I didn’t wait for her response.Another text from Andrew lit up the screen, but I couldn’t look at it.Couldn’t look athim.
I debated throwing the phone into the garbage, into the toilet, anywhere but with me.
Instead, I shoved it deep in my pocket and ran.
Out of the bathroom.Down the too-bright hall.Past the crowds and noise and lights that felt too loud, too sharp.
I ran like I could outrun her voice, her threat, the trap I’d stumbled into.
But I couldn’t.Not really.
Because her words weren’t just in my head, they were under my skin.
So I ran, and I didn’t know if I was running from her, from him, or from the version of me who’d believed this was love.
Chapter 10
6 Months Ago
When Andrew left the next day, I felt like I could finally breathe.
Like I had been holding my breath since the moment I found out he wasn't cheating on me...he was cheating on his wifewithme.
While he was with me, wrapped in his arms, wrapped in his words and reassurances...I could see it, everything he was telling me...the promises...the words he was using were so perfect.The story of a forced relationship, without love, without hope..until he found me.It sounded just like the fairytale ending he was promising.
What I hadn't learned yet was that fairy tales had vastly different endings depending on the perspective.
I soaked up his promises that he would finally find a way out; he would because I mattered enough to him to finally break free.
But then he left, and in the light of day, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror.
Everything came crashing in on me at once.
The fear that the man whom I thought I would make my entire world revolve around was cheating on me, then a brief moment of relief, where he said he wasn't cheating on me.
And then...
And then.
He was fucking married.
All those warning bells, the flags...all the things I ignored because I loved a man who wasn't mine to love.
Oh god...he wasn't mine.
All the intimate whispers of our future.The house he'd build us.The family we would have.
The kids he so wanted, that I would give him.
I didn't realize I was crying until my tears hit the window I was standing in front of.
I had come to my window to make sure Andrew was gone.
And I hadn't moved, I was frozen, paralyzed by the truth that was slamming down on me from all sides.
I angrily wiped at my face.
This was never how I saw myself.
