Chapter 1

For ten years, my world was a small, stable orbit around a single star: Olivia Hayes. I charted her moods like constellations and predicted her desires like celestial events. I was an astrophysicist, a man who understood the vast, cold emptiness of space, and Olivia was my sun, the center of my gravity. She was vibrant, a socialite who collected friends and admirers with an effortless gravity I could only dream of possessing. I was quiet, awkward, more comfortable with equations than with people. We were an unlikely pair, and I loved her for it.

I loved her with a quiet, unwavering devotion that I believed was returned in full.

Our wedding day was supposed to be the culmination of that decade, the moment our two orbits finally became one.

The day before, I was in our shared apartment, a space she had decorated and I had paid for, trying to write my vows. The words felt clumsy. How do you quantify a decade of love? While searching for a photo album in her closet, a box I' d never seen before tumbled from the top shelf. It was a simple shoebox, but the name written on the side in black marker made my chest tighten.

Liam.

I knew the name. Liam Donovan was her high school boyfriend, the "bad boy" she' d told me was a dramatic, long-gone chapter of her life. A ghost she had thankfully exorcised. Curiosity, cold and sharp, pushed me to open it. Inside were not just old photos, but recent ones. Pictures of them together at a beach I didn't know she'd visited, a concert she' d said she went to with friends. And letters. Dozens of them. I pulled one out, dated just six months ago.

Her handwriting, so familiar, scrawled across the page. "Liam, my love, you know you're the only one who gives me this thrill. Ethan is... safe. He' s my rock. But you' re the storm. I can' t live without the storm."

I read another. "Don't worry, darling. The wedding is just a formality. A safety net. Once my parents are satisfied and the trust is settled, we can figure things out. You know I'll always come back to you."

A safety net. A formality. The words echoed in the silent apartment. Ten years of my life, my unwavering love, my future-it was all just a backup plan. I felt the floor tilt beneath me, the stable ground of my entire adult life turning to sand. I sank onto the floor, the letters scattered around me like pieces of a bomb that had just detonated in my hands. The silence was broken only by the sound of my own ragged breathing.

I knew I should be furious, should be screaming. But all I felt was a profound, hollow coldness, as if I' d been pushed out of an airlock into the vacuum of space. The wedding was tomorrow. The conflict wasn't potential anymore; it was here, waiting for me at the end of an aisle I now understood was a lie.

The next day, I stood at the altar, a ghost in a tuxedo. I went through the motions, my smile a mask. I saw Olivia walking towards me, a vision in white, and for a heart-stopping moment, the lie felt so beautiful I wanted to believe it again. But then I saw him, standing in the back of the church. Liam Donovan. He smirked at me, a look of pure, triumphant ownership in his eyes.

The priest was speaking, but the words were a distant hum. Suddenly, Liam strode forward, his voice booming through the sacred silence.

"Liv, don't do this. Don't marry this boring loser. You know you love me."

A collective gasp went through the guests. Olivia froze, her face a mask of shock, but her eyes darted to Liam, a flicker of something I couldn't decipher. I stepped forward, my voice low and shaking. "Get out. This is my wedding."

Liam laughed. "Your wedding? Man, you're the guest star. This has always been our show." He shoved me, hard. It wasn't a powerful push, more of a contemptuous one, but I was off-balance, my dress shoes slipping on the polished marble.

A sharp, sickening crack echoed through the church. Not a sound from the building, but from inside my own body. An explosion of white-hot pain shot up from my ankle, and my leg buckled under me. I collapsed onto the steps of the altar, the world spinning in a vortex of agony and humiliation.

Olivia didn't move towards me. Her eyes were locked on Liam. He clutched his chest, his face contorting in a parody of pain. "Liv, my heart... I can't breathe. Seeing you with him... it's killing me." It was theater, and it was pathetic, but it worked.

She rushed past me, past my crumpled form on the floor, my fractured leg screaming in protest. She didn't even glance down. She cupped Liam's face, her voice frantic with a concern she had never once shown me in that moment. "Liam! Oh my god, are you okay? We need to get you to a hospital. Now."

She turned back to me then, her face a storm of fury. Her voice was ice. "Look what you did, Ethan! You stressed him out! You need to leave. You're making a scene."

My mind simply broke. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the complete and utter devastation of her words. She was choosing the man who assaulted me, prioritizing his fake crisis over my real injury, and blaming me for the chaos he had caused. She and Liam walked out of the church together, leaving me on the cold marble floor, surrounded by the wreckage of our life.

I looked down at my unnaturally angled leg, then at the silent, staring guests. The love I thought was my sun had revealed itself to be a black hole, and it had just swallowed my entire universe. I knew in that instant, with a clarity that cut through the pain, that I had to get away. Not just from the church, but from her. I had to escape the orbit, or it would tear me apart completely.