That night, I received a message from Amanda.
Inside were chat logs and voice messages—so heavily edited that they barely made sense.
As I skimmed through the disjointed conversations, I couldn't understand what she was trying to prove.
Was this her way of claiming she hadn't cheated?
A quiet laugh escaped me.
A cover-up this clumsy wouldn't fool a child, let alone me.
Then, more messages followed.
Photos.
Snapshots of us.
Images spanning across time—
Our vacations, our wedding, even our university days.
For a moment, I hesitated.
So we really did love each other once.
I could still picture her, curled up in my arms like a child,
pouting for attention,
stubbornly insisting on cooking for my birthday—
only to serve a table full of colorful, inedible dishes.
Those moments had been precious.
But they were gone.
Time had stripped them of their warmth.
I exhaled slowly, then deleted every last photo.
There was no point in holding on.
Memories meant nothing now.
They were just ghosts of a past that no longer existed.
---
When the lawyer sent over the divorce papers, I called her.
"The papers are ready. I'll bring them to your office."
Silence.
A long, heavy silence—
then the line went dead.
I glanced at the documents.
Per my request, I had walked away with nothing.
No settlements. No assets.
Nothing but the closure I needed.
I picked up the pen.
As I signed my name, memories surfaced against my will.
Our first meeting.
Our first kiss.
The day I gave up my future for her,
and she called me an idiot.
The moment I stood by her mother's hospital bed and promised,
"I'll love her for a lifetime."
The final stroke of my signature was met with the soft drop of a single tear—
smudging the ink beneath it.
The beautiful memories, I would lock away.
The painful ones, I would let go.
But I wouldn't look back.
And I couldn't look back.
"It's over."
I wiped the tear from the corner of my eye,
picked up the divorce papers,
and walked out the door.
---
When I arrived at her office, no one stopped me.
It was as if she had given prior instructions.
I walked through the halls uninterrupted,
pushed open the door,
and found her waiting.
Amanda sat behind her desk.
In just three days, she looked like a different person—
hollow, exhausted.
Her face was pale, her eyes rimmed with red.
She forced a smile when she saw me—
a fragile, broken thing.
"You're here."
I nodded, stepping forward to place the papers on her desk.
"Look them over. If everything's fine, sign."
She didn't even glance at them.
Instead, she looked at me—
really looked at me.
"Do we really have to go through with this?"
"You know I love you, don't you?"
I didn't answer.
There was nothing left to say.
Maybe she had loved me once.
But love, when twisted,
becomes something else entirely.
"Sign it," I said.