Chapter 2

He wasn't fine. He hadn't been fine since the day he walked out of their apartment.

The lobby opened onto a street slick with rain that had started falling while he was upstairs. He didn't have an umbrella. He didn't care. The cold drops hit his face as he crossed to his car, fumbling for the keys, his mind still ringing with the sound of her voice.

I thought it was time.

Time to let go of the rest of you.

He pulled out of the parking garage and merged onto the highway, heading south. Her last address was still in his phone—a contact he'd never deleted, a location he'd never had the courage to visit. He'd told himself it was respect. That she deserved her space. That he had no right to show up unannounced after everything he'd done.

But tonight, respect felt like cowardice.

The drive took forty minutes. Traffic thinned as he left the city center, the tall buildings giving way to quieter streets lined with trees and old houses. Her neighborhood was modest—the kind of place where people knew their neighbors, where children's bikes sat in front yards, where life moved at a slower pace. It was nothing like the glass-and-steel world he inhabited. It was exactly the kind of place Clara had always wanted to live.

He parked across the street and killed the engine.

Her apartment was on the second floor of a converted Victorian, the windows warm with golden light. He could see the outline of her bookshelf against the far wall, the same one she'd had in their old place, the one she'd insisted on keeping even when it didn't fit the decor. She'd said it held her favorite stories. He'd said it was impractical. She'd laughed and told him that love wasn't supposed to be practical.

He got out of the car.

The rain had softened to a drizzle, the kind that clung to your skin without quite soaking through. He crossed the street slowly, his footsteps muffled on the wet pavement. When he reached the bottom of her staircase, he stopped.

He could see her through the window now.

She was sitting on her couch—a deep blue one he didn't recognize—with a mug in her hands. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, falling just past her shoulders instead of down her back. She wore a soft sweater, cream-colored, and had her legs tucked beneath her in that way she always did when she was comfortable. She wasn't looking at anything in particular. She was just… there. Existing in a life that no longer included him.

His hand rose to knock. Stopped. Fell back to his side.

What would he say? I read your journal. I know how much I hurt you. I'm sorry. The words felt small, useless, like throwing pebbles at a mountain and expecting it to move.

She shifted on the couch, and he saw her smile. Not at him—at something on her phone. She read whatever was on the screen, and her smile grew wider, softer, the kind of smile that belonged to someone who was happy. Genuinely happy. Not the forced kind she'd worn in the months before he left, when she'd tried so hard to be supportive while he slowly pulled away.

His chest ached.

She was beautiful. She had always been beautiful, but there was something different about her now. A lightness. A peace. The Clara he'd left behind had been waiting—waiting for him to come back, waiting for him to choose her, waiting for a future that kept slipping further away. This Clara had stopped waiting.

She laughed at something on her phone, and the sound carried through the thin glass, muffled but unmistakable. It was the same laugh he'd fallen in love with years ago, the one that used to fill their tiny apartment and make everything feel possible.

He took a step back.

Then another.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't knock on her door and ask her to revisit the pain he'd caused, not when she had finally found a way to move past it. Not when she looked like she was building something whole, something he had no right to tear down.

He turned and walked back to his car.

The drive home was longer. The rain stopped somewhere along the way, leaving the streets glistening under the streetlights. He didn't turn on the radio. He didn't call anyone. He just drove, letting the hum of the engine fill the space where words should have been.

When he reached his building, he sat in the parking garage for a long time. The engine ticked as it cooled. His hands rested on the steering wheel, loose and useless.

He thought about the journal. Her words, pressed into paper like fossils of a love that had once been alive. I can't keep being the woman who waits to be chosen. She had written that three years ago, and she had meant it. She had stopped waiting. She had chosen herself.

He couldn't blame her.

He climbed out of the car and took the elevator back up to his penthouse. The box was still on the kitchen island, open and waiting. The journal lay beside it, pages splayed, the ink catching the light. He walked past it, into the living room, and sat down on the couch.

The city glittered beyond the window, vast and indifferent. He had everything he'd ever worked for—the corner office, the recognition, the money that bought him this view. And none of it meant a thing.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. Clara's name was still there, saved from a time when he'd called her every night just to hear her voice. He pressed it, and the phone began to ring.

It went to voicemail.

Her voice, recorded years ago but still achingly familiar: Hey, you've reached Clara. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you when I can.

He waited for the beep.

"It's me," he said. His voice cracked on the last word. "I know you probably don't want to hear from me. I know I don't deserve to be in your life anymore. But I need you to know that I read your journal tonight. Every word. And I'm sorry, Clara. I'm so sorry for making you feel like you weren't enough. You were always enough. I was the one who wasn't."

He paused, pressing his palm against his forehead.

"I saw you tonight. From across the street. You looked happy. Really happy. And I wanted to tell you that I'm glad. Even if it kills me that I'm not the one making you smile, I'm glad you found that. You deserve it."

His throat tightened.

"I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't expect anything. I just… I needed you to know that I understand now. What I lost. And I'll carry it with me for the rest of my life."

He hung up.

The silence settled around him, thick and heavy. He set the phone down on the coffee table and stared at the city lights, watching them blur and sharpen as his eyes filled and cleared.

He didn't sleep that night. He sat on the couch, the journal open on his lap, reading her words until the sun crept over the horizon and painted the sky in shades of gold and pink. And when morning came, he closed the book, set it aside, and faced the first day of the rest of his life without her.

Somewhere across the city, Clara woke up to a voicemail she hadn't expected. She listened to it twice, then set her phone down and looked out her window at the quiet street below.

She didn't call back.

But she didn't delete it either.