Part 4 — I unexpectedly came home and found my girlfriend and best friend together, but the thing Chloe saw in the hallway erased her smile

Nino opened the file.

Mason’s voice sounded through the room again.

“Tell him that Ava needs an operation. Fathers cannot refuse at times like this.”

Then there was my father’s voice.

“Why don’t you tell her?”

Mason answered:

“If she finds out, she will worry. I am her fiancé, after all. The money will remain in the family anyway.”

The recording stopped.

My father sat down on the chair. He placed his hands on his knees.

“I believed him,” he said.

“You were trying to protect me,” I said.

“But I decided in your place.”

“Now we will decide together.”

Mason picked up his phone and called someone.

“I need a lawyer. Right now.”

The call ended after a few seconds.

“I’m not coming,” a woman’s voice came from the speaker. “Mason, I’m no longer taking your case.”

“You took money.”

“The money will be returned to you. But I will not take responsibility for a forged signature.”

The call ended.

Mason turned toward me.

“Ava, all of this can be fixed.”

“No.”

“We were together for three years.”

“That is exactly why I know when you are lying to me.”

“Chloe confused you.”

Chloe smiled bitterly.

“I was lying together with you. But you built this plan alone.”

Nino handed the documents to the investigators. They were escorting Mason out of the room when he suddenly shouted:

“You all know that she has financial problems!”

I stopped.

“Do not mention my health anymore.”

“You won’t be able to keep the apartment.”

“You are no longer its owner,” Nino said. “And you were never authorized to take out a loan in her name.”

Mason was taken away. Chloe remained by the door.

“Please,” she said to me. “Listen to me for at least one minute.”

“I listened to you for three years.”

“I hated myself.”

“Hating yourself is not responsibility.”

She lowered her head.

“I believed him because I thought that in the end he would leave you.”

“And you still stayed.”

Chloe could not find an answer.

The following weeks passed with calls, bank meetings, and statements. The accounts were frozen. Ownership of the apartment was suspended by a temporary court order. The falsified loan was canceled, and the forty thousand dollars transferred to my father were recovered by the lawyers from the same account.

At first Mason threatened me.

“If you speak against me, you will lose everything.”

Then he begged me.

“Meet me just once.”

Finally he said to me angrily:

“You ruined my life.”

I answered him:

“I only opened the door. You had already ruined everything inside.”

At the preliminary court hearing, the judge demanded to hear those audio recordings. Mason sat there, a few steps away from me.

His voice sounded from the speaker:

“Ava will sign. I spent three years teaching her to trust me.”

Mason’s face changed.

He was listening to his own words as if someone else were saying them.

Then his laughter sounded in the recording.

And for the first time I realized that this voice no longer belonged to me.

In court Chloe admitted in writing that she had been involved with him for three years and had hidden the property-transfer plan from me. She accepted responsibility for returning part of the money and helped the investigation.

I still could not forgive her.

But I did not want hatred either.

Several months later I found a new apartment in a quiet part of the city. It was small, on the fifth floor, and from the kitchen window in the morning I could see the roofs of the neighboring houses.

During the very first week I started a new job. Money came in to me and I decided myself what to spend it on. In the evenings I made light soup for my stomach, turned on music, and left the hallway light on only when I wanted to.

One morning I drank coffee with my father.

“How are you now?” he asked me.

“I am still learning how to live without asking everyone for explanations.”

“I am proud of you.”

“I am proud of myself too.”

I said these words aloud for the first time.

Chloe sent me a letter six months later. It said that under the court agreement she had paid part of the debts and was no longer asking me to meet her.

At the end she added only one sentence: “If you ever speak to me, I will be ready to listen to you.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote: “I do not want to now. Please respect this choice.”

No answer came.

Mason called me for the last time when the court decision was announced. His voice was calm, almost old.

“We could start again.”

“No.”

“The house at least remained, right?”

“The house did. You did not.”

I ended the call.

That same evening I found the key to the lock in the old bag. A small silver cat charm was still hanging from it, the one Mason had once given me and told me that I was too cautious and too easy to calm.

I held it in my palm for a long time.

Then I attached the charm to the new key.

Now it opened the door to my home.

Not Mason’s.

Mine.

And this time, when I entered the house, I was waiting for no one.