Ethan didn’t look at me with regret or hesitation, only with a cold detachment that made my chest ache, as he tossed a few bills at my feet, watching them scatter into muddy puddles before slamming the door shut, the sharp click of the lock sounding like the final severing of everything we had once been, while the summer storm over Chicago poured down mercilessly, soaking my clothes and stinging my skin as I wrapped my coat tightly around Emma, shielding her tiny body as she trembled, her small hands gripping my shirt, her wide eyes searching my face as if I could still make sense of everything.
Three years earlier, I had been a rising interior designer, full of ambition and promise, living a life that felt bright and certain, until I chose to give it all up for Ethan, believing that sacrificing my career would help us build a warm, loving home, never imagining that all it would take to destroy it was a single piece of paper, a DNA test that he waved like proof of betrayal, accusing me without hesitation, without listening, without even asking for the truth, his anger drowning out any chance I had to explain, reducing me in his eyes to nothing more than a lie.