Lydia stood completely motionless in the center of the vast, sunlit living room, her nails digging so hard into the palms of her hands that her knuckles turned stark white, blood pooling beneath the sharp edges of her manicured crescents. She watched Adrian's tall, unyielding figure disappear down the hallway, every step he took away from her feeling like a deliberate, calculated insult. He hadn't even looked back.
Five years of relationship, and he couldn't spare her a single glance on his way out of the room. She had once known the exact rhythm of his footsteps, had once been able to read his mood from the set of his shoulders alone. Now she barely recognized the man walking away from her.
Then came the sound… the distant, heavy thud of his study door closing like a final slam of rejection, echoing through the hollow grandeur of the estate. The silence that followed felt worse than any argument could have been.
