White Whale Chronicles
Chapter 3
I don’t know how long I stood there before I heard a faint tapping from the window.
Through the glass, from the building opposite, a familiar figure was waving frantically at me.
Stephanie. My best friend.
She typed something on her phone and pressed it to the window: **[Ariana, are you okay? I couldn’t reach you!]**
I shook my head, mouthing the words: *I’m locked in.*
Her face went pale.
Then she was typing furiously, holding up her phone again: **[That bastard Aaron! Wait for me—I’ll get someone right now!]**
Half an hour later, the apartment door swung open, unlocked by a professional locksmith.
Stephanie rushed in, threw her arms around me, and burst into tears.
“Ariana, you scared me to death! I heard Aaron was divorcing you, your phone was dead… I thought you’d—”
“I’m fine.”
I patted her back, my voice hoarse. “Stephanie, can you tell me everything that’s happened these past six years? Every detail.”
She froze, studying my unnervingly calm expression, her eyes clouded with worry.
“Ariana, you… you’re not…”
I knew what she was leaving unsaid.
She thought I was using the amnesia act again—escaping reality.
I shook my head, a thin, bitter smile touching my lips. “I’m not pretending. I woke up, and it was six years later. My memory… it’s still the morning after our wedding.”
Stephanie’s jaw dropped. For a long moment, she couldn’t speak.
In the end, she chose to believe me.
From her account, I pieced together a more complete—and far more brutal—picture of those six years.
The jewelry design career I’d been so proud of? Derailed by my own emotional breakdowns. I’d botched several major projects and had long since been pushed to the sidelines in his family’s firm.
As for Aaron’s mother, that woman who’d always looked down on my background—she’d spent those six years humiliating me in every way imaginable. And I, in turn, had done nothing but cry and throw fits.
“So, I have nothing left,” I said softly.
No lover. No career. No friends. Just the reputation of a “madwoman.”
Stephanie squeezed my hand, her voice firm. “No. You have me. Ariana, leave that scumbag. We’ll start over.”
I looked at her, warmth flooding my chest.
Yes. Even if the whole world had abandoned me, I still had Stephanie.
I picked up the divorce papers and the pen Aaron had left. Without a moment’s hesitation, I signed my name at the bottom.
*Ariana.*
The stroke was clean. Decisive.
From today on, I would live for myself.
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