I Loved You Once, I’ll Destroy You Twice

He froze. “What did you say?”

I lifted my cast, glaring at the ugly weight of it. My eyes burned but I refused to cry.

“My hand is ruined. They need to pay for this.”

He gave me a look I couldn’t read, half troubled, half impatient. “It isn’t ruined, Dahlia. You just can’t do heavy work. And with me here, you don’t need to. Let it go. They’re all friends of Yvette. If you press charges, it’ll shame the family. Do you really want to push things that far?”

Shame the family. No—shame Yvette. Everything always circled back to her.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. My voice shook, but I didn’t back down.

“I must call the police.”

He went silent for a long beat, then suddenly pulled out his checkbook. The sound of his pen scratched across the page, slicing through me more cruelly than words.

He tore the first slip and handed it over. I didn’t move.

He thought it wasn’t enough. Another slip. Then another. The numbers climbed. His hand didn’t tremble once.

When he pushed a check for three hundred million across the blanket, I couldn’t hold the memory back…

One rainy night. We were still poor, huddled in a tiny rented room. He had come home at three in the morning, drenched, exhausted, but smiling as he held me.

“Dahlia,” he whispered against my hair, “I’ll make a billion someday, so you’ll never suffer again.”

That promise… it was supposed to be love. It was supposed to be salvation.

Now here he was, easily scrawling numbers he once swore would save me, only to buy my silence. To protect the people who trampled me.

“One billion. Is that enough?” he slided it forward as if I were some beggar on the street.

I stared at it. I stared at him.

My hands trembled when I took the check. It was light, just a slip of paper, yet it felt heavier than iron. Suddenly, I laughed. I couldn’t stop it. The sound broke out of me, sharp and ugly, until tears spilled down my cheeks and splattered across the numbers, smearing the ink.

“Austin, the promise you made back then… it’s finally come true.”

He looked at me, stunned. His brows pulled tight as if he couldn’t understand what I meant. Of course he couldn’t.

The man who once wrapped his arms around me in a leaking rented room, vowing to earn a billion so I would never suffer again… that man had died long ago. Died clean, without leaving even a shadow behind.

--

After that day, Austin never stepped foot in the hospital again.

But every morning, right at ten, his assistant would arrive, respectful but cold, carrying another glossy box of supplements.

“Mr. Livingston asked me to say he’s been too busy,” the assistant said each time, “Please, take care of yourself.”

I only nodded. After the assistant left, I unlocked my phone. Yvette’s new post popped up on my screen.

She leaned on his shoulder, the sea and sky of the Maldives stretching endless behind them. Her caption?

“Thank you to someone for making time to accompany me, even when so busy! ”

I stared until my eyes burned.

So this was what “too busy” meant. He wasn’t tied up with work. He was busy spoiling her.

I was about to shut the phone off when a new message buzzed across the screen.

“Dear Ms. Callaway, your visa has been approved. Please collect your passport tomorrow during working hours.”

I read it once. Twice. A third time. Then I laughed again, shaking so hard that my tears blurred the word approved until it swam on the screen.

Finally. An ending.

No more waiting for footsteps that never came home. No more eating cold food at midnight, alone. No more bowing my head under Mrs and Mr. Livingston’s eyes, sharp and full of contempt.

Most of all no more clinging to a past version of myself who begged, endured, and broke in silence.

The next day, I signed the discharge papers. At noon, passport and ticket in hand, I came back to the villa one last time.

The moment I walked in, I saw them. Austin and Yvette standing together in the living room, his men carrying her luggage upstairs.

They both looked my way.

Austin narrowed his eyes, as if preparing to soothe me. “Yvette’s parents are abroad. She didn’t want to stay alone, so she’ll be living here for a while. The McKinsey family and ours go way back. It’s only right I take care of her.”

He didn’t owe me an explanation anymore. And I didn’t care. From today on, whatever tied us was already cut.

I nodded and turned for the stairs.

“Miss Callaway,” Yvette’s voice stopped me, “Austin and I are going to a concert later. Would you like to join us?”

I hadn’t even answered when Austin cut in. “She can’t. Her hand’s injured, and she wouldn’t understand music anyway. She will rest at home.”

My lips curled. Pale, fragile, bitter. “He’s right. I don’t understand.”

Later, after they left, I packed in silence.

I stood in the bedroom that once held every dream I had built around him, staring at the emptiness it left behind. On the coffee table, a photo frame caught my eye. In it, his eyes were soft, fixed only on me, as if the world ended there.

My fingers traced the glass for the last time before I turned it face-down.

At the door, I left the house key on the cabinet. With one quiet click, I shut the door behind me.

In my past life, I picked up a man bleeding under the bridge—and now I'm reborn, I walked away with nothing but my suitcase.

--

At the airport I was half-asleep, waiting for boarding, when my phone buzzed.

Austin: We can’t go home tonight. You can handle yourself. Me and Yvette will go to Paris after this, she wants to watch her favorite singer’s concert.

I typed back one word.

"Okay."

Seconds later he replied again.

Austin: Don’t be jealous. Yvette is my fiancée chosen by my grandparents. But it’s you I love.

I just smirked, popped the SIM out, and tossed it straight into the trash.

“Flight PR 862 now boarding,” the speaker called.

I grabbed my bag, stood up, and walked toward the gate. No hesitation. No looking back.