My Husband's Affair My Anniversary Gift (Lily and David) novel Chapter 393

Six months later.

Outside, the city was loud with light.

It was New Year’s Eve.

Fireworks kept bursting open in the sky, one after another, colors spreading wide before disappearing into smoke. People were laughing somewhere below. Music floated faintly from distant streets. The whole city looked alive, as if nothing bad had ever happened here.

Jabco stood alone on the hotel balcony.

He was tall and still, his body barely moving except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. A cigarette burned quietly between his fingers, the smoke curling upward before being carried away by the sea wind. He didn’t cough. He didn’t even seem to notice it.

His eyes were fixed on the distance, past the lights, past the noise, past everything.

The sky was shining so brightly tonight, but none of that light reached him. Not even a little.

Inside his chest, everything was dark.

It had been six months.

Six long, heavy months.

Six months without a full night of sleep. Six months of waking up in the middle of the night, his heart racing, his hands reaching out to an empty space beside him. Six months of mornings that felt pointless and nights that felt endless.

There hadn’t been a single day when he hadn’t thought about her.

Not one.

She had left him suddenly. Too suddenly. One moment she was there, breathing, living, arguing, loving. The next, she was gone. No warning. No explanation. No goodbye.

She didn’t even tell him why.

That was what hurt the most.

If she had shouted at him, if she had cursed him, if she had looked him in the eye and said she hated him, he could have endured that. Pain with a reason was still something he could hold onto.

But silence?

Silence was cruel.

He had searched everywhere.

Every city. Every place where she might have gone. He had used his power, his money, his connections. He had knocked on doors that were never meant to be opened. He had crossed lines he once promised himself he never would.

Still, there was no sign of her.

Only rumors.

Someone would say they saw a woman who looked like her in another city. Another person would claim she passed through a town weeks ago. Each time, Jabco would rush there, his heart full of hope and fear tangled together.

And each time, he returned with empty hands.

Tonight was no different.

This morning, someone told him they had seen her here.

This city was different. Isolated. Surrounded by the ocean. A small island with only a few houses and narrow roads. The kind of place people went to disappear.

“What did I miss?” he murmured to himself.

The question had followed him for six months.

What had he failed to see? What had he ignored? What moment had he taken for granted, thinking there would be time later?

Later never came.

He leaned both hands on the railing, gripping it tightly as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. His shoulders felt heavy. His body felt tired in a way sleep could never fix.

Every time he thought this time would be different, that this time he would finally find her, reality proved him wrong.

And yet, he was still here.

On a quiet island, on a loud night, surrounded by celebration he didn’t feel part of.

Hope was a dangerous thing.

But it was the only thing he had left.

Jabco lifted his eyes again, scanning the distant lights, the dark ocean beyond them.

“If you’re here…....." he whispered, his voice almost lost to the wind, “just let me see you once.”

The fireworks continued to light up the sky.

The city celebrated a new beginning.