The Love He Killed

“My hands, once horrifically scarred, were healed by a cosmic bargain: save one struggling soul, Ethan Hayes, in another reality. For eight years, I poured my life into his, turning a broken man with crushing debt into a tech titan. We built an empire, married, and for a time, I truly loved him, believing our future was forged in shared dreams. But then, the architect of his redemption became the victim of his betrayal. His intern, Chloe Vance, slid into our lives and straight into his bed. Three years of his gaslighting, hidden affairs that became blatant, and the grinding neglect slowly extinguished the vibrant woman I once was. The final, brutal blow came when Chloe, smugly pregnant, revealed Ethan had "gifted" her our vineyard estate-my home. My heart, once shattered, had simply turned to ash. I meticulously liquidated a fortune I' d fought to earn, preparing for an escape he' d facilitated with every lie and condescending guilt-gift. He bought me diamond necklaces while Chloe flaunted her presence in our penthouse. On my birthday, he cornered me, enraged, accusing me of threatening his new family, blind to the fact that his actions had already killed everything between us. He was a stranger, a ghost clinging to a broken past. I was long past anger, past pain-only a chilling resolve remained. How could he not see? How could he not understand that the woman who healed him had been destroyed by him? So, as he lunged forward, his face contorted with a fury born of his own making, I didn't resist. Instead, I calmly whispered, "Happy birthday to me." And then, with a resolute step onto nothingness, I embraced my "death," not as an end, but as a long-overdue return to the life and self I was always meant to be.”