---- Chapter 25 Jeremy Glass POV: The scattered beads on the floor were a monument to my failure. Every prayer, every painful step, every drop of blood had been for nothing. She hadn' t just stopped loving me; she had stopped believing me. And why should she? My entire life with her had been built on a foundation of lies. | left the room, a ghost retreating into the shadows. From then on, that' s what | became. A spectator to her life. | would stand at the end of the hospital corridor for hours, watching through the small window in her door as Elliot cared for her. | watched him feed her, read to her, hold her hand. | watched her smile at him, a real, genuine smile that reached her eyes. A smile she had never given me. The jealousy was a physical entity, a venomous serpent coiling in my gut, eating me alive from the inside out. That should be me. That was my right. My place. A place | had forfeited. One afternoon, as | was standing at my post, she looked up, her gaze meeting mine through the glass. There was no anger, no hatred. There was nothing. Just a flicker of recognition before she turned away, back to the man who deserved her. ---- That was the moment | finally understood the monk' s words. You must let her go. Loving her meant accepting that the best thing for her was a life that didn't include me. My father and Joselin were sentenced to life in prison. The Glass empire was in ruins, its assets seized, its reputation destroyed. | had nothing left. | went to see them one last time. Joselin was a hollowed-out shell, her eyes empty, her mind gone. My father was a shrunken, bitter old man, stripped of his power. "You did this," he spat at me through the visitor' s glass. "No," | said, my voice quiet. "We did this. Together." | walked away, the final ties to my old life severed. There was nothing left for me here. The fire that took me was an accident. A faulty wire in a cheap motel room. As the smoke filled my lungs and the flames licked at the door, | wasn' t scared. | thought of Haylie. | pictured her laughing, her face tilted up to the sun, her hand held securely in Elliot' s. | closed my eyes. And for the first time in a very long time, | felt at peace. ---- Chapter 26 Haylie Camacho POV: The wedding was perfect. It wasn' t a grand, ostentatious affair like my first one. It was small, intimate, held in the garden of the Meyers estate, surrounded by white roses and our closest friends and family. | stood beside Elliot, his hand warm and steady in mine, and | said my vows with a heart full of a quiet, certain joy | had never known before. This wasn't the frantic, desperate love | had felt for Jeremy. This was calm. This was safe. This was real. As we were cutting the cake, one of Elliot's assistants pulled him aside, whispering something in his ear. Elliot' s smile faltered, his brow furrowing with concern. "What is it?" | asked, touching his arm. He hesitated, then took my hand. "Haylie... there was a fire. At a motel downtown." He took a deep breath. "It was Jeremy. He' s.. he' s gone." The news settled over me, not with a crash, but with a quiet, somber stillness. | thought | would feel something-sadness, anger, maybe even a twisted sense of satisfaction. But | felt none of those things. | just felt... a quiet finality. A chapter, ---- closed at last. "Are you okay?" Elliot asked, his eyes searching mine. "We can postpone the reception if you need to..." | shook my head, squeezing his hand. | looked up at him, at my kind, steady, wonderful husband, and | smiled. "No," | said. "I'm okay." | looked out at the sun-drenched garden, at the smiling faces of our guests, at the beautiful life that was stretching out before me. The ghosts of the past were finally laid to rest, turned to ash and scattered on the wind. It was over. | was free. "| think," | said, my voice soft, "it' s for the best." Three years later, the smell of burnt toast filled our sunny kitchen. "Daddy, you ruined breakfast again!" a small voice squealed with delight. Our daughter, Lily, a perfect mix of my dark hair and Elliot' s blue eyes, was perched on a stool, giggling as Elliot frantically waved a dish towel at the smoking toaster. "It's not ruined," he declared, scraping the blackened bits into the sink. "It's just... Cajun style." | laughed, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind and resting my chin on his shoulder. "It's okay, honey. |' Il ---- make pancakes." He turned in my arms, his hands cupping my face. "What would | do without you?" he murmured, his forehead resting against mine. "Starve, probably," | teased, kissing him softly. Later that evening, after we had tucked a sleepy Lily into bed, Elliot and | sat on the veranda, a comfortable silence settling between us. The life we had built was so simple, so ordinary, and so profoundly, deeply happy. "| love you, Haylie Meyers," he said, his voice quiet in the twilight. "| love you too," | answered, my heart full. | had been through the fire, and | had not just survived. | had been reborn.