CHAPTER 5

“Sometimes people don’t die when they stop breathing.

Sometimes they die the moment they realize nobody is coming back for them.”

The fights between Isabel and Andrew never stopped.

At first, they were quiet arguments behind closed doors.

Sharp whispers.

Heavy silence at dinner tables.

Cold stares exchanged across empty rooms.

But grief is like fire.

If nobody puts it out, it burns everything around it.

Soon, the entire house became unbearable.

Every time Andrew returned home from work, another argument followed. Sometimes it started over small things—untouched food, unanswered calls, forgotten conversations—but Aurora knew those things were never the real reason.

The real reason had been buried with Evie.

And neither of them knew how to survive without her.

One evening, everything changed.

Andrew had just returned from another “business meeting.” He tossed his coat carelessly onto the couch before disappearing toward his office.

Isabel noticed it immediately.

A lipstick stain.

Faint red.

Near the collar.

And beneath it—

the unmistakable scent of another woman’s perfume.

Aurora still remembered the silence that followed.

Her mother stood frozen beside the couch, staring at the shirt in her hands.

Then slowly—

something inside her broke.

After that day, Isabel changed completely.

She stopped asking Andrew where he went.

Stopped waiting for him at dinner.

Stopped caring.

Instead, she began coming home late herself.

At first, once a week.

Then almost every day.

Neither of them questioned each other anymore.

It was like their marriage had already died, and they were simply acting out the funeral.

Aurora hated it.

The silence.

The distance.

The fake normalcy.

Every night she would sit alone inside her room, listening to the front door open at impossible hours while wondering when her family had become unrecognizable.

A few days later, Andrew came home earlier than usual.

And for the first time in weeks—

there was no argument waiting for him.

That scared Aurora more than the screaming ever had.

The house felt strangely still.

Too still.

Then suddenly—

“Who is he?”

Andrew’s voice echoed through the living room like a gunshot.

Aurora froze upstairs instantly.

“What?” Isabel snapped.

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

Aurora slowly stepped closer to her bedroom door, heart pounding violently.

Andrew threw a folder onto the table.

Photographs spilled across the floor.

And Isabel’s face lost all color.

“I hired someone to follow you,” Andrew said coldly. “You thought I wouldn’t find out?”

Aurora’s stomach dropped.

The pictures showed Isabel with another man.

Laughing.

Holding hands.

Kissing him outside a restaurant.

“You had no right!” Isabel screamed.

“No right?” Andrew laughed bitterly. “You wanna talk about rights after what you did?”

“And what about your affair?!”

The room exploded after that.

Years of grief, betrayal, anger, and heartbreak tore through the house all at once.

Aurora stood upstairs trembling as her parents destroyed each other with words sharper than knives.

“You stopped being my wife the day Evie died!”

“And you stopped being my husband when you abandoned this family!”

Aurora felt sick.

Affairs.

Lies.

Hatred.

Her parents—her own parents—had become strangers.

And worst of all—

neither of them even noticed she was standing there listening.

By the end of the night, the decision had already been made.

Divorce.

Just like that.

No hesitation.

No thought about Aurora.

No concern about what this would do to the daughter who was already barely surviving.

The following months felt unreal.

Lawyers visited constantly.

Papers covered tables.

Arguments never ended.

Her parents stopped speaking to each other unless it was through cold, emotionless conversations about money or court dates.

Aurora felt invisible.

Sometimes she wondered if they even remembered she existed.

The girl who once had a warm home, loving parents, and a little sister now sat alone at dinner tables while two broken adults destroyed whatever remained of their family.

And eventually—

the divorce was finalized.

Since Aurora was still underage, the court granted custody to Isabel.

Andrew barely argued against it.

That hurt more than Aurora expected.

Because despite everything…

he had once loved her so much.

Or at least she thought he did.

The day he left the house for the last time, Aurora stood silently near the staircase while movers carried boxes outside.

Andrew paused near the front door for a moment.

Like he wanted to say something.

But in the end—

he simply left.

And Aurora never felt smaller in her entire life.

Evie was gone.

Her parents were gone too, even if they were technically still alive.

Everything she loved had disappeared one by one until all that remained was silence and memories.

That night, Aurora sat alone inside her dark bedroom, staring at the family photograph beside her bed.

The picture showed four smiling people beneath Christmas lights.

A family that no longer existed.

Aurora touched Evie’s face softly in the photograph before finally breaking down.

Because life had not merely hurt her.

It had shattered her into a million pieces—

and left her alone to bleed through every single one of them.

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