The rain had slowed to a faint drizzle by the time Amara finally drifted into a restless half-sleep on the couch. Her hair was still damp, her blanket clutched too tightly around her shoulders. The city outside whispered, the kind of quiet that comes only after a storm.
Then— Bang. Bang. Bang.
Her eyes flew open.
The sound came again. Three hard knocks on the door, sharp and impatient.
Her breath caught. She didn’t need to look through the peephole to know who it was. She knew that knock. She’d lived years of it — the one that demanded instead of asked.
Ethan.
She stayed still, heartbeat roaring in her ears. He shouldn’t even know she was here. And yet… he’d found her.
“Amara,” his voice came, rough, almost slurred. “Open the door.”
Her throat tightened. She could smell his cologne even through the wood, that same intoxicating scent that had once meant safety and now made her stomach twist.
“Please,” he said again, this time softer. “Just… talk to me.”
She closed her eyes. The irony was cruel — now he wanted to talk. Now that she’d walked away.
Another knock. Louder. “Amara, I swear to God—”
The doorknob rattled, then stopped.
Amara’s hand hovered near the lock, trembling. Every part of her screamed to open it, to demand answers, to hear the apology she had imagined a hundred times before. But she remembered the woman in his office. The way his hands had touched someone else like they used to touch her.
Slowly, she stepped back.
Inside the hallway, Ethan leaned his forehead against the door. His tie was gone, shirt half-untucked, eyes bloodshot with guilt and panic. The storm had drenched him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I messed up,” he said hoarsely. “It didn’t mean anything, Amara. You have to believe me.”
She stood silently on the other side, watching the shadow of his feet under the door.
He waited. Then hit the door again, softer this time. “Say something.”
Still nothing.
“Damn it!” he cursed, voice cracking for the first time. “You can’t just disappear like this!”
Amara exhaled shakily, tears burning her eyes — not because she wanted him back, but because she could finally hear the desperation that used to belong to her.
Lena’s voice came from the hallway behind him. “You should go, Ethan.”
He turned sharply, startled. Lena stood there in her robe, arms crossed, fury cold and sharp in her eyes.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” she said.
“She’s my wife,” he shot back, his tone half-pleading, half-commanding.
“Was,” Lena replied. “Now she’s just the woman who finally realized what you are.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “You think you know us?”
“I know she deserved better.” Lena took a step forward. “Leave before she hears something that’ll make her hate you even more.”
For a long moment, he just stared — chest rising and falling, eyes flicking toward the door one last time. Then he muttered something under his breath and walked away.
Amara sank to the floor the moment his footsteps faded. She pressed her palms to her face, tears spilling freely now. Not from weakness — from release.
She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was done being quiet out of love.
Hours later, when the sky began to lighten, Amara’s phone lit up again. Dozens of missed calls. One unread message.
Ethan: “If you think walking away will end this, you’re wrong. You’re still mine, Amara. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Her heart turned to ice. It wasn’t an apology. It was a threat wrapped in love.
And as she stared at the message, a strange calm settled over her. Tomorrow? No. Tomorrow, she would talk. Tomorrow, she would end it on her terms.
Outside, the first ray of dawn cut through the clouds — pale, cold, unyielding. And Amara whispered into the stillness, “Then let tomorrow come.”