The rain had started an hour ago.
Mei Lin watched the droplets race down the hospital window, blurring the city lights of Jincheng into a water colour painting of broken dreams. Her reflection stared back at her—hollow eyes, pale skin stretched too thin over sharp cheekbones, dark hair limp against her shoulders. She looked like a ghost.
Maybe she already was one.
The divorce papers sat on her lap, still warm from where the lawyer had placed them. Her hands trembled as she lifted the pen, the simple black ballpoint feeling impossibly heavy. Seven years of marriage, reduced to a signature on the dotted line.
Ex-wife of Kai Zhang.
The words blurred. She blinked hard, refusing to cry. She'd cried enough over the past seven years. What were a few more tears now?
"Mrs. Zhang?" The lawyer's voice was gentle. Too gentle. The kind of voice people used when they pitied you. "You don't have to sign today. You can take more time-"
"No." Mei Lin's voice came out hoarse. She'd barely used it these past few days. Who was there to talk to in this sterile white room? "I want to sign."
She wanted it to be over. All of it.
The pen scratched against paper. Her signature-Mei Lin Chen-looked shaky, uncertain. Fitting, really. That's what she'd become over seven years. Shaky. Uncertain. A shadow of the girl who'd once dreamed of becoming a fashion designer, who'd sketched dresses in the margins of her notebooks and imagined seeing her designs on runways.
That girl had died the day she'd married Kai Zhang.
No, that wasn't fair. That girl had died slowly, piece by piece, over seven years of cold shoulders and empty beds, of dinners eaten alone and anniversaries forgotten, of loving someone who couldn't even look at her without that distant, distracted expression in his dark eyes.
"It's done." The lawyer collected the papers with practiced efficiency. "I'll file these immediately. The divorce will be finalized within-"
A knock at the door interrupted her. A nurse peeked in, her young face apologetic. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mrs. Zhang, you have a visitor-"
"I'm not seeing anyone." The words came out sharper than Mei Lin intended. She softened her tone. "Please. I just want to be alone."
The nurse hesitated, glancing at someone in the hallway Mei Lin couldn't see. "He's been here every day, Mrs. Zhang. He seems very-"
"Tell him to leave." Mei Lin's hands clenched into fists on her lap. "Tell him I don't want to see him."
I can't see him. Not now. Not like this.
The nurse withdrew. Mei Lin heard low voices in the hallway-his voice, deep and familiar, saying something she couldn't make out. The nurse's apologetic murmur in response. Then footsteps. Walking away.
Good.
She didn't want to see Kai Zhang's face one last time. Didn't want to see that cold, handsome mask he wore so well, hiding whatever he really felt-if he felt anything at all. Didn't want to hear whatever lie he'd come to tell her, whatever excuse he had for why he'd never visited during the three weeks she'd been hospitalized.
Busy with work. Busy with her. Busy with anything but me.
"Mrs. Zhang, are you sure you're well enough to leave today?" The lawyer was watching her with concern. "The doctor said-"
"I'm fine." She wasn't. Her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, exhaustion seeping into her bones. But she couldn't stay here another day. Couldn't stay in this city another day. "My father arranged everything. A car is coming to take me to the train station. I'm going home."
Home. Back to the small apartment where she'd grown up, where her father still lived alone, still running his modest import business. Back to the life she'd left behind when she'd been foolish enough to think love could conquer anything.
Back to start over with nothing but broken dreams and a body that was slowly failing.
The diagnosis had been clear. Stress-induced complications, the doctor had said, but his eyes had been sad. You need to reduce stress, Mrs. Zhang. You need to take care of yourself. As if it were that simple. As if she could just will her body to heal when her heart had been dying for years.
She'd give it a year. Maybe two.
It didn't matter. What was the point of living when you'd already lost everything that mattered?
***
The rain was falling harder when Mei Lin left the hospital. The car her father sent was waiting at the entrance, the driver holding an umbrella. She didn't wait for him to come to her. She walked through the rain, letting it soak through her thin jacket, feeling the cold bite through to her skin.
I deserve this. Deserve the cold, the rain, the emptiness.
She'd been so stupid. So naive. She'd actually believed that if she just tried hard enough, loved him hard enough, he'd love me back.
What a fool I'd been.
The city lights streaked past the car windows as they drove through Jincheng. This city where she'd spent seven years of her life. Seven years in the luxurious Zhang mansion, playing the role of the perfect wife while her husband's heart belonged to someone else.
Xiao-mei Liu. Even her name was beautiful.
Mei Lin had seen them together once, at a restaurant. She'd been elegant, confident, laughing at something Kai said. He'd been smiling at her-actually smiling, his usually cold expression warm and alive in a way Mei Lin had never seen directed at herself.
That night, she'd cried herself to sleep while he worked late in his study. Or at least, that's what he'd told her. He was working late.
Working late with her.
Her phone buzzed. She didn't look at it. Probably her father, checking if she was on her way. Or maybe Lisa, her friend from university, the only person who still called her. The only person who'd visited her in the hospital.
Everyone else had disappeared when she'd married Kai. Or maybe she'd disappeared. Stopped going out. Stopped designing. Stopped being Mei Lin Chen and became Mrs. Zhang instead.
The train station loomed ahead. Modern, bustling, full of people with places to go and people who loved them waiting.
Mei Lin had none of that.
The driver helped her out, insisted on carrying her single small suitcase to the platform. She thanked him mechanically, her mind already far away. The train would take six hours. Six hours to leave this life behind. Six hours to try to figure out who Mei Lin Chen was supposed to be now that she wasn't Mrs. Zhang anymore.
She boarded the train, found her seat by the window. The platform was crowded with people saying goodbye, lovers embracing, children waving excitedly. She looked away.
Her phone buzzed again. And again. She finally looked at it.
Fifteen missed calls. Ten text messages. All from the same number.
Kai.
Her finger hovered over the screen. Some pathetic, weak part of her wanted to read them. Wanted to know what he had to say after all this time. After seven years of silence, did he suddenly have words for her now that she was leaving?
It doesn't matter anymore.
She turned off the phone.
The train began to move, pulling away from the station, away from Jincheng, away from seven years of heartbreak. Mei Lin watched the city lights blur and fade into darkness, rain streaking the windows like tears she refused to shed.
It was over. All of it. The marriage, the hope, the love she'd given so freely to a man who'd never wanted it.
She was free.
So why did freedom feel like dying?
***
The accident happened so fast Mei Lin didn't have time to scream.
One moment, she was staring out the train window, watching the darkness rush past. The next, there was a horrible screeching sound, metal tearing, the world tilting violently. Bodies flying. Glass shattering. Someone screaming—maybe her, maybe someone else.
Then pain. Everywhere. Sharp and bright and consuming.
Then nothing.
***
In those final moments, Mei Lin thought about him. Isn't that pathetic? Seven years of neglect, of coldness, of loving someone who couldn't love her back, and still, as she died, Kai Zhang was her last thought.
I wish things had been different.
I wish you had loved me.
I wish I'd been enough.
The darkness swallowed her whole, and her last feeling was a bitter, aching regret.
I wasted my entire life on you.