Chapter 5

The scheduled upload was a recording of my "final words". It was also my farewell to my sham of a marriage. As the video continued to rile the public into a frenzy, I sat in an apartment in an unfamiliar city, far away from my past. There were no Riveras here, nor was there a Randell—only a small quiet room and a glass door that led to the balcony. I started my new life under a new identity. I said goodbye to my past self who always had to tread carefully and had suffered neglect in the name of love. No one knew where I was hiding, and no one knew that I had already made peace with the idea of growing old alone. When I first moved to this city, I refused to engage with anyone. I used as few words as possible when it came to grocery shopping, renting the apartment, and even paying the utility bills. People found me aloof and strange, and they eventually stopped trying to talk to me, which was exactly what I wanted. With my savings, I opened a small art studio that specialized i