My heart pounded as I ran through the apartment. The living room was empty. The kitchen was dark. I sprinted down the hallway to our bedroom.
"Maya!"
The bedroom door was open. I skidded to a stop.
Half her closet was empty.
My stomach dropped like I'd just fallen off a building. Hangers swung back and forth, naked and useless. Her favorite blue dress—gone. The red shoes she wore on our anniversary—gone. The sweaters I bought her last Christmas—gone.
I spun around. Her nightstand was cleared off. No books. No reading glasses. No little sticky notes she always left herself.
"No, no, no," I whispered, running to the bathroom.
Her toothbrush wasn't in the holder. Her shampoo bottles had vanished from the shower. Even her towel was missing from the hook.
This couldn't be happening. This wasn't real.
I raced to the storage room at the end of the hall. My hands shook as I threw open the door.
Empty.
All her art supplies were gone. The easels. The paints. The canvases stacked against the wall. The room where she spent hours creating beautiful paintings—now it looked like no one had ever used it at all.
"Maya!" I screamed, even though I knew she couldn't hear me. Even though I knew she was gone.
I pulled out my phone and called her number. My fingers could barely hit the right buttons.
It rang once. Then I heard her voice.
"Hi, you've reached Maya. I can't come to the phone right now—"
I hung up and called again.
"Hi, you've reached Maya—"
Again.
"Hi, you've reached—"
Again.
Again.
Again.
On the seventh call, it went straight to voicemail. She'd turned off her phone. She didn't want to talk to me.
I walked back to the living room like a zombie. My legs felt weird, like they might stop working at any second. I sat down on the couch—our couch, where we used to watch movies together every Friday night.
The apartment was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
For the first time in seven years of knowing Maya, I felt truly terrified.
How did I not see this coming? How did I miss all the signs?
The divorce papers were still on the coffee table where I'd left them that morning. I picked them up with shaking hands. As I flipped through the pages, something fell out and landed on my lap.
A folded piece of paper.
My hands trembled as I opened it. Maya's handwriting covered the page.
*Adrian,*
*By the time you read this, I'll be gone. I know you're probably angry right now. Maybe you're confused. Maybe you think I'm being dramatic or unreasonable. But I need you to understand something.*
*This isn't about one fight. This isn't about one missed dinner or one forgotten birthday. This is about seven years of feeling invisible.*
*Do you know what it's like to love someone who doesn't see you? I mean really see you? I would dress up for dates you never showed up to. I would cook dinner that got cold while I waited for you. I would tell you about my dreams and watch your eyes glaze over because you were thinking about work.*
*I tried so hard to be enough for you. I tried to be the perfect wife who didn't complain. Who understood how important your career was. Who supported you even when it meant I gave up pieces of myself.*
*But I can't do it anymore. I can't be married to someone who treats me like I'm just another task on his to-do list.*
*Remember when we first met? You said I was the most interesting person you'd ever known. You said my art was magical. You said you wanted to wake up every day and discover new things about me.*
*When did you stop wanting that? When did I become boring to you?*
*I'm leaving because I deserve better. I deserve someone who actually wants to come home to me. Someone who remembers what I told them yesterday. Someone who looks at me like I matter.*
*I'm not asking you to change. I'm not asking you to fix anything. I'm just asking you to let me go.*
*There's something else you need to know—something I haven't told you yet. But I can't write it in this letter. If you really want to understand why I'm leaving, you need to talk to your mother.*
*Yes, your mother. The one you always defend. The one who's been whispering poison in your ear for seven years.
She came to see me three days ago. She told me things—secrets about your family that you've been hiding from me. Secrets about why you work so much. Secrets about what your father really wanted from you.
And she gave me a choice. A horrible, impossible choice.
Talk to her, Adrian. Ask her what she said to me. Ask her what she's been doing behind your back. Then you'll understand.
I hope someday you find someone who fits into your perfect, busy life better than I did.
Goodbye,
Maya
The letter fell from my hands.
My mother? What did my mother have to do with this?
I grabbed my phone and dialed Mom's number. It rang four times before she answered.
"Adrian, darling! How are—"
"What did you say to Maya?" I interrupted, my voice sharp. "She said you came to see her three days ago. What did you tell her?"
There was a long pause on the other end. Too long.
"Mom? Answer me!"
"Adrian, sweetie, I think you need to calm down—"
"DON'T tell me to calm down! My wife just left me and she says it's because of something YOU said to her! What did you do?"
Another pause. Then my mother's voice came back, cold and hard in a way I'd never heard before.
"I gave her the truth," Mom said quietly. "Something you should have told her years ago. Something about our family that she had a right to know before she wasted any more of her life with you."
My blood turned to ice. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, Adrian," my mother said, and now she sounded almost sad. "Did you really think you could keep lying to her forever? Did you think she'd never find out about the deal your father made? About why you really married her?"
The phone nearly slipped from my hand. "Mom, what did you—"
"She knows everything now," Mom continued. "And she knows what you have to choose. Your marriage or your inheritance. You can't have both. Your father made sure of that before he died."
The room started spinning.
"That's not—I never—"
"I gave her a choice too," Mom said. "Walk away with her dignity intact, or stay and watch you choose money over love. She chose wisely. Now the question is, Adrian—what will YOU choose?"
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might explode.
What had my father done? What deal was my mother talking about? And what choice did I have to make?
More importantly—what had Maya discovered that made her leave so quickly?
I looked around the empty penthouse, and suddenly everything felt wrong. The expensive furniture. The fancy paintings on the walls. The floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city.
All of it felt like a cage.
And somewhere out there, Maya knew a secret about me that I didn't even understand myself.
A secret bad enough to end our marriage.
I had to find her. I had to know the truth.
But as I stood up to grab my car keys, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
Stop looking for her. She's safe. But if you want to see Maya again, you need to go to your father's office at the company. There's something hidden in his desk. Top drawer, false bottom. Find it before your mother does. Then you'll understand everything.
—A Friend