And Chase—God, Chase knows how to play that audience.
I can see him now, polished to perfection, sliding into the same pew every Sunday with his tie knotted just so. Head bowed, voice heavy, letting himself be caught in the spotlight of pity.Pray for me. She left. I don’t know why. I did everything I could. She didn’t even say goodbye. Took off like a thief in the night while I was out of town.
He’ll paint himself as the abandoned husband, a noble victim. And the congregation, his friends and coworkers, everyone will eat it up, will nod and murmur and pat his shoulder, will fold him into prayers and well wishes with the kind of sympathy that makes me the villain without ever saying the word or considering that every word out of his mouth is bullshit.
The shame flares sharp, hot. But right on its heels comes something harder. A low, coiled defiance.
Let them whisper. Let him make a show of being abandoned. Let him cry crocodile tears into offering plates and soak up the sympathy. He can perform sainthood until the end of time, but he can’t rewrite what happened inside our walls. They didn’t live my life. They didn’t survive his refusal to heal from his own goddamn trauma.
Skye taps the steering wheel to a song on the radio I can’t name. She glances over, a half-smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. “You okay?” she asks, like she’s asking about the weather and not the slow collapse of my former life.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I will be.”
My throat tightens. I stare out the window, watching power lines blur into sky. “I just keep imagining all the bullshit being said about me back home. What they’re probably whispering in Moraine. How Chase is probably showing up to church everySunday looking like a martyr, making me the villain in his fucking sob story.”
Skye snorts. One hand on the wheel, she takes my hand with the other and squeezes. “Let them talk. We never liked those motherfuckers anyway.”
“Very true,” I laugh.
“And besides,” she continues. “If I hear of one person calling you the villain in his sad little sob story, I’ll drive up there myself, punch those snooty bitches in the vag, and light the church pews on fire. Metaphorically.” She pauses, then adds, “Or not.”
Another laugh hiccups out of me. It’s small and crooked, but it’s real, and laughing definitely helps to ease the tension and stress I’ve felt all morning. “You can’t punch every person who has an opinion.”
“Watch me.” She slants me a look, then softens. “Let them whisper whatever bullshit they want, T. They don’t know shit. They don’t get a vote.”
Let them whisper.The words flare warm in my chest, quick as a match. Maybe that’s the only answer there is. Let them whisper. Let them talk themselves hoarse while I sign the papers that release me to build a life they won’t recognize. Let them call it failure, while I call it truly,finallyliving.
We turn off the main drag into the heart of downtown, the part with the string lights crisscrossing overhead and the little boutiques stacked shoulder to shoulder with cafés and bookstores. The kind of street that looks pretty on a postcard. Skye practically lives down here—her coffee shop is just up ahead, the front windows already buzzing with mid-morning traffic.
A block down from it, the vibe shifts—less cozy charm, more clean and clinical. Glass windows, cold symmetry, metal letters gleaming across the façade:Sterling Law Group. The kind of signage that sayswe winbefore you even step inside.
My pulse hammers. I smooth my blouse, which is suddenly the wrong fabric, the wrong weight, the wrong life. The pumpspinch. I deserve better shoes than this.Did these shoes just become a metaphor? Probably. But I’m the math geek, not the English nerd.
“Okay,” Skye says, as much to herself as to me. She pulls into a lot where the lines are freshly painted and the landscaping has zero personality but is definitely judging us. “We go in. We do the consult. If he’s a good fit, we move forward. If he’s not, we walk out and get someone different. Either way, when this is over, we get obscene mimosas.”
“Giant margarita glass mimosas,” I correct her.
“Giant margarita glass mimosas,” she echoes.
We sit there for a beat, both of us staring at the building like it might blink. My mouth is dry. “It looks… expensive.”
“Good,” Skye says. “Expensive is the energy we want.”
I nod because it’s that or laugh until I cry. My hand finds the door handle, slips, finds it again. The seatbelt catches when I try to get out too fast, tugging me back like a toddler on a leash. I take that as a sign to slow down, breathe, and unbuckle like a normal adult human—not a person who requires child locks.
Outside, the air has teeth. Cold bites the naked slice of my ankle between my pant hem and pump. Somewhere a truck rattles by, and a woman in a pencil skirt clips across the lot like a woman on a mission. I wonder if she, too, ever stood in front of a door and thought she might explode from the inside out. And if she has, did anyone notice?
We walk side by side-ish, Skye’s boots thudding confident and sure, my pumps clacking behind like they’re trying to keep up. I wish my heels sounded as confident as the other woman from a few seconds ago, but they don’t. Her’s were more of aclick click click, and mine are definitely moreclunk.
Ah, yes. The difference between a woman to be desired and a woman to be pitied. I wonder if her shoes were also gray? Doubtful.
The glass doors loom. I can see us in them—Skye’s braids, mycareful blouse, the way we lean slightly toward each other. A small, stubborn unit.
We stop at the threshold.Deja fucking vu. I stare at the handle like it’s the same one from our apartment, like I’ve been walking a slow circle and landed right back where I started.
Here’s the truth I don’t say out loud: I am both the woman who can do this and the girl who wants to run. I am both the version of me that stayed too long and the one who finally left. I am a thousand messy contradictions mashed into a person who can barely stand upright in these stupid, clunky, pinchy gray pumps.
Skye nudges my arm with her elbow. “Want me to open it?”
