I died on a Tuesday night.
Not in a car accident.
Not in a robbery.
Not while saving someone from a burning building.
I died alone in a cheap office chair with fourteen hours of work behind me and a message from my girlfriend glowing on my phone.
At twenty-nine, I had already convinced myself that exhaustion was simply the price of building a better future.
I was wrong.
My name is Ethan Carter.
And before I died, I thought I was the luckiest man alive because I had a woman I loved.
Her name was Chloe Bennett.
I met Chloe when I was twenty-six.
At the time, I was working at a small logistics company. I wasn’t rich, but I was ambitious. I had a steady salary, a small apartment, and enough savings to believe that my life was finally moving somewhere.
Chloe changed all of that.
She was beautiful, confident, and knew exactly how to make people feel important.
When she looked at me, I felt like I was the most interesting person in the room.
Three months after we met, she told me she wanted to start her own online fashion business.
I supported her.
When she needed a laptop, I bought one.
