Chapter 11
I handed off my responsibilities at Marley Crest Financial on a gray Monday morning.
Pierce Levi sat across from me in my corner office, his expression carefully neutral as I explained that I needed to take an extended leave of absence. Personal matters. Family emergency. I didn't elaborate, and he didn't ask, though I could see the curiosity burning behind his professional mask.
The whole building probably knew by now.
Office gossip traveled faster than wildfire, and Chloe's dramatic exit combined with my wife's disappearance had undoubtedly provided weeks of breakroom speculation.
I didn't care. Let them talk. Let them whisper about the executive who'd imploded his marriage for a twenty-four-year-old assistant. At least they'd be telling the truth.
"Take whatever time you need," Pierce said, standing to shake my hand. "Your position will be here when you're ready to return."
I thanked him, but we both knew I might never be ready.
The man who'd clawed his way to this corner suite, who'd sacrificed everything for the view of the city skyline and the weight of a title on his business cards, that man felt like a stranger now.
A ghost I'd been inhabiting for years without realizing I'd lost myself somewhere along the way.
I packed a single box. A few photographs.
Some personal files. The rest of it, the awards and plaques and framed commendations, I left for whoever would sit in this chair next.
They meant nothing to me anymore. They'd never meant anything, really.
Just props in a performance I'd been giving my whole adult life.
The drive north took an hour. I'd made it so many times in the past week that I could navigate it with my eyes closed, the curves of the coastal road imprinted in my muscle memory. But this time was different. This time I wasn't just visiting. This time I was staying.
I'd found the rental listing online the night before. A small condo in the coastal town where Julianne had retreated, about five minutes from her grandmother's cottage. Close enough that I might catch a glimpse of her. Far enough that I wouldn't technically be violating the no-contact directive.
My lawyer would have called it a gray area. I called it the only option that didn't involve letting her go completely.
The condo was exactly as depressing as the photos had suggested.
A boxy one-bedroom in a complex that had seen better days, with beige walls and beige carpet and beige curtains that blocked the only decent view.
The previous tenant had left behind a musty smell that no amount of opened windows seemed to dispel, and the kitchen appliances looked like they'd been installed during a previous decade.
I stood in the center of the empty living room and felt the full weight of what I'd become.
A month ago, I'd been a senior executive at one of the most prestigious financial firms in the city.
I'd had a corner office, a six-figure salary, a beautiful home in Holly Heights filled with expensive things.
I'd had a wife who loved me, even when I didn't deserve it.
I'd had everything a man was supposed to want.
Now I was standing in a shitty rental apartment with nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on my back, trying to figure out how to win back a woman who'd legally requested I never speak to her again.
The fall was dizzying. And somehow, exactly what I deserved.
I bought the basics that first day. A mattress from the discount store on Main Street, delivered by two bored teenagers who couldn't have cared less about my fall from grace.
Sheets and pillows and towels from the same place, all in neutral colors because I couldn't summon the energy to care about aesthetics.
A coffee maker, because I couldn't face mornings without caffeine.
A single pot, a single pan, a set of utensils that came in a plastic package.
The powerful executive reduced to shopping at budget stores, counting out cash for a spatula.
I assembled the bed frame myself, following instructions that seemed designed to confuse, skinning my knuckles on cheap metal and swearing at screws that wouldn't cooperate. By the time I finished, my hands were raw and my back ached from crouching on the floor.
Julianne would have laughed at me. She'd always been the one to put things together, her spatial reasoning far superior to mine. I'd hand her the Allen wrench and watch her work, marveling at how quickly she could turn a pile of parts into something functional.
I'd never told her how impressive that was. Never told her how much I admired her competence, her capability, the thousand small ways she made our life work while I was too busy chasing promotions to notice.
I fell asleep that night on my new mattress, still in my clothes, too exhausted to bother with sheets.
The days blurred together after that.
I established a routine, mostly because the alternative was lying in bed staring at the water-stained ceiling and cataloging all the ways I'd failed my marriage.
I woke early, made coffee, and sat by the window watching the sun rise over the ocean.
I went for walks along the beach, long aimless wanderings that left sand in my shoes and salt on my skin.
And I watched for her.
Not in a creepy way. At least, I tried to convince myself it wasn't creepy.
I just happened to take my morning coffee at the cafe down the street from her cottage.
I just happened to browse the bookshop where I'd seen her car parked.
I just happened to walk past the little grocery store at the same time every afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of her doing something ordinary.
Buying milk. Choosing vegetables. Living her life without me.
I saw her once, in that first week. She was coming out of the hardware store, a paper bag tucked under her arm, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt I didn't recognize, something she must have bought since leaving, and she looked so beautiful it actually hurt to breathe.
She didn't see me. I ducked behind a parked car like a coward, my heart hammering against my ribs, watching her walk to her car and drive away.
She looked good. Healthy. Rested in a way she hadn't been in months.
She looked like someone who was finally free.
The realization sat heavy in my gut for the rest of the day.
All those months of Chloe's intrusion, of my dismissal, of the constant low-grade warfare I'd forced her to wage for her own dignity, they'd been wearing her down.
Exhausting her. Draining the light from her eyes bit by bit until she'd become a shadow of the vibrant woman I'd married.
And now, away from me, she was coming back to life.
Maybe I was the problem. Maybe I'd always been the problem.
I started eating takeout exclusively, unable to summon the motivation to cook for one.
The Thai place on the corner knew my order by heart within days.
Pad thai, extra spicy, with a side of spring rolls.
I ate it straight from the container, standing at the kitchen counter, too lonely to sit at the small table by myself.
The condo smelled like stale food and desperation. I kept the windows open even when it rained, preferring the damp to the stuffiness of my own misery.
I called my mother once. She'd heard, of course. News travels in families the same way it travels in offices, through whispers and implications and the heavy silences that speak louder than words. She asked if I was okay. I said yes, even though we both knew it was a lie.
"What happened, Lewis?" she asked, and I could hear the disappointment beneath the concern. My mother had always loved Julianne. Sometimes I suspected she loved her more than she loved me.
"I fucked up," I told her. "I fucked up in ways I can't even explain. And now I'm trying to fix it, but I don't know if I can."
She was quiet for a long moment. "Do you want my advice?"
"Yes."
"Stop trying to fix it." Her voice was gentle but firm. "You can't fix another person's pain. You can only change yourself and hope that's enough."
I thought about her words long after we hung up. Change yourself. It sounded so simple. But how do you change who you fundamentally are? How do you unlearn decades of vanity and selfishness and the desperate need to be desired by everyone except the one person who actually mattered?
I didn't know. But I had nothing but time to figure it out.
So I sat in my shitty apartment, surrounded by cheap stuff and the wreckage of my life, and I waited.
For what, I wasn't sure.
A sign. A miracle. A glimpse of the woman I loved, living her life without me.
Or maybe just the courage to become someone worth taking back.