Margaret broke down at my kitchen table tonight, finally confessing her doomed reunion attempt with Ian Smith. She’d gone to his construction site after I’d offered her freedom—only for him to shatter her hope of rekindling old flames. He’d forgiven her trading their youthful lake rescue pledges for my financial stability years ago, he said, but trust couldn’t be rebuilt like one of his brick estates. She returned hollow-eyed, lingering guilt now gnawing at her like winter frost on exposed pipes. We formalised the divorce quietly—I ensured her mother kept the Surrey cottage I’d bought them, settling medical bills until the dear woman passed peacefully in her sleep decades later. Last I heard through mutual connections, Ian married his firm’s architect—bouncing their toddler son on his knee in wealthier times—while Margaret drifted through empty relationships like a ghost haunting her own choices. He’d hauled her from frozen waters once, yet her surrender to practicality drowned his belief in love while she learned too late that betrayal’s chill outlasts any lake’s ice. Her lingering solitude taught me that sacrificing someone’s faith for security leaves both parties shipwrecked on regrets even luxury can’t thaw. She wandered into a shop this morning clutching tulips—Ian’s favourite bloom from their skating days—then laid them by the Thames where he once nearly died saving her.
He Saved My Life, and I Ruined His
