He got everything he said he wanted.

Accounts full. Phone quiet. No more scrambling, no more begging. Every room in the house has a view now, glass so clear it feels like walking on the edge of the sky. But none of it feels like anything.

There were plans. Not the kind you write down, but the kind you whisper in the dark when you’re too in love to think straight. The “when” kind. When the money comes, when things get better, when we can finally breathe they said those words like prayers. He remembers her laugh when they talked about Tokyo in the spring. The wine tour in Cape Town. The house by the lake, the one with the overgrown garden she said she’d turn into a jungle.

Now he could buy the whole damn lake. But the garden’s empty, and his hands shake when he picks up a glass.

People think money softens grief. It doesn’t. It just wraps it in marble and silence. You grieve alone in bigger rooms.

He tries. Sort of. Flies somewhere warm. Orders expensive things. Stares at them. Buys gifts for people he hasn’t spoken to in years, watches their texts light up his screen like fireworks in a graveyard. He deletes them before he reads the replies.

The nights are the worst. Everything looks sharper in low light. The sheets still smell like a time before she left, or maybe it’s just his mind playing cruel games again. He doesn’t sleep much. Just lies still, counting regrets like teeth under a pillow. There’s no one to tell how tired he is. No one to say: Look at this. Look what I did. Look what we could have had.

No one to hold the joy with him. And without that, what’s the point?

He bought freedom and found it hollow. He found out late that some dreams aren’t dreams at all without someone to hand them to.

He doesn’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t understand. They’d say he’s lucky. They’d say he’s made it. They wouldn’t see the truth:

He made it too late.