Future Him Warned Him About My Unhinged Side Chapter 05

Future Him Warned Him About My Unhinged Side Chapter 05

“Is that the truth?!”

Ethan recoiled, his entire body shuddering as unadulterated disbelief flooded his eyes.

“Of course it is,” I murmured, indifferently turning my face away from him. “I was just terrified you’d actually go through with the divorce, so I spun this little web of lies to manipulate you.”

He hesitated, the gears turning in his head as suspicion lingered. “But whoever was on the line knew every single detail about my life, from childhood onward.”

I let out a soft, mocking scoff. “Which only proves how deeply I understand you. I knew exactly what kind of leverage would shatter you most effectively.”

Ethan fell dead silent. His brow furrowed into a tight knot as he glared down at me, his thoughts completely unreadable.

I pressed my forehead flat against the marble floor, using the cold stone to anchor myself. I couldn’t let him see the sheer agony I was fighting to suppress.

After all, in the entire history of our relationship, this was the first time I had ever looked him in the eye and lied.

Perhaps that phone call from ten years in the future was entirely real. Perhaps, in that timeline, he truly would end up drowning in a sea of bitter regret.

But none of it mattered anymore. I was just so deeply, profoundly exhausted.

I took a sharp breath, blinking back the moisture in my eyes, and lifted my head. I forced my features into a mask of pure, careless indifference.

“Have you made up your mind yet? Are you going to sign or not?” I challenged, my voice dripping with artificial flippancy. “Take the deal while it’s on the table, Ethan. You won’t get another chance.”

Slap!

The force of Ethan’s palm caught me square across the face. A violent, searing heat erupted across my cheek.

“I don’t care how unhinged you act or what kind of scene you pull on a normal day, but this crosses the goddamn line,” he snarled, his voice trembling with rage. “Chloe Reynolds, you are an absolute psychopath!”

He snapped his fingers, gesturing sharply to his executive assistant. “Draft a fresh set of divorce papers. We are signing them right now!”

I genuinely believed I had gone numb to the pain. Yet, the hollowed-out void where my heart used to be still managed to ache with a frigid, agonizing bite.

The newly printed agreement was rushed into the room minutes later. The moment his signature cleared the page, he violently hurled the paperwork directly at my face.

“Half the estate. You’ll get every single cent you’re owed,” he spat, his eyes burning with icy contempt. “But remember this—I never want to look at your face again for as long as I live.”

With his final declaration, the bodyguards finally released their white-knuckled grip on my shoulders. I dragged my bruised body off the floor, gathered the scattered pages of the agreement, and turned my back on them without a word.

On the drive back, the clouds split open.

A torrential downpour drenched me the second I stepped out of the vehicle, but amidst the freezing rain, my mind felt clearer than it ever had in the last ten years.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed, displaying an unrecognized number. I pressed it to my ear.

“Chloe, it’s you—from ten years in the future,” a voice rushed out, frantic and desperate.

“You have to sign those papers! You have to leave Ethan! But whatever you do, do not do anything reckless! Don’t hurt yourself, and absolutely do not set that fire! If you do, Ethan will spend the rest of his life torturing you in ways you can’t survive!”

I let the silence hang between us for a beat.

“It’s already over,” I replied flatly. “We signed the papers. And I’m not going to do anything stupid anymore.”

The version of me on the other end of the line seemed to let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. “Thank God. Then I can finally rest easy.”

“Live a good life, Chloe. Live it for yourself.”

As the line went dead, I gave a firm, slow nod to the empty air.

Two separate phone calls from a decade away, each detailing a wildly different catastrophe for Ethan and me.

But I no longer had the energy or the desire to parse out which one held the truth. I had spent far too many years looking over my shoulder, consumed by a perpetual, paralyzing dread. I was done.

The moment I stepped back into the Greenwood Estate, I began packing. A few well-worn pieces of clothing and my essential identification documents—that was the sum total of everything I had accumulated over the years.

As I turned to leave, my eyes caught the painted double portrait resting on the nightstand, its presence cutting through the room like a jagged shard of glass.

Ethan had always insisted he loathed being in front of a camera; in our ten years of marriage, we hadn’t taken a single wedding photograph.

Yet, every square inch of Sienna’s sanctuary had been overflowing with snapshots of them—surfing along coastlines, catching the sunset over snow-covered mountains. It looked as though they had left footprints in every beautiful corner of the earth.

Meanwhile, he and I were nothing more than the static figures trapped inside that painted frame—existing side by side every single day, yet entirely untouched by reality.

I slammed the frame against the edge of the dresser, shattering the glass, and violently ripped the canvas in two. Taking only the half that belonged to me, I walked away, leaving the remnants of that life behind.

The second I pulled up to the airport terminal, my phone lit up again. Ethan’s name flashed across the screen. I declined it instantly.

He called back immediately. I declined it again.

Frustrated, a barrage of iMessages began flooding my lock screen in rapid succession.

[I never told a living soul how I got the scar on the bottom of my foot!]

[That phone call was real, wasn’t it?]

[You lied to me. You’ve never lied to me in your entire life!]

[Chloe Reynolds! Where the hell are you?]

I powered down the device, clicked my seatbelt into place, and looked out the window. An hour ago, I had made a single call to my father. Right now, his private jet was taxied on the runway, preparing to carry me away to a city where the rain couldn’t follow.