Too Late for Regret, Liam

For six years, I believed Liam and I were building a real life together in our Chicago apartment. I always thought our love was solid, unbreakable. One quiet Tuesday night, searching his laptop for a tax document, I stumbled upon a folder simply named "C." Curiosity, that stupid little nudge, made me click. It wasn't finances; it was Chloe. Thousands of photos, her smiling face, and then the "Journal" subfolder. My hands shook as I read devastating entries. The flowers he bought me after my promotion, the romantic trip to Italy, even our engagement-each cherished moment a desperate reaction to a woman he still couldn't let go of. He worried I was pregnant, clearly terrified of being tied to me while Chloe was "still out there." Then Chloe herself started sending me messages, photos of her and Liam, bragging I was just a "placeholder." I heard him tell his best friend he was "stringing me along" to make Chloe jealous. The man I loved saw me only as a prop in his silent play for another woman. How could I have been so blind, so completely fooled? His ring on my finger was never for me. With a cold, hard clarity, I realized my entire relationship was a meticulously crafted lie. I saved every message, every damning photo, and wrote a short note: "We're done." I closed our joint accounts, changed my number, and bought a bus ticket out of Chicago. There was no sadness, just a firm click of a door closing on a life that was never truly mine.