Chapter 3

I clenched my jaw, swallowing the biting, acidic lump forming in my throat. I forced myself to look up at him.

He was facing away from me, casually taking a sip of water as if the world wasn't collapsing around us.

"She leaked months of our squad's playbook—every single routine we ran into the ground—to our biggest rivals. She ruined the Nationals for all of us."

My voice trembled, betraying the sob I was desperately trying to choke down. "As the team captain, I benched her and suspended her activities. It’s standard protocol. How does that make me the bad guy?"

Kane turned around, an irritated crease deepening between his brows.

"Kane, you've always hated people who are stupid, reckless, and refuse to follow the rules," I pressed on.

"So why? Why is Daisy the golden exception? You actually humiliated me in front of everyone today to defend her. You pinned her mess on me just to what, put me in my place?"

"You are being so totally irrational right now." He slammed his glass down on the granite counter with a sharp clack, his face tight with annoyance.

"I just didn’t like seeing the whole lot of you ganging up on a helpless little girl over some petty drama. What’s the problem with that?"

"Did you even think about me?!"

Two years of swallowed pride and walking on eggshells violently shattered. My eyes burned, hot and red.

"I'm your girlfriend! When you tore me apart in front of the whole squad to play her white knight, did you pause for even a second to think about how that made me feel?"

Kane didn't even flinch. He just tilted his chin up, letting out a hollow, dismissive laugh.

"God, Wynne, your imagination is exhausting. You’re turning a completely trivial incident into this massive, paranoid jealousy trip. You’re acting like a bitter, hysterical housewife. It's incredibly unappealing."

Jealousy? Trivial?

I stared at him, my mind spinning at the sheer audacity.

"Do you have any idea what Nationals meant to me?" I tilted my head back, blinking hard to keep the tears from spilling over.

"Placing in that tournament meant prize money and a scholarship bump. That was my tuition for the spring semester. More importantly, it was the only way I could afford my grandmother’s physical therapy next month."

"She didn't just ruin a game, Kane. She didn't just tarnish some 'reputation' you think I care about. She literally cut the lifeline to my entire future. I penalized her by the book, and she deserved worse!"

I had thought—maybe naively—that ripping open my own wounds might finally show him the gravity of it. That if he saw the blood, he'd realize this wasn't some cliché college catfight.

I was violently wrong.

His expression didn't soften; the cruel smirk on his lips only hardened. "Here we go again. Playing the martyr, fishing for pity. Honestly, Wynne, I'm so sick of this 'starving artist, broken home' sob story. If you don't get the cash, what? The world stops spinning?"

Right then, something snapped inside me. The desperate, pathetic voice in my head that had spent two years manufacturing excuses for him just... died.

I finally saw the truth crystal clear.

My biggest mistake over the last two years wasn't failing to meet his impossibly high standards.

It was draining every drop of my soul to love a monster—a man so perched in his ivory tower that the concept of everyday human suffering was completely alien to him.

His world was built entirely on control and sterility. There was no room for empathy. There was no room for love. And there certainly wasn't room for me.

I grabbed the arms of the sofa and pushed myself to my feet.

Between the crushing emotional weight and having skipped dinner entirely, a wave of vertigo hit me like a freight train.

My vision tunneled into blackness, and my knees buckled, sending me stumbling forward.

Kane was standing right there. Instinctively, his right arm twitched, stepping half a pace forward to catch me.

But a second before his fingertips grazed my sweater, his eyes locked onto my face—the smeared makeup, the tear-streaked skin, the messy, exhausted tangle of my hair.

He yanked his arm back as if I were electric. He took a distinct, deliberate step away, his features twisting with subtle disgust.

I caught the edge of the coffee table with a trembling hand, steadying myself.

Looking at his visceral recoil, a hollow, tragic laugh ripped from my chest.

"Think whatever you want," I breathed, pulling myself fully upright. I locked eyes with him, my voice carrying a quiet, terrifying clarity. "Kane, we're done."

His pupils dilated. For a fraction of a second, genuine shock cracked his perfectly composed mask.

But it didn't even last three seconds. The mask snapped back, twisted into something ugly and venomous.

"Are you insane, Wynne? You're throwing a tantrum and ending this over some petty high school bullshit?"

"Fine. Play it that way. But since you're the one pulling the trigger, don't you dare come crawling back to me crying when reality hits."

"I won't regret a damn thing," I said, my voice completely emptied out. "I'll pack my things and be out of here tonight. After that, we don't exist to each other."

The suffocating silence of the living room was suddenly shattered by a ringtone.

It was coming from his suit jacket, draped over the entryway console. Kane walked over and pulled his phone out.

The moment he saw the screen, the rage in his eyes shifted, stalling out into something calculating.

From where I stood, I caught a glimpse of the caller ID. Daisy.

Kane arched an eyebrow. He didn't just answer it; he deliberately tapped the speaker button. Instantly, Daisy’s sickly-sweet, fragile voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room:

"Kane... I'm so sorry to bother you so late. I was just night-jogging in the park trying to clear my head, and I tripped. My leg is bleeding pretty bad. I'm just sitting on a bench in the dark and I'm so scared... Could you please come stay with me?"

Kane’s eyes flicked toward me, taking in my stony expression, before his voice dropped into an infuriatingly gentle register. "Don't move. Drop a pin. I'm on my way."

He hung up, gripping the phone, and pivoted back to me.

"Did you hear that? That’s what an apology looks like when someone messes up," he said, lifting his chin.

"Wynne, I normally don't do second chances. But I'm in a generous mood today. Here's your final out: swallow your pride right now, come with me, and apologize to Daisy. Lift that ridiculous suspension, and I'll pretend your little psychotic meltdown tonight never happened."

Even now. Even at the bitter end, he genuinely believed this was all a bluff, some calculated game of hard-to-get.

He still wanted to break my last shred of a spine, forcing me to kneel before the very girl who had just set my life on fire.

"Keep your condescending charity to yourself," I cut him off, not missing a beat. "I handled my team exactly how I was supposed to. I have nothing to apologize for."

I pointed a rigid finger toward the front door. "Since you're so deeply concerned about her sitting in the dark all by her lonesome, you can get the hell out and go to her."

"You—!"

His face went dangerously pale. His Adam’s apple bobbed sharply as he jabbed a finger at me.

"You are going to regret everything you just said!"

SLAM.

The heavy mahogany door shuddered against its frame.

I turned away, walking into the massive walk-in closet, and dragged out the battered, cheap suitcase I had brought with me freshman year. I started packing.

On the vanity sat the "offerings" Kane had bestowed upon me over the last two years. The Tiffany necklace. The Cartier Love bracelet.

A pristine, shrink-wrapped set of La Mer. A couple of limited-edition Hermès bags.

Every single item cost more than my life was worth; every single item had always felt like a velvet handcuff.

For two years, the glaring class divide had made me shrink myself in this relationship.

I had treated these luxuries like museum artifacts, terrified to scratch them, while I continued slathering on my half-empty drugstore lotion.

Tonight, I calmly opened the bottom drawers. I grabbed my faded, washed-out t-shirts, my worn denim, and a stack of university textbooks, shoving them into the suitcase.

When the first grey streaks of dawn finally washed over the plush rug, I was already standing at the apartment door, my light, beat-up suitcase in hand.