---- Chapter 19 Khloe Rojas POV: Gordon and | became inseparable. For the first time, | was in a relationship that felt safe. It was a partnership built on mutual respect and quiet understanding, not on grand, dramatic gestures and possessive obsession. It was... healthy. And it was terrifyingly wonderful. We spent our days off distributing supplies to remote villages, places where aid rarely reached. The poverty was staggering, the people's resilience even more so. They had lost everything to the war, but they hadn't lost their humanity. An old woman, her face a beautiful road map of a hard-lived life, took my hands after | gave her a bag of rice. She spoke in her native language, her voice soft but urgent. Gordon translated for me, his voice thick with emotion. "She says thank you. She says she can see the sorrow you carry, but she also sees the light in you. She is blessing our union. She says a love born from ashes is the strongest of all." Tears welled in my eyes. | looked at Gordon, at his kind, steady face, and felt a profound sense of peace. | was no longer a victim. | was a survivor. And | was finally ready to live. We walked back to the compound hand in hand, the setting ---- sun painting the dusty landscape in shades of gold. The future no longer felt like a threat, but like a promise. Julian Gallegos POV: The world was a blurry, whiskey-soaked haze. | lived in a small, squalid room above a bar, the last of my liquid cash rapidly dwindling. All | did was drink and watch her. Mark had begged me to stop, to leave the country, to save myself. | had sent him away. There was nothing left to save. | watched her with Gordon. | saw them hold hands. | saw them laugh. | saw him kiss her. Each time was a fresh, excruciating twist of the knife in my gut. This should be my life. She should be smiling at me. He had stolen her. He had stolen my wife. One night, a local woman at the bar, who bore a passing resemblance to Khloe, tried to comfort me. She touched my arm, her eyes full of pity. | recoiled as if she were a snake. | saw Khloe' s face, her eyes full of disgust, and | smashed my whiskey glass against the wall, screaming at the woman to get away from me. No one could replace her. No one. The final straw came on my birthday. A notification popped up on my phone-a memory from a cloud service | had forgotten about. It was a video from five years ago. Khloe, smiling into the camera, a birthday cake with flickering candles in front of ---- her. "Happy birthday, my love," she said in the video, her voice a melody that broke my heart. "Make a wish." | remembered my wish. | had wished for a hundred more birthdays, just like this one, with her by my side. A new post appeared on her social media. It was the first one she had made in years, under her new name. It was a photo. Her hand, intertwined with Gordon's, a simple, elegant engagement ring on her finger. The caption read: "The future is bright." | stared at the picture, at the undeniable proof of her new life, her new love, her new happiness. A happiness that had no place for me. A sound, a ragged, inhuman howl of pure agony, ripped from my throat. | hurled my phone against the wall, shattering it. But | couldn't shatter the image burned into my mind. She was gone. She was never coming back. And | could not, would not, live in a world without her. If | couldn't have her, no one could.