After the Last Tear: Rising from the Ashes of a Broken Marriage By Cassila K

Chapter 66

Pax was gone.

Not just gone erased.

His things had disappeared overnight, vanishing so cleanly that if not for the faint indentation his side of the mattress still held, I might have thought he had never been here at all.

The small, suffocating apartment we had shared for the past two years now felt eerily... spacious.

I stood in the center of the room, staring at the empty space where his belongings used to be. The closet door, once barely able to close from the weight of our combined mess, now hung slightly ajar-hollow, unburdened.

Even his scent, that faint mix of cedar and citrus, was already beginning to fade.

He hadn't left a note.

No message. No half-hearted explanation scrawled on a scrap of paper.

Nothing.

Just silence.

I swallowed, exhaling slowly

So, that was it, a clean break.

A quiet, unspoken ending.

Maybe this was for the best.

This way, at least, I wasn't the one who had to walk away first.

Two days ago, I had posted a question online on Reddit:

haven't told my boyfriend yet. How do I

had

Selfish. Cruel. Heartless.

planning a future with him, of leading him on, of

And the worst part?

They were right.

my future, I chose

truly considered another

all was, but my lips

And yet...

I thought about it, Pax's act had never

thin and almost imperceptible,

I was working a part-time shift at a bar when a drunk customer grabbed my wrist, pulling me closer with the kind of entitlement that came from knowing no one

Pax had.

fingers off my arm, his presence alone enough to make the guy stumble

defended me—he had handled the situation, smooth and composed, as if

to me, gaze flickering over my

"Are you okay?"

even had a chance to answer, he had taken my phone,

should have known

confidence, the unconscious authority-it wasn't something a

he had smiled, easy and

just a scholarship kid trying

had been wearing? Borrowed from

talent agency needed a background actor to play a rich heir. Lucky me, huh? This is probably the

had believed

help him look for more part-time jobs, thinking I