Love, Realigned

“For five years, I, Ethan, dedicated everything to Olivia, my wife. I sacrificed my promising physics career to build her art gallery into a success, endured her family's disdain, and cherished her every whim. I truly believed my unwavering love would one day win her heart. Then came our fifth wedding anniversary-also my birthday. I sat alone in our villa' s vast dining room, special dishes growing cold, waiting for a wife who never came home on time. My phone buzzed with an explosive headline: "Renowned Artist Olivia Hayes Appears at Charity Gala with New Flame, Confesses He is Her True Soulmate." The accompanying video showed Olivia, radiant, holding hands with Liam-a man strikingly similar to her deceased childhood sweetheart. She glowed as she declared him "the one I have been waiting for my entire life." The article added insult to injury: she'd bought him a forty-million-dollar sports car for his birthday, today, my birthday. My carefully built world shattered. How could the woman I' d devoted my life to publicly betray me so utterly, so callously? The contrast, her forty-million-dollar gift to her "soulmate" versus not even a text for her husband, crushed me. Was I just a convenient shield, a placeholder? The hope I' d clung to, a threadbare illusion, finally snapped. With a deep breath, I lit the single candle on my pathetic birthday cake, a ghost of a celebration. "Happy birthday, Ethan," I whispered to myself, then blew it out. And in that wisp of smoke, my love for her vanished too. It was over.”