Daniel stared at me for several seconds.

Then he laughed.

Not because anything was funny.

Because he genuinely believed I was bluffing.

“Sophia, stop being dramatic.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re throwing away photographs like a teenager because I accepted a job?”

I looked at him calmly.

“No. I’m throwing them away because they belong to a marriage that no longer exists.”

His smile disappeared.

“What are you talking about?”

I walked to the desk and placed an envelope in front of him.

Divorce papers.

Daniel stared at them.

Then at me.

“You’re divorcing me?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m going to America?”

“Because you already left this marriage before buying the ticket.”

His eyes changed.

For one second, I wondered whether he realized I had heard everything.

Then he recovered.

“You won’t do it.”

I almost smiled.

“Why?”

“Because you have nowhere to go.”

There it was.

The certainty behind every decision he had made.

He believed I needed him more than he needed me.

Daniel pushed the papers aside.

“When you calm down, we’ll discuss this.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

“My flight is next week.”

“Mine is tomorrow.”

He froze.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Silence.

Then he laughed again.

“You rejected Northbridge to return home?”

“I rejected Northbridge years ago.”

“For us.”

“No.”

I picked up my suitcase.

“I rejected it for you.”

That distinction finally silenced him.

Daniel followed me to the door.

“Sophia.”

I stopped.

“If you walk out now, don’t expect me to chase you.”

I looked back at the man I had loved for almost a decade.

“You already chose not to.”

Then I left.

The next morning, I boarded the flight alone.

Daniel didn’t come to the airport.

Grace did.

I discovered that later from a photograph she posted online.

She was waiting at Boston Logan with flowers.

Daniel stood beside her smiling.

Underneath, she wrote:

“Some people are destined to find each other again.”

I looked at the photograph once.

Then deleted my old account.

My new life began quietly.

The National Institute for Fundamental Sciences gave me a small office, an aging computer and more work than I could possibly finish.

I loved every second of it.

Six months later, I joined a classified astrophysics program.

Two years later, our team published a new theoretical model for detecting unusual gravitational signals.

My name appeared first on the paper.

Three years later, I was appointed deputy director of the research group.

By then, Daniel Zhou had become nothing more than a name I occasionally encountered in academic journals.

He had married Grace.

Then divorced her.

Apparently, the great reunion lasted less than two years.

I felt nothing when I heard.

Not satisfaction.

Not sadness.

Nothing.

That was when I knew I had truly moved on.

Five years after I returned home, I attended an international physics conference in Geneva.

After my presentation, someone called my name.

“Sophia.”

I recognized the voice immediately.

Daniel stood at the end of the corridor.

He looked older.

Not dramatically.

Just enough that I could see what five years had done to both of us.

He approached slowly.

“I didn’t know you were speaking here.”

“I didn’t know you were attending.”

“I almost didn’t.”

An awkward silence followed.

Then his eyes moved to the badge around my neck.

Dr. Sophia Liang.

National Astrophysics Research Program.

His expression shifted.

“You went back to astrophysics.”

“Yes.”

“But you changed fields because—”

“Because you asked me to.”

Daniel lowered his eyes.

For the first time, he seemed embarrassed.

“I was selfish.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Sophia, Grace and I divorced.”

“I heard.”

“I made a mistake.”

I said nothing.

He stepped closer.

“I thought America was what I wanted.”

“And now?”

“I want to go home.”

That word sounded strange coming from him.

Home.

The country he had once treated as something temporary.

The place he had abandoned because another passport, another laboratory and another woman seemed more attractive.

“Then go,” I said.

His expression became complicated.

“I can’t.”

I frowned.

Daniel explained that years earlier, during his naturalization process, he had formally renounced his original citizenship.

At the time, he considered it practical.

Permanent.

A necessary step toward the future he wanted.

Now he wanted it back.

He had submitted an application for restoration.

Rejected.

Then another.

Rejected.

Then a third.

Same answer.

He tried research visas.

Academic appointments.

Special-talent programs.

Nothing worked.

“I thought perhaps you could help.”

I stared at him.

“Me?”

“You work with the national program now.”

“That doesn’t mean I control immigration decisions.”

“I know.”

But his eyes told me he had hoped otherwise.

“Sophia, I’m not asking you to break rules.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“For someone to reconsider my case.”

I studied him quietly.

Years earlier, I had stood in our Cambridge apartment while Daniel decided my future without asking me.

Now he stood before me hoping I could open a door he had voluntarily closed.

“I can’t help you.”

His face fell.

“Can’t?”

“Or won’t?”

“Both.”

Daniel flinched.

Then he whispered:

“I deserve that.”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“This isn’t revenge.”

And it truly wasn’t.

“Your application has nothing to do with our marriage.”

He looked surprised.

“Then why am I being rejected?”

“I don’t know.”

At that moment, one of my colleagues approached.

“Dr. Liang, the delegation is waiting.”

I nodded.

Daniel suddenly caught my attention again.

“Sophia.”

I stopped.

“If I had chosen you back then…”

I already knew the question.

Would everything have been different?

But some questions arrive years after their answers stop mattering.

“You didn’t.”

I walked away.

I thought that would be our final meeting.

I was wrong.

Three months later, my director called me into his office.

A folder was sitting on his desk.

Daniel Zhou’s photograph was clipped to the front.

My steps stopped.

“Why is this here?”

My director removed his glasses.

“Because he applied to join the International Deep-Space Observation Project.”

I sat down.

“That’s an international program.”

“Yes.”

“Then his nationality shouldn’t matter.”

“Normally, no.”

He opened the folder.

“But his background review produced a problem.”

My stomach tightened.

“What problem?”

“During his years at Northbridge, Dr. Zhou participated in a privately funded research project.”

“So?”

“The project wasn’t purely academic.”

He slid a document toward me.

Several sections were redacted.

But I could read enough.

Advanced navigation models.

Satellite tracking.

Restricted computational systems.

Daniel had apparently signed confidentiality agreements without understanding—or perhaps without caring—who ultimately funded the work.

My director continued.

“Years later, some of that research was transferred to an organization under investigation for unauthorized acquisition of sensitive technology.”

I stared at the page.

“Are you saying Daniel sold information?”

“No.”

His answer was immediate.

“There is no evidence that he knowingly committed espionage or any crime.”

That mattered.

“But his work and affiliations triggered a national-security review.”

Now I understood.

His applications weren’t being rejected because someone disliked him.

They weren’t being rejected because he had chosen America.

And they certainly weren’t being rejected because of me.

The issue was what he had become involved with afterward.

“Why are you showing me this?”

My director looked at me carefully.

“Because Daniel listed you as a professional reference.”

I almost laughed from disbelief.

“He did what?”

“He claims you can verify his character and academic motivations during his doctoral years.”

I closed the folder.

“I haven’t worked with him in years.”

“That is what I expected you to say.”

“Then I have nothing useful to add.”

My director nodded.

The meeting ended there.

That evening, Daniel called.

I almost ignored it.

Then I answered.

“You used my name.”

His silence confirmed it.

“Sophia, please listen.”

“You had no right.”

“I was desperate.”

“That still doesn’t give you the right.”

“I just need them to understand I’m not a threat.”

“Then prove that with facts.”

His breathing became uneven.

“I want to come home.”

I looked through the laboratory window at the city lights.

“You chose another home.”

“I was wrong!”

For the first time, Daniel’s voice broke.

“I was arrogant. I thought everything better had to exist somewhere else.”

He paused.

“I thought you would follow me forever.”

That was perhaps the most truthful thing he had ever said.

“I know.”

“Sophia…”

“I hope your case is reviewed fairly.”

His voice became almost a whisper.

“But you won’t help me.”

“I won’t lie for you.”

I ended the call.

Two weeks later, Daniel received another rejection.

But that wasn’t the end.

Because during the background investigation, officials discovered that one document submitted with his citizenship-restoration application had been altered.

Daniel insisted he had never seen it.

His attorney blamed an immigration consultant.

The consultant disappeared.

Then investigators uncovered something stranger.

The altered document had been created years before Daniel ever considered returning.

Its metadata traced back to an old Northbridge research account.

And the registered user of that account wasn’t Daniel.

It was Grace Lin.

When Daniel called me that night, he sounded nothing like the confident man who had once told his friend that women needed to feel insecure.

“Sophia.”

I said nothing.

“There’s something you need to know about Grace.”

“That’s between you and her.”

“No.”

His next words made me sit upright.

“It concerns you too.”

A document arrived on my phone.

I opened it.

It was dated from our final year in Cambridge.

Months before Daniel told me he was moving to America.

My name appeared at the top.

Below it was an application to Northbridge Institute of Technology.

An application I had never submitted.

I stared at the electronic signature.

It looked almost exactly like mine.

Then Daniel whispered:

“Grace wasn’t waiting for me in America by coincidence.”

I felt my fingers turn cold.

“What are you saying?”

“She knew you had once been offered that astrophysics scholarship.”

Silence.

“And someone used your identity to contact Northbridge again.”

I stared at the forged application.

Daniel continued.

“Sophia, five years ago I thought I was the one deciding which of us would go to America.”

His voice dropped.

“But someone had been arranging both our futures long before either of us knew it.”