I wasn’t going to fight for a marriage that was already a joke. I wasn’t going to beg for a daughter who had already chosen another woman. I wasn’t going to mourn parents who never chose me.
No. I was going to disappear. And one day, I would come back as someone they would never dare look down on again.
...
With Lancelot’s help, everything happened quietly. I finalized the divorce on my terms and took nothing from Gusion. Not a dollar. Not a share. I wanted zero ties, zero debts, zero reminders.
Then I crossed a line I could never uncross.
Through one of Lancelot’s medical contacts, I found someone who could help me vanish completely. An unclaimed body. A woman close to my age, my size. Someone the world had already forgotten.
I dressed her carefully in one of my favorite dresses. My hands shook as I slid my wedding ring onto her finger. Then I unclasped the necklace Gusion once gave me, the one I held onto long after love was gone.
Nana used to tug on it when she was little.
“Mommy, is this magic?” she’d asked, wide-eyed.
“No, baby,” I’d laughed. “But Daddy gave it to me, so it matters.”
“Then it is magic,” she’d said, curling into me.
That memory almost broke me. Now she clung to Hanabi instead.
I placed the necklace around the corpse’s neck and stepped back. The woman on the bed was no longer a stranger. She was Miya Colombo.
That night, before everything burned, I made one last call.
It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. No answer.
I already knew why. My mother had called earlier, her voice falsely gentle.
“They left for Paris this morning,” she said. “It was good for Hanabi's health.. You should understand.”
Paris. A honeymoon for them. A family trip for my daughter. Without me.
I stopped calling and opened my messages.
To Gusion Colombo:
“Thank you for teaching me how disposable I was to you. Thank you for making it easy to let go when you showed me I meant nothing. I hope Hanabi gives you the happiness you never gave me.”
I added one last line.
Goodbye.
I sent it.
Then I lit the match.
I watched from the shadows as the fire swallowed the house. The memories. The pain. The woman who had begged to be loved.
Nana used to run through those halls shouting my name.
“Mommy, look at me!”
She used to wrap her arms around my neck and whisper, “I love you.”
Now she was calling someone else Mommy.
I crushed the ache down. Feelings were useless where I was going.