Chapter 10 - The Echoes of Exes
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Two weeks after the annulment papers were served, I received an unexpected direct message on my personal social media account.
“You don’t know me, Marina, but my name is Sienna Voss. I dated Caleb for three years before he met you. I think we need to talk.”
An hour later, I was sitting across from Sienna in a quiet corner of a dimly lit café near the river. She was a poised woman in her early thirties with sharp hazel eyes, but there was a guarded tiredness in her posture.
"I saw the news through mutual friends," Sienna began softly, stirring her tea. "I wanted to reach out and say... I'm sorry."
"For what?" I asked.
"For feeling relieved when I saw he married someone else," she confessed, looking down. "I felt guilty, like I left a trap open for another woman to fall into."
I leaned forward. "What happened between you two?"
"The exact same story," Sienna said bitterly. "He proposed after a year. He convinced me to move into the Rourke house 'temporarily' while we looked for our own place. Within two weeks, Dorothea had me cooking every meal, washing their clothes, and paying Caleb's 'credit card bills' because his business was supposedly struggling."
My hands shook as I set my cup down. "Did he isolate you?"
"Completely," Sienna nodded. "He convinced me my friends were toxic, my job was taking away from our 'family goals,' and that I was lucky a family like his accepted me. I only escaped because my older brother showed up one day with a moving truck and literally pulled me out."
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"They don't change, do they?" I murmured.
"No," Sienna replied firmly. "Men like Caleb don't invent new plays. They use the same script over and over until someone breaks the cycle. And you, Marina... you broke it faster than anyone."
