---- Chapter 7 | woke up in the hospital again. The same white ceiling, the same antiseptic smell. But this time, something inside me was different. The grief was gone, replaced by an empty, echoing silence. The last shred of hope | might have been clinging to had been surgically removed. When Liam arrived, full of his usual "Oh, Ava, you're working too hard" routine, | just stared at him. | let him hold my hand, his touch feeling alien and repulsive. | let him talk about the wedding, about our future, and | just nodded along. The performance was effortless now. | felt nothing. The first thing | did when | got out was call the wedding planner again. "I'm sorry for the confusion," | said, my voice sweet and steady. "l was just feeling overwhelmed. The wedding is back on." Then, | made another call. This one was to the caretaker of the cemetery where my parents were buried. "I need to arrange for a transfer," | told him. "I'm moving them." "Moving them, Ms. Ross? But they've been here for twenty years." "| know," | said. "I'm moving them to a private plot. A new location." | was cutting my very roots out of the ground that ---- tied me to Liam and his world. My parents would not rest in a place tainted by the Kane family's legacy. Liam was thrilled that the wedding was back on track. He called me every night, his voice full of excitement. "| was thinking, for our vows, we should write them ourselves," he said one night over FaceTime. He was in his study at our house, the one | refused to return to. "That sounds lovely, Liam," | said, my face a perfect mask of bridal excitement. | was sitting at my small dining table, an open laptop just out of the camera's view. On the screen was my signed and approved immigration visa for France. "| just can't wait to see you walking down that aisle, Ava," he said, his eyes shining. "To finally call you my wife. It's all I've ever wanted." "Me too, Liam," | lied, clicking 'confirm' on the purchase of a one-way ticket to Paris. "Me too." He blew me a kiss through the screen. | smiled and blew one back. The moment the call ended, my smile vanished. | picked up my pen and signed the last of the legal documents my lawyer had sent over. The dissolution of our company. The sale of my shares. The power of attorney that would allow my lawyer to handle the fallout after | was gone. | was systematically erasing myself from his life. He thought ---- he was building a future with me, but | was meticulously deconstructing our past, brick by brick, until nothing remained but an empty lot where our life used to be. He was planning a wedding. | was planning an escape. And my design was far more intricate than his.