Love's Final Betrayal: A Fading Star

On the day of my funeral, Chloe was getting married.

That' s the simplest way to put it, the starkest truth that defined the end of my story and the beginning of hers.

While a handful of people who genuinely loved me gathered under a gray, weeping sky, she was bathed in sunlight and applause, standing under an arch of white roses.

But before that quiet end, there was a loud, painful beginning.

It started the day Mark Johnson came back, pulling up to our small, rented house in a car that cost more than I made in three years.

That night, the air in our little house felt tight, suffocating.