Chapter 3-
By the third morning after Ethan's sudden disappearance, Amara had barely slept. Her apartment, once cozy and comforting, now felt like a cage. Every corner reminded her of what she had lost or what had been taken from her.
She tried to reach him again. Phone calls went straight to voicemail. Texts went unanswered. Even emails returned no reply. The silence was deafening.
It wasn't until she left for work that the first whispers began. At the coffee shop where she usually stopped before her morning shift, she overheard two women talking softly but pointedly.
"Did you hear about Ethan Cole?" one said, her voice laced with mock concern.
"Yeah… left the country suddenly. No one knows why. Poor Amara," the other replied.
Amara froze mid-step, her coffee cup trembling in her hand. She could feel the heat rise to her cheeks. "Poor Amara," they repeated, as if she weren't standing right there. She wanted to shout, to demand the truth but all she could do was lower her gaze and slip past them, her heart pounding with humiliation.
Work offered no escape. At the boutique where she spent her days managing displays and helping customers, her colleagues whispered behind her back. She caught fragments: "Single mother already…" "Didn't he care at all?" "Abandoned her like that?"
Each word stabbed like a knife. Amara forced herself to focus on folding clothes, arranging racks, and pretending nothing hurt but inside, her world was unraveling.
By lunch, she finally allowed herself a moment to sit alone in the small park across the street. The city moved around her in a blur people laughing, rushing, living as though the tragedies of others didn't exist. She closed her eyes, resting a hand on her belly.
"I'm not weak," she whispered to her unborn child. "I'll do this. I'll survive. Even if he never comes back."
But the world wasn't finished with her yet. Later that afternoon, a colleague she barely knew approached her, hesitant but curious.
"Amara… people are saying Ethan didn't just leave because of work problems. Some say his family forced him to go… that something dangerous happened," she said softly.
Amara's stomach tightened. Dangerous? She had already felt the sting of betrayal, but now a new layer of fear pressed down. What could have been so serious that it made him leave her, leave their child, leave everything behind?
Questions swirled, and no answers came. And yet, in the pit of her stomach, a dangerous thought took root: Maybe I'll never know. Maybe he's gone for good.
Even as she tried to steel herself, a small, unwelcome part of her hoped no, needed that he would return. That he would explain. That he would see what he had left behind.
The day ended, leaving Amara exhausted, emotionally drained, and painfully aware of the life she would now have to face alone. The whispers of the city followed her home, echoing the truth she was still trying to deny: the world had moved on from Ethan Cole.
But Amara hadn't. Not yet.
And deep down, a small, stubborn hope lingered: he might com