Chapter 1

For nine years, I built a world for Chloe Davis. I found her huddled in a back alley, sixteen years old and running from a home that was no home at all. I was nineteen, just scraping by myself after aging out of the orphanage system, but I took her in.

I worked three jobs so she could finish high school. I worked through nights so she could go to college, the first person in her family to ever do so. I poured concrete in the freezing winter and hauled trash in the blistering summer, and every dollar went to her tuition, her books, her clothes, our tiny apartment.

Our shared savings account, the one for the down payment on a small house we talked about, was filled with my sweat and sleepless nights. My own life was a series of sacrifices I never even thought to name. It was just what you did for the person you loved.

Then, she graduated. She landed a great job at a prestigious firm, the kind of place with glass walls and people in expensive suits.

Three months into that job, she sat across from me at our wobbly kitchen table, the one I' d found on the curb and refinished myself.

"Ethan," she said, her voice flat. "I want a divorce."

The words didn't compute. Divorce. It was a word for other people, for broken marriages, not for us. We had built everything from nothing.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. My own voice sounded distant.

"We' ve grown apart," she said, not meeting my eyes. She stared at a spot on the wall just over my shoulder. "I' m a different person now. You' re... still you."

"I' m still the person who loves you," I said, my chest tightening.

She finally looked at me, and her eyes were cold, like a stranger' s. "Let' s be honest, Ethan. What we had... it was a survival pact. You saved me, and I' m grateful. I truly am. But it was never about love. It was about need. I needed to survive, and you needed someone to save."

A survival pact. Nine years of my life, reduced to a transaction.

My throat felt thick with things I couldn't say. The exhaustion of a decade hit me all at once, a weight that settled deep in my bones. I looked at her, at the professional, polished woman she had become, wearing a blazer that cost more than my weekly paycheck. The girl I rescued was gone.

I just nodded. I didn' t have the energy to fight. Not then.

"Okay, Chloe," I heard myself say. "If that' s what you want."

She seemed surprised by my quick agreement, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes before it was gone.

She was right about one thing. It had started as a practical arrangement. I had a small, empty room, and she had nowhere to go. But somewhere along the way, for me, it had turned into everything. I was a fool to think it had been the same for her.