Chapter 4
On our tenth anniversary, Ethan reserved the private rooftop of the hotel where we had held our wedding reception.
He covered the floor in white roses. A pianist played softly in the corner.
He poured champagne and lifted his glass.
"To the woman who stayed."
I didn't smile. I just touched my glass to his.
"How did it feel?" I asked quietly, watching his face.
He paused. "How did what feel?"
"Taking those first steps on your own."
He looked down at our intertwined hands.
"Honestly? Like I was about to fall flat on my face in front of eight hundred people."
"And when you were scared," I asked, "who was the first person you looked for?"
He didn't miss a beat. "You."
His thumb brushed softly over my diamond wedding band.
"I always look for you."
A flawless, effortless lie.
Before the main course arrived, his phone lit up.
A message from Vanessa.
Ethan read it. His expression shifted into manufactured urgency.
"The clinical log isn't matching the implant data. I have to go."
He was already reaching for his cane.
"What's so urgent?" I looked at him. "It's our anniversary. Can't you finish dinner first?"
That was the first time in five years I had ever asked him to stay. The last time, too.
"I really can't," he said quickly, leaning down to kiss my forehead. "But I'll be back in an hour. Don't let him play our song without me."
He walked away. No backward glance.
I sat there. Watching him leave.
I opened the secure file my lawyer had extracted from the VELA cloud archive.
The timestamp was exactly three months ago.
In the private training suite, Ethan stood between the parallel bars.
Vanessa waited a few feet away.
He released the bars. One step. Two.
He walked straight into her arms.
Vanessa hugged his neck, laughing. "You did it," she whispered. "But you promised Claire the first dance."
Ethan looked down. His hands wrapped tightly around her waist.
"Claire kept me alive," he said quietly. "But every time I look at her, all I see is the wheelchair. With you... I just feel like a man who can stand on his own two feet."
He pulled out his phone. He played the acoustic melody of my wedding song.
Then, in that empty room, he gave her the first dance.
I locked the screen.
Twenty minutes later, Ethan texted.
Things are more complicated than I thought. I can't make it back tonight. I'm sorry.
I typed one sentence.
Got it. Go do what you need to do.
I set my phone, the divorce papers, and my wedding band on the Italian marble table. Then I picked up the suitcase I had packed hours ago and walked out.
An hour later, I lay on the medical bed inside the Hawthorne Neurological Institute. Monitors attached. Everything in place.
"Mrs. Cole," the doctor said softly. "Once deleted, the memories will not return. Have you thought this through completely?"
I thought of the dance studio I sold.
The nights on the bathroom floor.
The white roses he bought to cover up his lies.
"I have."
The anesthetic entered my vein.
I closed my eyes.
"Do it."
Goodbye, Ethan.