Epilogue: Ethan’s Perspective 2
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Kate contacted me out of nowhere after years of silence. I barely recognized her Instagram handle, had to stare at it for a full minute before accepting her request. The moment I saw her profile picture–still beautiful, still the girl I’d loved-
something dark and vengeful flared inside me.
All I could think about was Olivia and how perfectly this could hurt her.
My mother had been making pointed comments about our childless marriage for
years, sighing about the Marina name dying out.
What she didn’t know was that every time I touched Olivia, it was a battle inside me. I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy it, to be present, to connect. Sex became another weapon in my arsenal–something to withhold most of the time, and when I did give in, usually drunk, I made sure it was cold, mechanical. I’d turn her away when she reached for me, then initiate it myself days later on my terms. I’d keep my eyes closed, imagining someone else, anyone else. Sometimes I’d call her by the wrong name just to see her flinch. If I showed tenderness, if I allowed myself to feel pleasure with her, it would mean admitting she was more than just my punishment. And that terrified me more than anything.
If I loved her, even physically, it would feel like betraying my hatred–the one thing that had kept me going, kept me whole.
So I brought Kate to Olivia’s birthday dinner, armed with divorce papers I’d printed from some random legal website and a fake pregnancy story we’d concocted
together.
There was no way Olivia would actually sign them.
She’d cry, she’d cause a scene, she’d beg me to reconsider–proving once and for all that she was as pathetic and desperate as I believed.
Imagining her breakdown, I actually laughed out loud in the car on the way there, Kate giving me a strange look.
“You sure this will work?” she asked, adjusting the pillow we’d stuffed under her
shirt.
“Trust me,” I said. “I know her better than anyone.”
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But I was wrong. So fucking wrong.
She signed without protest, even congratulated us.
Congratulations? Like she was happy to be rid of me?
Then she disappeared, and my carefully constructed anger suddenly had no
target.
If she didn’t care, why run away?
I was ready for midnight phone calls full of tears and pleading. Ready to cruelly reject her attempts at reconciliation. Ready to play the wounded party among our
friends.
But the person who couldn’t adjust was me.
Walking into our empty apartment that night, I was blindsided by a loneliness so intense it felt like physical pain. Her absence was everywhere–in the empty side of the closet, the single toothbrush in the bathroom, the silence where her voice
should have been.
In that moment, panic crawled up my throat.
I needed to know when she’d be home, needed to hear her voice, needed to set rules, boundaries, anything to maintain control.
The truth was screaming inside my head: Liv, I think I’ve always cared about you. But that couldn’t be right. I was supposed to hate her. Wasn’t I?
This internal battle raged for weeks as I tried desperately to reach her, each
unanswered call driving me closer to the edge.
When I finally found her in San Diego, tried to tell her how I felt, she looked through me like I was nothing.
She calmly told me she didn’t love me anymore.
What she’d owed me–what I’d demanded daily–she’d decided was paid in full.
I didn’t know how to process this. I’d built my entire identity around her debt to
- me.
Without it, who was I?
Kate wasn’t pregnant. We’d never even slept together.
That was another lie, designed to force Olivia’s hand, to make her fight for me so I
could have the catisfaction of relecting her
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When it all unraveled, when Olivia refused to come back, I realized how completely I’d destroyed any chance at happiness–hers and mine.
Standing outside her coffee shop that last day, watching her laugh with customers, I barely recognized myself.
The person I became after my father’s death wasn’t someone he would have been proud of.
I wear his badge sometimes, the one my mom kept in a shadowbox.
“To protect and serve.” He lived those words.
I’v
only served myself.
I understand now why Olivia doesn’t want me back. Why should she?
I spent years deliberately hurting her, blaming her for my pain because it was
easier than facing it.
As I feel the knife enter my side, as the pavement rushes up to meet me, I think about that summer before senior year–that pivotal moment when my father jumped into that lake.
In my fading thoughts, I’m there too.
And I’m the one who saves her.
