“No, they won’t,” Evie said.
She stripped the sheets from the bed and carried them outside to the ninety-six-gallon trash receptacle. Garbage collection had taken place this morning. If she had been paying close enough attention, it would have registered that the garbage bin was in its spot next to the side steps and not at the curb where she’d dragged it before leaving this morning. Cameron must have brought it in prior to screwing the nurse.
There were always signs. She just hadn’t looked close enough.
As she made her way back inside the house, Evie’s steps faltered as reality set in. Her world had changed. It had cracked and shattered right here on her grandmother’s polished hardwood floors, the one thing she had not stripped from the house.
She dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged, burying her face in her hands and fighting against the onslaught of emotions that threatened to suffocate her.
What was she supposed to do now? There was no way she could continue working at the practice. It provided access to too many sharp objects, and as of an hour ago, she had developed a penchant for violence she hadn’t thought herself capable of.
But where else can you go?
She had only ever worked at Maple Street Animal Clinic, the veterinary practice Cameron’s father had opened forty years ago and, after retiring, had passed on to his youngest son. Evie had joined Cam at the practice the week aftershefinished vet school. She had continued to work there even after their last breakup. It had been a delicate, two-month-long exercise of walking on eggshells while around each other and engaging in perfunctory conversion when warranted.
But that wouldn’t work this time. There was no way she could practice alongside Cameron. Not after this. He’d crossed her red line. He knew infidelity was the one thing she could never, ever forgive.
Evie threw her head back and screamed at the ceiling.
“My God, Cam, how could you do this to me?”
She’d put more of herself into this relationship than he deserved. Putting her own reputation on the line when a patient sued him for negligence, even though she was never sure if she believed his account of what happened that day. Forgiving him when she learned he’d racked up over a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt—and helping him pay it off. Always making concessions for whathewanted to do, wherehewanted to travel, howhewanted to live!
And how had he repaid her? By fucking another woman in their bed.
Evie pressed her fist to her lips. The anger and hurt tightening her chest made it difficult to breathe.
“How could you hurt me like this, Cameron?” she whispered.
She doubted she would ever get an answer. Not that the answer mattered. She was done.
CHAPTER TWO
Evie pointed the remote at the television and fast-forwarded to the beginning of the scene inJerry Maguirewhere Dorothy and Jerry decide their relationship is no longer working. She snuggled more securely underneath the crochet blanket she’d dragged from the closet and looked on as, with aching sadness, Renée Zellweger told Tom Cruise that it was her fault for believing she was in love enough for the both of them.
Evie tried to summon a tear—she always cried at this part—but she couldn’t manage a drop, not even when Dorothy cradled Jerry’s head and pressed a kiss to the top of it.
“Thank goodness,” Evie sighed.
Her muscles relaxed with the welcomed relief of realizing she had finally achieved that sweet nirvana she’d been striving for since she put Cameron out of the house yesterday: Numbness. Blessed, beautiful numbness.
She stopped the movie just before Jerry showed up atDorothy’s house for the famous grovel scene and went in search of another movie with a meaty breakup. Maybe Marcus and Angela’s inBoomerang? Or what about Allie and Noah’s inThe Notebook? The breakup scene when they were teenagers, not the second one when they were adults. If she didn’t stop the movie in time and had to witness that passionate kiss in the rain between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, she may spontaneously combust. That would ruin her grandmother’s beautiful blanket.
“Oh, this is a good one,” Evie said. She waited for the opening credits ofLa La Landto start, then skipped to the scene where Sebastian showed up late to Mia’s play.
“Asshole,” Evie whispered.
The past twenty-four hours had consisted of watching the breakup scene of every romantic movie she could find. But only the breakup; she refused to watch the couple get back together. She wasn’t in the mood for that bullshit, happily-ever-after propaganda. Happily-ever-afters were for fairy tales. In the real world, even when you gave your everything to a relationship, it wasn’t enough.
Evie rubbed her breastbone with her fist. It had to be indigestion causing the sudden sting there because she’d just established that she no longer felt any emotion at all. She’d attained the numbness stage of the grieving process, and she would cling to it for as long as possible.
Her cell phone started dancing across the coffee table. Evie reached for it, intending to decline the call, but when she noticed her best friend Ashanti’s name—this was the fourth time she’d called today—she decided she’d better answer.
“Hello,” Evie croaked, muting the television.
“Girl, where in the heck have you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone? Do I need to send a search party out looking for you?”
“I’m sorry,” Evie said. “I had my phone on silent.” She pushed herself up from her prone position on the sofa and pulled one leg underneath her. “What’s up?”
