"Does any of this even matter now?"
I stared blankly at the ceiling.
Because she wanted to avenge Clark Dickerson.
Over a decade of my work, gone. All of it.
She panicked.
"Alex, I'll send him away. This time, I mean it."
Her phone buzzed.
She answered it.
Her expression froze.
"I'll be right there."
"Where are you going?"
I looked at her, eyes burning red. "It's Clark, isn't it?"
She hesitated. "It's not him. The baby has a fever."
"What about me?!"
I seized her wrist and held on for dear life.
She was just going to leave without giving me an explanation?
How was that fair?
She paused.
Then pried my fingers off, one by one.
"I'll be back."
I watched her walk away, eyes still burning.
I had no home anymore.
But she did.
Clark did.
By the time Theodore came to see me, I had already fallen out of bed.
He rushed to help me up. "Mr. Sanchez! Let me get a doctor!"
"Don't bother."
I stared straight ahead. "Discharge me. Take me home."
I stood in front of the marital home I'd shared with Edna, a heavy coat draped over my shoulders.
A torch in my hand.
"Mr. Sanchez, are you really going to burn it?"
I tossed the torch onto the pile of kindling. My voice was flat.
"Yeah."
I had carried Edna across this threshold once.
Those beautiful memories were blinding now.
If I was leaving, I'd burn the past clean.
"Mr. Sanchez, do you want to say goodbye to Mrs. Swanson?"
"No."
The private jet was already waiting on the tarmac.
I handed him the divorce papers. "Just give her these."
The plane lifted off.
The fire still hadn't gone out.
I didn't look back.
I was never coming back.
