No small talk. I got straight to it.

"Max faking his illness. How much did you know?"

The rag slipped out of William's hand and hit the floor.

He bent to pick it up, eyes dodging mine.

"…Who told you?"

I didn't answer. Just looked at him.

He wouldn't say more, but his mouth moved faster than his brain, and a half-formed sentence tumbled out.

"Max, he didn't come up with the idea himself. That woman, Katherine…"

His phone rang before he could finish.

Max's name lit up the screen.

William answered, and something shifted in his face. He glanced at me, then hung up in a hurry.

"Go home, Gabriella. Stay out of this one."

Not his own idea.

If someone else put him up to it, why didn't he just tell me?

Did I not even deserve that much honesty?

Day six. One day left before the deadline.

Max texted: Tonight, 7. The usual place. Bring your answer.

The usual place was a small neighborhood restaurant we used to go to.

He was already seated when I arrived.

Two dishes sat on the table. One of them was hot-and-sour fish soup, my old favorite.

I didn't sit. I stood at the edge of the table, staring at the bowl. Steam still curled off the surface.

"You remembered I liked this."

"Sit down. Eat first, talk later."

His voice was flat, unreadable.

It was always this game. A knife in one hand, sugar in the other, until I couldn't tell whether he had a heart or a hole where one should be.

I sat down.

I picked up my chopsticks and took a bite of the fish. The second that sour, spicy heat hit the back of my tongue, my stomach seized.

Days of instant noodles and bread rolls had left it too wrecked to handle anything real.

I set the chopsticks down. My voice was quiet but steady.

"I'm not signing."

Max's chopsticks froze midair.

"No divorce. And she doesn't get to set foot in our home."

"You faked an illness and lied to me for three months. You drained every cent I had."

"What you owe me can't be settled with a piece of paper and five hundred thousand dollars."

His expression darkened, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper.

"You think dragging this out helps you? Word's already out about you singing at that club. Your students' parents could find out any day. Have you thought about what happens then?"

That one landed right where it would hurt the most.

Those kids, five and six years old, little hands pressing keys, stumbling through scales. They were the only light still on in the wreckage of my life.

I was silent for a few seconds.

The restaurant door swung open.

Katherine walked in with two of Max's friends, her surprise pitched perfectly.

"Oh, Max! You're here? We were just passing by and saw your car."

Her gaze landed on me, and she switched instantly to unease and retreat.

She turned to Max, eyes rimming red, her voice so thin it turned my stomach.

"Didn't you say you were working late tonight? I even brought you a late-night snack at the office…"

The two friends looked from Max to me and back again.

Max went still for a beat.

He looked at me. Then at Katherine.

He stood, walked over to her, and draped his jacket over her shoulders.

"It's cold out. Head home."

He shielded her in front of everyone, then turned back to me.

"I've said everything I need to say. Let me know when you've made up your mind."

Then he guided Katherine out.

Through the gap before the door closed, I heard her voice, small and careful.

"Max, I really didn't come on purpose. Please don't be mad…"

His answer was two words.

"It's fine."

The restaurant was empty now. Just me, and a bowl of hot-and-sour fish soup that had gone cold.

Nothing shattered. But everything was broken.

On the morning of the seventh day, I went to the community center for my classes as usual.

I pushed open the door to the piano room. The director was already inside, waiting.

"Ms. Henson, we received calls from three parents yesterday. They said you've been working at a nightclub. This is a children's training center. The parents have concerns. We'd like you to take some time off."

My fingers tightened around the edge of my lesson planner.

I nodded.

I pulled my teaching materials from under the piano bench and took the box of candy the kids had given me last week from the drawer.

On my way out, a parent walking their child to class tugged the kid's hand and steered them around me.

I knew where the complaints had come from.

But too many hands had passed the knife. I couldn't tell them apart anymore, and I'd stopped trying.

My last source of steady income was gone.

I went to three places looking for work.

The grocery store wasn't hiring cashiers.

A diner let me do a trial shift in the back kitchen. Five hours of washing dishes. By the end, my hands were so waterlogged the fingerprints had smoothed away.

A cleaning agency said they could train me, but I'd need to put down a three-hundred-dollar deposit first.

My entire bank account held three hundred and forty-seven dollars.

When I walked out of the diner, it was raining.

No umbrella. I stood under the awning and waited.

A black sedan pulled up at the curb, the window rolled halfway down.

Max looked at my swollen, bleach-white hands and the wet hair plastered to my forehead. A crease dug between his brows.

"Get in."

I didn't move.

He got out and held the umbrella over my head.

"Gabriella, why put yourself through this? Just sign the papers, take the money, and walk away. You don't have to live like this."

He wasn't pained by my suffering. He just found the sight of it inconvenient.

I stepped out from under his umbrella and walked into the rain.

"Max, you faked an illness for three months so I'd earn money for you."

"I sold every last piece of my family's heirlooms, and you gave them to another woman."

"And now you're telling me I don't have to live like this?"

Rain ran down my lashes and fell. I couldn't tell if it was rain or something else.

But whatever was in my voice made him step back.

"You wrote the rules. I never agreed to them. If you want this to end, fine. But I set the terms."

He reached for me, trying to pull me back.

I turned and sidestepped him.

His hand hung in the air for two seconds, then slowly dropped.

That night, Jane Walker called.

"Gabriella, check the internet right now. Someone posted a video of you singing at the nightclub."

I opened the link.

Hidden camera footage: award-winning piano teacher reduced to singing at a nightclub. The truth behind it will shock you.

The comments section had exploded.

People called me shameless. People mocked the concert pianist turned bar hostess. Someone dug up my old award photos and spliced them next to screenshots from the video in a side-by-side comparison.

I read every single comment, then turned off my phone.

My body was shaking. My face showed nothing.

Hilary sent a message: "Gabriella, the video didn't come from anyone at our place. I'm looking into it. Don't come in to work for now. Lie low until this dies down."

My last paycheck, gone.

The next morning, Katherine sent a message.

"Hey, sweetie. The things people are saying online are awful. I already asked Max to handle it. Don't take it to heart. Do you want to come stay at the house? I set up the guest room for you."

The house.

She meant my house.

The guest room.

I was being invited to sleep in the guest room of my own home.

I set the phone down, walked into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror.

I'd lost nearly twenty pounds. The person staring back was almost unrecognizable.

Max called. For once, there was something close to urgency in his voice.

"I had the video taken down. Are you okay?"

"Max, did you have someone post it?"

Three seconds of silence on the other end.

I waited through every one of them.

"Whether it was you or not, thanks for taking it down."

I hung up.

Those three seconds were all the answer I needed.

He probably didn't post it. But he didn't stop it either.

That night I opened my phone's photo gallery and scrolled from the very first picture to the very last.

Every photo that had anything to do with Max Joyce.

Selfies together. Him sneaking a shot of my profile while I played piano. Me capturing him asleep. The two of us clinking glasses in some hole-in-the-wall diner.

Over two hundred photos.

Select all. Delete.

They vanished one by one.

When the phone was clean, the screen looked like nothing had ever been there at all.

I opened my messages and sent Max one last text.

Five words.

"I agree to the divorce."

Send.

I took the silver wedding band from the drawer, wrapped it in a sheet of white paper, and wrote four words on the outside.

"Returning what's yours."

Turned off the light. Lay down in bed.

My eyes stayed open in the dark. They didn't close all night.

Not because I couldn't let go.

Because I was carving that pain into my bones, inch by inch.

Reminding myself: this is where it ends. No looking back.