This isn’t real. It can’t be…but my engagement ring biting into my clenched palm tells me otherwise.
“Are you serious, James? In our house? While your ring is still on my finger?” My voice cracks, splitting the air like a gunshot. I barely recognize the sound. It’s like someone else is speaking in my place as I take in the wreckage unfolding before me.
The woman’s eyes flash wide with panic, her shame painted across her face. She scrambles, her hands moving in desperate, frantic motions, grabbing at the discarded fabric on the floor as if she can somehow undo what’s been done.
From a distance, I can tell she’s pretty. Long blonde hair, symmetrical features, and smooth skin. There’s also more.Waymore. She’s got curves in all the places I don’t with an obvious and unfair advantage in the chest department.
Was I not enough for him? Not delicate enough, not striking enough, not the kind of woman who stops a man dead in his tracks and makes him forget everything else?
James jolts upright the second he sees me and clambers to his feet…but when he steps forward it’s not towards me.
It’s towardsher. He plants himself between us, his stance rigid and defensive. His arm rises instinctively, a shield to block her, to protect her from me, as ifI’mthe threat.
As if his loyalties lie with her now.
“Juliette, I?—”
He says my name like he forgot I still lived here. Like my name tastes sour in his mouth.
His eyes flicker toward me for a second, then dart away. He shifts on his feet, looking anywhere but at me.
I stare at him and for a second, I wonder if this is what heartbreak actually looks like. If it always comes wrapped in soft lighting and bare skin and laughter that isn’t yours.
I should be angry, right? How dare he look at me—or not look at me—like I’m the thing causing his pain? But instead, I feel small, almost hollow. I feel invisible in a way that’s deeper than just being ignored. It’s like the person I used to be to him doesn’t exist anymore.
A six-year relationship, gone in the blink of an eye. Just…over. I don’t even want to know the details of whatever mess I’ve been blind to or the lies he’s spun that have woven themselves into everything I thought was real.
I can’t fix this. I don’t evenwantto.
“Don’t.” I cut off whatever pathetic excuse he’s about to offer. “There’s nothing you can say that changes what I just saw.”
The truth burns as it leaves my mouth, but I won’t let the tears behind my eyes spill. I refuse to give these two the satisfaction of seeing me break.
I walk past them without another word. Their eyes follow me, wide and startled, likeI’mthe one who’s shattered something delicate.
The bag is right where I left it, perched on the corner of the dining room table. God, that was just this morning. It feels like another lifetime.
My fingers close tight around the strap, knuckles white and pleading with the canvas for an ounce of steadiness. It doesn’t work. My hand still shakes.
I glance down at my left hand and the ring I’ve twirledabsentmindedly a thousand times. I’ve worn it like a second skin. Now it’s cold. Heavy. Wrong.
I tug it free. It slides off with unsettling ease, and I let it fall onto the hall table on my way to the door.
I don’t look down. Don’t look back.
I just go.
Behind me, there’s a frantic rustle of denim against skin, the clumsy thud of feet hitting the floor. James swears under his breath, fumbling to pull himself together as he races after me.
“Juliette, wait!”
My name rips out of him as the door swings open, but I don’t turn around. I don’t have it in me, and yet, I catch him out of the corner of my eye anyway. His gaze wild, hair a chaotic mess from wheremyhands were in it hours ago.Hours. Jesus.
My legs keep moving because stopping might just kill me. There’s no plan, just the mindless push of feet on concrete. Down the steps. Across the driveway. The world around me fades, everything wrapped in a suffocating fog as the rest of my heart splinters into a thousand scattered pieces.
I press a hand to my chest, as if holding myself together will somehow stop the unraveling. But it’s no use. The image of James’s body tangled with hers on the same couch where we used to whisper about forever is etched into my brain like a burn I’ll never heal from.
His laugh, once warm, oncemine, is now a weapon that slices through every memory I have of him.
