Chapter 43: Whispers in the Wind.

City streets blurred past Chloe as she walked in a daze; the noise of the city around her turned into an indistinct drone in her ears. Each familiar sight she passed—the corner deli, the park where she'd fed pigeons as a child—had seemed alien now, completely devoid of warmth or comfort. Liam's betrayal had irrevocably smashed the world she thought she'd known. A cold wind whipped down the sidewalk, cutting through her thin jacket with icy fingers. Chloe shivered and hunched deeper into her collar as a hollow ache consumed her from inside. This endless wretchedness—so Liam had left it as his inheritance—was a wasteland of emptiness and bittersweet desolation into which his lies had driven her. She had loved him, loved him so much, and trusted him with everything. But he'd always kept parts of himself walled off, filling the foundation of their love with poison made from secrecy. The gaping and raw wound throbbed in time with her footsteps. Each step ripped it open again, like a scab