Chapter 7
The glow from the TV washed over the bedroom walls in a cold, flickering blue—too bright for a room that had forgotten warmth. Renee stood frozen in the doorway, still clutching the sweater she’d meant to fold, when the camera panned across the charity gala’s entrance.
There he was.
Owen.
Tall, composed, wearing the suit he once said he’d save for “our future celebrations.” But that wasn’t the part that made Renee’s fingers go numb.
It was the hand he was holding.
Nova’s.
Their fingers intertwined like it was the most natural thing in the world. Nova leaned into him with that soft, knowing smile—the kind a woman wears when she’s already been chosen. Flashbulbs flickered. Reporters shouted. Owen dipped his head toward Nova, close enough that their foreheads nearly brushed.
The room tilted.
Renee’s first thought wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even disbelief.
It was humiliation, sharp and clean, slicing straight through her lungs before she could breathe.
The world had been preparing her for this moment for weeks—the empty bed for three nights, the evasive texts, the silence that had stretched and hardened like ice between them. She should have expected it. She should have recognized the storm long before it hit shore.
But nothing prepares you for watching your partner look at someone else the way he once looked at you.
“Don’t,” she whispered to the empty room, as if warning herself, as if begging the universe to rewind the scene. “Don’t do this to me…”
Owen’s thumb brushed over Nova’s knuckles on-screen.
That was the moment something inside Renee cracked—quietly, but completely.
Her body moved before her mind did. The sweater dropped to the floor. Her keys were in her trembling hand. The TV’s blue glow stretched across the hallway as she backed away, heartbeat pounding in her ears like a countdown.
She didn’t remember grabbing her coat.
She didn’t remember opening the front door.
She only remembered one thing:
She had to get out.
Away from the walls that had watched her wait for Owen.
Away from the bed where she had memorized his absence.
Away from the screen still replaying her humiliation.
Rain hit her face the moment she stepped outside, cold and unapologetic—like the world had decided to wash her clean without asking.
Renee ran.
Down the stairs, out into the street, through the storm that blurred the city into streaks of light and shadow.
She didn’t know where she was going.
Only that she wasn’t staying.