Ellie POV

The drive to the airport felt like a funeral procession for a girl who hadn’t even died yet.

I sat in the back seat, watching the Arizona landscape blur into violent streaks of red and ochre. Every mile felt like a physical severance, a blade slicing through the tether that held me to this place. I told myself this was necessary. I told myself I had to leave. Staying meant suffocating under the crushing weight of his indifference.

I looked down at my lap.

The sketchbook.

I hadn't packed it. I had brought it with me for one reason only.

I pressed the button to roll down the window. The wind roared into the cabin, hot and dry, carrying the scent of dust and sage. I ripped the first page out. The sound of the heavy paper tearing was sharp, visceral, satisfying. I let go. The wind snatched the drawing of his eyes and whipped it away into the unforgiving desert.

I tore out another. His hands.

Then another. His smile.

I felt a stinging in my chest, a hollow ache that spread to my fingertips. But as the pages flew out, disappearing into the dust, I felt lighter. It was a violent unburdening. I wasn't just throwing away paper. I was purging ten years of delusion.

By the time the car pulled up to the terminal, the book was empty. Just a hollow binding.

I grabbed my suitcase and walked toward the entrance.

Then I froze.

Marcus.

He hadn't ridden with me. Yet there he was, standing near the check-in counter.

My heart leaped—a stupid, traitorous reflex. *Did he come to say goodbye? Did he regret sending me away?*

Then I saw the flash of blonde hair.

Chloe.

She was leaning into him, her hand resting possessively against his chest. She whispered something, laughing, and looked up at him with a teasing glint in her eyes. Marcus wasn't pushing her away. He was looking down at her, listening, his face relaxed in a way it never was with me anymore.

They looked like a couple. A real, adult couple.

I was just the child being shipped off to boarding school.

Chloe saw me first. Her smile widened, but it didn't reach her eyes. It was sharp. Predatory.

"Ellie!" she called out, waving. She walked over, dragging Marcus with her. "Safe travels, sweetie. Florence is going to be so good for you. You need to broaden your horizons."

Her words were dripping with subtext. *Get out. He's mine.*

I looked at Marcus.

He didn't even look at me. He was checking his watch.

"The driver will handle your luggage," he said, addressing the air somewhere past my ear. "Check in. Don't miss your flight."

He wouldn't even meet my eyes. He was erasing me before I had even left the ground.

I gripped the handle of my suitcase until my knuckles turned white.

"Goodbye, Marcus," I whispered.

He didn't answer. He turned back to Chloe, who was whispering something in his ear.

I turned around and walked toward security. I didn't look back. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other.

*This is it,* I told myself. *He is blind. And I am done.*

I pulled out my phone and opened my gallery. Hundreds of photos. Marcus at Christmas. Marcus teaching me to drive. Marcus asleep on the couch.

I hit Select All.

I hit Delete.

The trash can icon emptied.

Zero items.

I boarded the plane, sank into my window seat, and watched Arizona shrink until it was nothing but a topographic map below me. I had four years. Four years to become someone who didn't need him. Four years to ensure that when I returned, I wouldn't be the girl he sent away.

Ellie POV

Florence was beautiful, an intricate masterpiece of stone and light, and I hated it.

The cobblestones were unforgiving under my feet. The air smelled of roasted coffee and damp earth, a stark contrast to the dry, scorching heat of home. But it was the silence that killed me.

Not the noise of the city—that was a deafening symphony of Vespas and tourists—but the silence from my phone.

I sat in a café, staring at a cup of espresso that had gone cold. It tasted vile, like stale regret and battery acid.

"Is this seat taken?"

I looked up. It was a girl from my art history class, her scarf perfectly knotted in that effortless Italian way.

"No," I said.

She sat down with a rustle of coats. "You're the American girl, right? The one with the rich guardian? Marcus Thorne?"

My stomach twisted into a tight knot. "Yes."

"He's so dreamy," she sighed, scrolling through her phone as if pulling up a receipt. "I saw him in a magazine once. Is he as intense in person?"

"He's... strict," I said, forcing my gaze toward the window.

I remembered the promise he had made to my parents. *I will always take care of her.* It felt like a joke now. A cruel punchline delivered to an empty room.

Later that night, in my small, drafty apartment, I tried to call him. It was a moment of weakness, born of exhaustion and the relentless rain. I just wanted to hear a familiar voice.

It rang once. Twice.

Then it went to voicemail. He hadn't just missed it; he had declined the call.

A minute later, an email pinged on my laptop.

*Subject: Focus.*

*Ellie, stop calling. You are there to study, not to chat. I am buried with the merger. Do not disturb me unless it is a genuine emergency. Focus on your work. You are wasting time.*

He didn't ask how I was. He didn't ask if I was safe. He just scolded me like a disobedient dog that had forgotten its place.

I closed the laptop with a sharp snap.

It started to rain harder outside. I walked to the window and pressed my hand against the cold glass. I felt small. Insignificant.

Against my better judgment, I opened social media. It was a toxic habit I couldn't break.

And there it was.

A post from Chloe. A photo of a diamond ring on her finger, catching the light in a blinding flare.

*Caption: Forever starts today. #Engaged #MrsThorne*

The world stopped.

I didn't cry. That was the strangest part. I expected to shatter, but instead, I felt a cold numbness spreading from my chest to my limbs, like anesthesia taking hold. My hands trembled slightly, but my eyes were dry.

He was engaged. He was building a life that had absolutely no space for me.

I looked at the screen. The smile on his face in the background of the photo was polite, reserved. But he was there. He had chosen her.

I took a deep breath. The air in my lungs felt thin, insufficient.

I went to my settings.

*Delete Account.*

*Are you sure?*

*Yes.*

The screen went black.

I stood in the middle of my apartment, the rain drumming a relentless rhythm against the roof. I was alone in a foreign country. I had no family. My guardian had just engaged the woman who hated me.

I was an orphan again.

But this time, I wouldn't look for a savior.

"Fine," I whispered to the empty room, my voice steady. "Be happy, Marcus. Be blind."

I went to my desk and pulled out a fresh canvas. I picked up a brush. My hand was rock steady now.

I had four years. I had a deadline.

When I returned to Arizona, I wouldn't be Ellie the ward. I wouldn't be Ellie the burden.

I would be a stranger. And strangers couldn't be hurt.

Ellie POV

My apartment resembled a war zone, a chaotic landscape of cardboard boxes.

I was purging.

Every gift Marcus had ever given me was going. The silk scarf from Hermès. The pearl earrings for my sixteenth birthday. The leather-bound journal.

I threw them all into a box addressed to the Thorne Estate in Arizona. I didn't want them. They were heavy with memories I couldn't afford to carry anymore.

"Hey, Ellie?"

My roommate, a bubbly Italian girl named Sofia, hovered in the doorframe. "Are you okay? You've been packing for hours."

"I'm fine," I said, sealing the box shut with aggressive rips of the dispenser. "Just cleaning house."

"Did you hear?" she asked, leaning further into the room. "Someone said Marcus Thorne is expanding his business to Europe. Chloe gave an interview saying they might honeymoon in Paris."

"Good for them," I said. My voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

"He really took care of you, didn't he?" Sofia said, her tone dangerously innocent. "Paying for all this."

"He was paying for his conscience," I snapped.

She flinched at my tone. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," I sighed, rubbing my temples. "I'm just... tired."

I turned back to my desk. There was one photo left. It was hidden under my textbooks. Me and Marcus, three years ago, watching the sunset in the desert. The light was golden, and he was looking at me with something that resembled pride.

I picked it up.

It hurt. It physically hurt, like a knife twisting in my gut.

I remembered that day. He had told me I was smart. He had told me I had a good eye for beauty.

Lies. All of it.

If he thought I was beautiful, he wouldn't have shipped me off like expired goods.

I took the photo in both hands and ripped it down the middle. I tore it again and again until his face was just shreds of paper in my trash can.

A knock at the door shattered the silence. It was a courier.

"Package for Ms. Ellie."

I signed for it. It was a box from Arizona. From him.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Had he sent a letter? An apology?

I opened it with trembling fingers.

Inside, wrapped carelessly in old newspaper, was my "Desert Flower" sculpture. It was a clumsy clay piece I had made when I was twelve. It was the only thing I had left of my childhood artistic dreams. I had left it on the mantle in the library.

He had sent it back.

He hadn't even used bubble wrap. One of the petals was chipped.

He was scrubbing me out of his house. He didn't want a single trace of me left in his sanctuary.

I looked at the chipped clay. It looked pathetic. Just like me.

He didn't know me. He thought this was just some trinket. He didn't know that I made this the day after my parents' funeral because I needed to create something that wouldn't die.

"You know nothing, Marcus," I whispered to the empty room.

I threw the newspaper on the floor.

My phone buzzed on the desk. An email from his assistant.

Mr. Thorne suggests you take business electives. He expects you to be useful to the company when you return.

Useful.

He wanted a secretary. A subordinate.

I laughed. It was a dry, harsh sound.

"No," I said.

I walked to the calendar on the wall. I circled the date of my graduation with bold, angry strokes.

I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. The pain grounded me.

I wasn't going back to be his assistant. I wasn't going back to be his ward.

I was going back to settle the debt. I would pay him back every cent he spent on me. And then I would walk away forever.

I grabbed the chipped sculpture and placed it deliberately on my desk. It wasn't a keepsake anymore.

It was a reminder.