Everyone Underestimate Liam Cross

4: Over

LIAM CROSS.

THE NEXT EVENING

Mr. Davenport’s face was a thunderhead dark, and ready to spill. He balled his hand into a tight fist, as I watched his knuckles whitening, then jabbed a single accusing finger at the corner of the table where the divorce papers lay. The paper trembled under the point, as if even it feared his command.

“Sign here. This moment,” he barked. “Don’t make me create a scene that will humiliate you.” The words landed like like ice. Nurses in the corridor paused mid-step and glanced through the doorway. Pity and discomfort flickered across their faces, then they looked away.

I stared at the line he pointed to... the line that would sever whatever thin thread of a life I still clung to. My hand hovered over the pen.

“Isla won’t be the one to save you,” he said. He laugh hard, it turned into contempt. “She’s moved on. I’m here because I finished the job you were too weak to finish yourself.”

My plan... such as it was, had been simple in its stupidity: is to refuse the papers, let Isla see them, let her feel the shame, and let her come to me.

Then I'll talk to her. Beg, explain, anything to her. I’d imagined her hands trembling when she signed her name, imagined her remembering the mornings, the flowers, the small mercies. But imagining was a different kind of pain.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mr. Davenport snapped. As heat balls flared in his cheeks.

“You’ve twenty... no, thirty minutes. I’m going outside. If you’re not done by then, you won’t like what happens next.” He leaned close, so close I could smell the expensive cologne. “Consider this mercy, and a final favor.”

He left the room with the same finality as a judge leaving the bench... no turning back. The door clicked shut behind him.

I sighed and rubbed my face with both palms, the weight of it all pressing down on me until even breathing felt difficult to me. It’s over, I thought. There was no point fighting anymore. Something inside me felt tired, and defeated... it just gave in. Isla wanted this, and her parents also wanted this. Who was I to keep holding on when everyone else had already let go?

I reached for the pen, my hand trembling slightly, and pressed the tip against the paper. Then I signed the papers with no hesitation, or second thoughts.

Letting my wife go. If it was meant to be, it would be.

When I finished, I sat there for a while, staring at my name bleeding blue into the divorce papers. This was the end of a chapter I once believed would end in love and peace, not betrayal and papers on a hospital bed.

My mind wandered back to the early days. When I first met the Davenports, they’d smiled, called me son, and told me I was family. When Isla introduced me to them, I thought I’d finally found a home that would last forever.

I helped them build the life they have now... their thriving business? My money started it. The firm Isla works with? My contacts, back when the media still called me the country’s star boy.

But people forget. Especially when the one they’re forgetting can no longer stand tall.

I swung my legs off the bed, ignoring the sharp sting in my knees. The doctor hadn’t discharged me, but I couldn’t stay another minute. I picked up my small duffel bag, and limped toward the door.

Out in the hall, I spotted Mr. Davenport. He was sitting on the visitors’ bench, leaning too close to a young woman, smiling in that charming, sleazy way he thought hid his age. The same man who called me a failure was now flirting behind his wife’s back.

I walked up to him, dropped the signed papers on his lap, and didn’t say a word. His grin faltered as he looked up at me, but I didn’t care enough to meet his eyes. Without a word, I turned and walked out of the hospital, I felt the night cold against my face.

I didn’t know where I was going. My feet just kept dragging, one after the other, through the empty street. The night was cold, the kind that sank deeper through clothes and skin straight to the bones.

My limp made each step uneven, but I didn’t care. The pain in my leg had become part of me like the ache in my chest, constant and dull.

Streetlights flickered, stretching my shadow across cracked pavements. I passed a group of laughing strangers and pulled my hood lower. Their laughter felt like mockery, even if it wasn’t. Maybe that’s what I’d become... a ghost walking among the living, invisible but still mocked by the sound of joy.

My throat tightened as I thought of Isla’s smile. That same smile she probably showed Mason now, the same lips that told me she loved me. I clenched my fists until my knuckles popped.

I was nothing now... no home, no wife, no dream. Just a broken man limping through the night, haunted by memories that refused to die.

When I finally looked up, I realized where my wandering had taken me. My legs had taken me to the overpass highway bridge. The city lights glowed below, cars driving through the dark like veins of silver. Their horns echoed faintly, mixing with the whispering wind.

I stood at the edge, gripping the railing. The metal was cold, biting against my palms. Below, the rush of cars blurred into a hum that sounded almost peaceful. My heartbeat matched their rhythm... fast, chaotic, desperate. I dropped my bag beside me and stared down at the dizzying stretch of road.

If I jumped, maybe I’d finally stop feeling. Maybe I’d land on one of those cars, and the world would move on without me... just as it already had. The thought didn’t scare me, but it felt like relief.

“This is it,” I muttered, my voice breaking apart in the wind. My breath came out shaky as I climbed onto the ledge. The world beneath me swayed slightly, but I stood still, my eyes locked on the blur of headlights below.

The wind pushed at me, teasing, urging me forward. My mind screamed that it would be over soon... all the shame, the loneliness, the constant ache of being unwanted. My fingers loosened their grip on the railing.

I closed my eyes and let the night swallow me whole. One deep breath, and one final thought of of my previous life... then nothing.

I raised one leg, and stepped forward, feeling the world tilt beneath me... then I jumped.