I hung up.
Later that night, I got a message from an unknown number. It was from Chase. A single line: You had no right.
I replied instantly: I had every right, and attached a photo—him kissing Lena at the hotel spa, timestamped, dated, undeniable. No response. I never heard from him again, but I didn't need to. The silence was confirmation that I had cut him just as deep.
It had been nearly two months since I left Lena, but the aftershocks of her betrayal still echoed in strange moments. In the stillness of morning coffee, I'd sometimes hear her laugh in the back of my head, until I remembered it was fake. Every intimate moment we ever shared was now blurred with doubt.
And yet, I was beginning to breathe again. Peace had returned slowly and cautiously, like a wounded animal. I started running in the mornings, therapy once a week. I even reconnected with my brother, whom I hadn't spoken to in nearly a year because of how consumed I was with Lena.
She tried calling a few more times; I ignored her. Then she started emailing: desperate, apologetic, then angry, then apologetic again—a classic cycle of guilt and manipulation, one I had finally become immune to.
And then, the email that almost made me laugh out loud:
"Leo, I've lost everything. My parents won't even speak to me. Chase has completely disappeared—I don't even know where he lives now. I have no job, no friends. I just want to start over. I know I messed up, but can we meet once? Just one real conversation. Closure, if nothing else."
Closure. She was asking for closure from a man she'd buried alive.
I drafted a reply: You don't want closure, Lena. You want forgiveness, but I'm not your priest. I'm the grave you dug for your old life.
I didn't send it. I didn't have to. Some ghosts are better left haunting the living.
That week, I got a call from Maya, my lawyer.