Jay packed slowly.
Not because she had much to take—but because she wanted to be sure she was choosing this with a clear mind. She folded her clothes neatly, the same way she always did, placing them into a small suitcase that felt almost too light for a married woman leaving her husband's house.
She didn't take anything expensive. Nothing that belonged to the mansion. Just what was hers.
The room looked the same when she was done. Too big. Too quiet. Too unfamiliar for a place she had lived in for months.
Jay stood in the middle of it and realized something that made her chest ache in a strange, gentle way.
This room will not miss me.
She wrote a note—not long, not emotional. Jay had never been good at asking for things, and she wouldn't start now.
I'm going to stay away for a few days.
I need space.
I'll return when I'm ready.
She placed it on the table where Jax would see it. Not on his pillow. Not somewhere intimate. Just… visible.
Jay didn't wait to see him.
She walked through the mansion with steady steps, passing walls that had never known her laughter, halls that had never heard her voice raised in joy. The staff looked up in surprise when they saw her with a suitcase.
"Madam…?" one of them began.
"I'll be back," Jay said softly. "Just not today."
They nodded, unsure, respectful. No one stopped her.
The gates opened, and for the first time since her marriage, Jay stepped out without feeling like she was doing something wrong.
The air outside felt different. Lighter. Like the world didn't expect anything from her.
She stayed with a distant relative—someone kind, quiet, who didn't ask questions. Jay spent her days doing simple things: watering plants, walking in the mornings, sitting by the window with a cup of tea she didn't have to share.
At night, she slept deeply.
No listening for footsteps.
No waiting for doors to open.
No pretending she wasn't hurt.
Meanwhile, the mansion noticed her absence before Jax did.
Her chair stayed empty. Her footsteps were gone. The quiet had changed again—this time sharper, more obvious.
When Jax finally saw the note, it was late. He read it once. Then again.
No accusations.
No blame.
No plea.
Just space.
He frowned, an unfamiliar tension forming between his brows. Jay had never left before. Never asked for anything like this. She had always been… there. Quiet. Constant. Easy to ignore.
The house felt wrong without her.
Not louder.
Not emptier.
Off-balance.
Days passed.
Jay didn't call. Didn't message. Didn't check in. And that, more than anything, unsettled him.
She wasn't trying to make a point.
She was simply gone.
Jax found himself pausing in hallways, glancing toward places where she used to be—by the window, in the garden, at the end of the table. He caught himself wondering if she was eating properly. Sleeping well.
He pushed the thoughts away.
But they came back.
Because absence, when it's chosen, carries weight.
Jay sat by the window one evening, watching the sky soften into evening. She pressed a hand to her chest—not in pain, but in relief.
She missed nothing.
Not the silence.
Not the distance.
Not the hope she used to carry alone.
For the first time, Jay wasn't waiting for love to find her.
She was learning how to live without it.
And far away, in a mansion that finally felt too big, Jax realized something unsettling:
For the first time…
Jay's silence wasn't something he controlled.
And that scared him.