Halfway up the trail my phone buzzed.
You really didn’t come.
It was from Ivy.
I looked at the message, then at the mountain range stretching cold and indifferent around me, and put the phone away.
No answer was answer enough.
When I returned to the States, the collapse had accelerated.
Logan was indicted on wire fraud, securities violations, and material misrepresentation tied to investor funds and false reporting. His firm dissolved under the weight of scrutiny and desertion. The lease on his office floor was terminated after breach findings triggered specific provisions buried deep enough that he had probably never read them.
He tried calling me twice.
I never answered.
Ivy’s marriage did not survive long enough to acquire real damage. It was annulled within months, their honeymoon photos still cooling online while the legal wreckage spread beneath them. My mother stopped posting altogether for a while. My father sent two neutral emails about “family misunderstandings” that read like PR drafts.
