Chapter 167

Chapter 167
Ethan

The morning light felt like an accusation.

I stood at the bedroom window, watching Mia cross the lawn with Leo on her hip and Lily toddling beside her. The October wind caught her hair, and even from this distance I could see her laugh as she helped Lily navigate a patch of fallen leaves. I'd catalogued that laugh along with every other detail I would soon lose the right to remember.

Ten days.

The number had become a drumbeat in my skull, louder than the headaches that now woke me at three in the morning. Ten days until the surgical window closed. Ten days until I either boarded a plane to Zurich or accepted that the thing growing in my brain would take everything from me.

I'd made my choice. Now I had to execute it.

The study door clicked shut behind me, and I moved to my desk with mechanical precision. The laptop screen glowed with the document I'd spent the past week drafting:

We both know this marriage was never built to last...

The kind of statement that would make her angry enough to walk away.

My phone buzzed: Pre-operative bloodwork scheduled for Monday. Please confirm attendance. I confirmed, then deleted the thread. Mia had always been observant—I couldn't afford to leave evidence.

The trust documents sat in a locked drawer, already filed with my attorney. Everything would transfer to her upon my death: the properties, the portfolios, full custody of the twins with no contestation clause.

She'll hate me, I thought. And that hatred will set her free.

---

I found her in the kitchen that evening, stirring something on the stove while Lily banged a wooden spoon against a pot lid. Leo sat in his high chair, methodically destroying a banana. The domesticity hit me like a physical blow.

"Hey," she said without turning. "Dinner's almost ready. I made that pasta you—" She glanced over her shoulder and stopped. "What's wrong?"

"We need to talk. The study."

The walk down the hallway felt infinite. When I closed the study door, Mia stood with her arms crossed, her posture broadcasting defensiveness. She'd sensed the distance I'd been cultivating.

"I've been thinking about us," I began, hating the steadiness of my voice. "About this arrangement."

"Arrangement." The word landed flat and cold.

"We both went into this marriage with clear expectations. A transaction. Your debts cleared, my grandmother's peace of mind secured. Those conditions have been satisfied."

"Ethan, what the hell—"

"The exhibition was a success. Your career is reestablished. The trust provides financial independence." Each sentence felt like swallowing glass. "There's no practical reason for us to continue this pretense."

"A pretense?" Her composure cracked. "Is that what New York was? When you told me you loved me?"

"I was caught up in the moment. The romantic setting—I think we both got carried away."

She laughed without humor. "Three days ago you held me like you were memorizing the shape of my body. What changed?"

Everything. Nothing. The tumor hadn't changed—it had been there all along.

"I've had time to think clearly. Without the proximity, the intimacy. It clouds judgment."

"So our entire relationship was a judgment error."

"A cooling-off period. Time apart to reassess what we actually want."

"I know what I feel." Her voice dropped to something quiet and dangerous. "The question is whether you have the courage to admit what you feel."

She was too close to the truth. I could feel my resolve crumbling.

"Staying together will only bring more pain." I forced the words out. "We keep hurting each other. Wouldn't it be better to stop before the children understand what a disaster their parents' marriage is?"

"Don't you dare use Leo and Lily as an excuse for your cowardice."

"It's not cowardice. It's clarity."

"It's bullshit." She stepped toward me. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love me. Tell me everything between us was just pretense."

I looked. Saw the woman who had challenged me, broken me, rebuilt me. Saw everything I was losing.

"I can't give you what you deserve," I said, and this was true. "You were right to want a divorce. I should have signed the papers months ago."

Something shuttered in her expression. "Fine. If that's what you want."

She walked out without looking back.

---

The collapse came three hours later.

I'd made it back to the study, staring at the wall while my brain replayed every word. I'd heard Rosa put the twins to bed, heard Mia's car pulling away.

The headache started as a whisper. I swallowed three pills instead of two.

It wasn't enough.

The pain bloomed through my skull until my vision fragmented. I tried to stand and found my legs wouldn't cooperate. The room tilted. My shoulder hit the carpet.

The last thing I saw was the wedding photo on my desk—Mia in white, looking at me with hope. Hope I'd finally succeeded in killing.

I'm sorry.

Then everything went black.

---

I woke to fluorescent lights and the steady beep of monitors.

Marcus stood at the foot of my bed, still in his Princeton sweatshirt, his face ashen. The hospital room came into focus slowly—IV in my arm, wires tracking my heartbeat, the antiseptic smell that would forever remind me of Eleanor's final days.

"Rosa found you on the floor," he said. "Doctors confirmed the tumor's grown. They're prepping the Zurich team now—you fly out in forty-eight hours, or you don't fly out at all."

I tried to sit up. Pain lanced through my skull. "Mia—"

"Hasn't called. Rosa said she left after you two fought." His jaw tightened. "You did it, didn't you? Pushed her away."

I said nothing. The silence was answer enough.

"Jesus Christ, Ethan." He dragged a hand over his face. "You actually went through with it."

"It's done." My voice came out flat, hollow. "She thinks the marriage was a transaction. That I never loved her. She won't come looking for answers."

"And you think that's a gift?"

"I think it's the only thing I have left to give her."

Marcus stared at me for a long moment. I expected another argument—the same lecture about choices and cowardice he'd delivered before. But something in his expression shifted. Resignation, perhaps. Or exhaustion.

"The medical team needs your final authorization," he said quietly. "Power of attorney, surgical consent, next of kin designation. They need a name, Ethan. Someone to call if—"

"You." The word came out before I could think. "Put your name down."

"Not Mia?"

"If I don't wake up, she gets a call from a lawyer. Clean. Final. She never has to know I died on a table in Switzerland while she thought I was just another asshole who broke her heart."

Marcus closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was something raw there—grief, maybe, or the particular pain of watching a friend self-destruct.

"I'll sign the forms," he said. "But I want you to know—this isn't protecting her. This is punishing yourself. And the worst part is, you're too stubborn to see the difference."

He left without saying goodbye.