Chapter 3The Ten-Year Red Thread Burns to Ashes

I fell into a restless sleep. When I woke up, I checked my phone.

Besides a string of missed calls from Leo and a comforting message from Ava’s mom, there was one other notification that stood out.

A single, cold reply from her.

[Get lost.]

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. The connection I had clung to so desperately was nothing more than a joke to her.

Suddenly, my gaze fell upon my wrist.

A thin red thread was tied around it, a gift from Ava three years ago.

The color had long since faded, but I could never bring myself to take it off.

Before our engagement, she had gone to a temple on a mountain. She had climbed ten thousand steps to get this one precious thread from a master artisan.

She’d been in a car accident on the way back, but she had protected the thread, holding it tight against her chest.

The first thing she did when she woke up in the hospital was tie it around my wrist.

“Liam,” she had said, her voice full of earnest love, “I found our destiny. We’ll be together forever.”

Her clear, serious voice still echoed in my ears, but everything was different now.

My eyes burned. I yanked the red thread from my wrist, threw it in the toilet, and flushed. In seconds, it was gone.

Ava, from this moment on, we walk different paths.

After a long, hard cry, a strange clarity settled over me.

I resigned from the orchestra. The paperwork would take a week. I booked a flight to leave the city for good, one week from today.

That day happened to be the tenth anniversary of the day Ava and I started dating.

Fitting. Where it began, it would also end.

I shut myself away for seven days. Other than leaving to handle my resignation, I spoke to no one.

My phone was off. On the day I was set to leave, Leo showed up at my door with Ava in tow.

He rushed in and hugged me, then tried to drag me to the hospital. I knew what he was afraid of.

I pulled my arm away, my expression blank. “I’m fine, thanks,” I said, my voice polite but distant.

I didn’t know how to face him. Should I hate him? Should I wish him well?

I knew I couldn’t do either, so my instinct was to push him away.

He didn’t seem to mind my sudden coldness, assuming I was just in a bad mood.

Leo let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Can you please answer your phone from now on? Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

“We came to get you. It’s your birthday, did you forget? We’re throwing you a party tonight, introduce you to some new people.”

“And you can’t say no. No is not an option!”

His expression was stern, his tone leaving no room for argument. He was always so cheerful and warm-hearted. It was easy to see why people liked him.

Easy to see why Ava would fall in love with him.

I looked past him to the woman standing in the doorway. Her gaze was frigid, her eyes like frozen pools, as if she were looking at a stranger.

I don’t know if it was my inability to refuse his concern, or some selfish part of me that wanted to see her one last time.

It was still early. I let them in.

This apartment was supposed to be our marital home. After she disappeared, I had decorated it exactly to her tastes. The furniture, the layout—everything was just as she would have wanted it.

Leo’s eyes widened. “Wow, Liam, your taste is… something else. Why is everything so dark? It’s kind of depressing.”

“It’s all black and dark gray. Not a single pop of color.”

Because there was no color left in my world.

“My ex-girlfriend liked it this way,” I said quietly. “So I decorated it for her.”