One evening, while cleaning out an old closet he used alone, she found a box.
Small. Plain. Locked.
Her heart began to race.
She hesitated.
Then, driven by a mix of fear and anger, she forced it open.
Inside were envelopes. Letters. And a notebook.
Not hers.
His.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
The first line made her gasp.
“If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone.”
Her legs weakened, and she sat down immediately.
She kept reading.
“I know you hated me. And you had every right to.”
Tears slipped down her face without her noticing.
“But there’s something you never knew. Something I was too afraid to tell you.”
Each sentence felt heavier than the last.
“Before I met you, I lost everything. Because of my own mistakes.”
Claire frowned, confused.
“I had money. A lot of it. And I wasted it. Bad choices. Bad people. I lived recklessly… and ended up in debt, alone, humiliated.”
She swallowed hard.
“When I met you, you were simple. Strong. You knew how to live with little… but you had never truly struggled.”
Claire shook her head slightly, resisting what she was reading.
“I was afraid. Afraid money would ruin everything again. Afraid I’d become the man I used to be.”
Her grip tightened on the notebook.