Alissa POV:
His words, sharp and dismissive, sliced through me. "You're always playing the victim, Alissa. It's draining."
My hand flew to my stomach. A familiar knot tightened, a physical manifestation of the emotional assault.
He didn't just dismiss my pain; he invalidated my entire existence.
My phone vibrated again. A banking notification.
A deposit. A large sum.
Ethan Morgan has transferred $50,000 to your account.
My eyes widened. His arrogance knew no bounds. Was this severance? Hush money?
Then, a voice message. From Ethan. His tone was clipped, laced with annoyance.
"Alissa, don't forget Bella's scarf. She left it at the house. Can you put it in a box for her? I'll have someone pick it up."
Bella' s scarf. In our house. He wanted me to package it for his new mistress.
The humiliation burned.
I walked into the living room, my gaze falling on the sleek, black coffee table. We had picked it out together, giggling like teenagers at the furniture store.
Now, a delicate, lacy slip was draped over one of the legs. Bella's.
My stomach lurched again. My home felt defiled. Every corner, every object, poisoned by their presence.
I remembered the day we bought this table. Ethan had insisted on testing its stability, playfully pretending to dance on it. We had laughed so hard.
That memory, once cherished, was now a source of agony. It was a painful echo of a life that was gone.
I couldn't breathe in this space anymore.
A cold, hard resolve crystallized within me. I would purge it all.
Every single item that carried the faint scent of betrayal. Every memory, every shared moment.
The process was methodical, almost therapeutic. I worked through the night, a zombie fueled by adrenaline and a desperate need for erasure.
Clothes, books, trinkets. Anything that reminded me of us.
I sorted them into piles: donate, discard, keep. The "keep" pile was surprisingly small.
As dawn broke, painting the sky in soft hues of pink and gold, a strange sense of lightness settled over me. A tiny crack of hope in the darkness.
Then, I saw it. Tucked away in a dusty box under the bed.
Our photo albums.
I hesitated, my fingers tracing the worn leather cover. A chronicle of our eight years. Our entire youth, captured in glossy prints.
I opened the first one. Page after page of smiling faces. Young, hopeful Alissa and Ethan.
My heart ached with a dull, persistent throb.
On one page, a photo was ripped down the middle, then carefully taped back together.
It was from the day my mother, Kathryn, and Ethan' s father, Brendon, announced their engagement.
I remembered that day so clearly. We were celebrating, a family united. Ethan had been outwardly charming, raising a toast to their happiness.
Later that night, the mask had slipped.
He had torn the picture, right down the middle, his eyes blazing with a fury I hadn't seen before.
"You think this is a game, Alissa?" he had spat, his voice low and menacing. "My father, marrying your mother? A low-level professor? What do you think she's after? His money? Our company?"
My blood ran cold. "Ethan, how can you say that? They love each other."
"Love?" He had sneered. "Or a calculated move to get her hands on the Morgan legacy?"
He had accused me of being in on it, of being a co-conspirator in my own mother's "gold-digging scheme."
I had been stunned into silence. Unable to defend myself. Unable to comprehend the depth of his cruelty.
Now, looking at the mended tear, I saw not a repair, but a scar. A permanent wound.
My breath hitched. The image of his contorted face, his venomous words, flooded my mind.
I closed the album. My hand trembled.
No more.
I took the album, ripped it to shreds, tearing through years of memories, years of a life I thought was real.
Each tear of the paper was a tear in my heart.
But it was necessary. A surgical cut.
I tossed the confetti of our past into the trash, letting it mix with the discarded takeout and Bella' s scarf.
It was over.
