Chapter 3

The hospital ceiling was a landscape of white tiles and water stains. I counted them for hours, the only thing to do as the pain medication made my thoughts swim in a thick fog.

Olivia never came. She never called back. My wife was somewhere in our house, in our bed, tending to the man who had humiliated me while I lay here with a shattered leg.

Each tick of the clock on the wall was a fresh reminder of my solitude. I thought about our wedding day. The promises she made. "In sickness and in health." It felt like a cruel joke now.

All the times I had dropped everything for her, a bad day at work, a fight with a friend, a simple cold. I was always there. But when I needed her, truly needed her, I was an inconvenience.

A deep, weary exhaustion settled over me, heavier than the pain. It was the exhaustion of loving someone who didn't love you back. Not in the way that mattered. Not when it was hard. I had given and given, and she had taken and taken, and I was finally empty.

The decision formed not as a sudden revelation, but as a slow, quiet certainty. It was over. I couldn't do this anymore. I wouldn't. The love I had for her, which had been the bedrock of my life, had crumbled into dust.

The next afternoon, a nurse was helping me into a wheelchair to take me for more tests. As we rounded a corner, I saw them. Olivia and Liam were walking down the hall, coming from the direction of the outpatient clinic.

Liam was limping dramatically, leaning on Olivia, who looked at him with such tender concern it made my stomach turn. He had a small bandage on his ankle.

They saw me at the same time. Olivia' s eyes widened, a flash of something unreadable in them-annoyance? Guilt? It was gone in an instant.

"Ethan," she said, her voice flat. She didn't move toward me. She didn't ask how I was.

Liam, however, smirked. "Well, well. Look who it is. Still playing the victim, Miller?"

I ignored him, my gaze fixed on my wife. My leg throbbed in its heavy cast. My head ached. I looked at her, waiting. Waiting for one sign, one word of remorse.

It never came.

"I can't believe you're still here," Olivia said, her tone dripping with exasperation. "The doctors said Liam' s sprain is quite serious. He needs weeks of rest. You need to come home and apologize to him. And you can get him some fresh ice, the stuff they have here is terrible."

The nurse beside me gasped softly. I just stared at Olivia, a cold, dead calm spreading through me. She was looking at my cast, at my pale, bruised face, and demanding I go home to serve the man who caused this. My own wife.

Flashbacks hit me, sharp and clear. The vacation we cancelled because Liam was going through a breakup and "needed" her.

The promotion dinner I had to attend alone because Liam had a last-minute premiere and Olivia had to be there. The countless nights she' d spent on the phone with him, laughing, while I sat in the other room, waiting for her.

This wasn't just one night. This was my marriage. And this was the end. I had given her three years of my life. Three chances. One for every year of our marriage. The first was when she chose his premiere over my celebration. The second was when she cancelled our anniversary trip for him. Last night, at the party, was the third.

Three strikes. She was out.

This was her last chance to be my wife, and she was demanding I apologize to her lover. My heart, which had been aching for 24 hours, finally went still. There was nothing left to break.