Chapter 3

"So that's it?" Chloe's voice was sharp, cutting through the tense silence. "You're just going to leave because I had to work on our anniversary?" She stood by the door, her arms crossed, a fortress of self-righteousness. The pristine white walls of her apartment seemed to press in, making the space feel small and suffocating.

"It wasn't just work, Chloe. It was a lie," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "You were with him. You chose to be with him, to celebrate his success, on a night that was supposed to be about us."

"Oh, I see," she scoffed, a bitter, humorless sound. "This is about Daniel. You've always been jealous of him."

"Jealous?" The word was so absurd it almost made me laugh. "I'm not jealous, Chloe. I'm tired. I'm tired of being the second choice. I'm tired of being the person you come home to after you've given all your energy, all your attention, all your support to someone else." I looked at her, at the woman I thought I loved, and saw a stranger. Her face was hard, her eyes lacking the sympathy she so readily gave to Daniel. In that moment, the contrast was stark. He got her compassion, I got her contempt.

"He needs me," she repeated, the same tired excuse. "He's been through a lot."

"And I haven't?" The question exploded out of me, raw and full of a pain I had kept bottled up for months. "My parents are dead, Chloe. My home is gone. Everything I had was burned to the ground. But my trauma is an inconvenience to you, isn't it? It's messy. It's not as glamorous as the 'fragile genius' of a celebrity chef."

Her face paled. "That's not fair."

"Fair?" I let out a harsh laugh. "You want to talk about fair? Is it fair that I spent our anniversary alone, waiting for you, while you were writing a love letter to another man and calling it a food review? Is it fair that you use my grief to guilt me into accepting your neglect?" Each word was a crack in the dam, and the resentment I had been suppressing came flooding out. I was done being understanding. I was done being the quiet, grieving boyfriend who was supposed to be grateful for whatever scraps of attention she threw my way.

I watched her face as my words landed. There was no remorse, no apology. Just a cold, stubborn anger. She couldn't admit she was wrong. Her entire identity was built on the idea that she was the compassionate one, the one who helps, the one who saves. My accusations threatened that image, and she couldn't tolerate it.

"If that's how you feel," she said, her voice like ice, "then maybe you should leave."

So I did. I picked up my duffel bag, the strap digging into my shoulder. I walked past her without another word. The click of the door closing behind me was the loudest sound I had ever heard. It was the sound of an ending. I walked down the hallway, past the elevators, and pushed open the heavy door to the stairwell. I needed the slow, deliberate descent. Each step down was a step away from her, from that cold, white apartment, from the lie we had been living.

When I reached the lobby, I didn't know where to go. I had no home to return to. My old apartment, the one I had before moving some of my things into Chloe's, was sublet. My parents were gone. For a moment, a wave of panic washed over me. I was truly alone. I stood on the street corner, the city noise a dull roar around me. I felt like a ghost, untethered from the world.

I looked down at the duffel bag at my feet. It contained everything I had left. Inside, on top of a few t-shirts, was the framed photo of my parents. It was taken a year ago, at the restaurant's twentieth-anniversary party. They were standing in front of the kitchen doors, arms around each other, faces beaming with pride and love. My mom was laughing, her head thrown back. My dad was looking at her with an expression of pure adoration. That was love. Not a competition, not an obligation. It was a partnership, a shared life built on mutual respect.

The contrast between that photo and the scene that had just unfolded in Chloe's apartment was devastating. She had never looked at me the way my dad looked at my mom. She had looked at me with impatience, with annoyance, with pity. I realized I had been so desperate to hold on to something after the fire that I had been willing to accept a cheap imitation of love. I had been willing to believe her excuses, to minimize my own needs, just to avoid being completely alone. But I was already alone. I had been alone for months, sitting in her apartment waiting for her to come home. The only difference was that now, I wasn't waiting anymore.