Delete.
Grace
Marcus, I know you don't want to hear from me, but this is important.
Too desperate. I could hear his voice in my head, dismissive and impatient:Grace, we've been over this.
Delete.
I typed and deleted five different versions. Six. Seven. Each one felt wrong in a different way. Too angry. Too cold. Too pathetic. Too weak.
My hands were shaking again. The cursor blinked at me, patient and merciless, waiting for words I couldn't find.
Finally, I settled on simple.
Grace
I need to talk to you. It's important. Call me.
No details. No explanations. Just a request. He could ignore it, but at least he'd know. At least the door would be open.
I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
The bounce-back came within seconds.
Delivery Status Notification (Failure): The email account you tried to reach does not exist.
I stared at the screen. The words blurred, sharpened, blurred again. I refreshed my inbox. Checked that I'd typed the address correctly.
I had. The same address I'd been emailing for over a decade. The address where I'd sent him articles I thought he'd like, photos from the B&B, silly memes that made me think of him, and little notes just to say I was thinking of him. Hundreds of emails over eleven years—maybe thousands—a whole archive of our relationship reduced to:does not exist.
Gone. His phone. His email. All of it.
Like I'd never existed at all.
I closed the laptop slowly. Set it on the nightstand. Pressed my palms flat against my thighs, feeling the fabric of my jeans, the warmth of my own skin. Something solid. Something real.
Eleven years together. Two years engaged. A lifetime of memories, of plans, of love that I'd thought meant something.
And he'd erased me so completely that the news had nowhere to land.
That night, I did something stupid.
I opened Instagram.
I don't know what drove me to it. Some masochistic impulse, maybe. The need to see proof that he was real, that our relationship had been real, that I hadn't imagined eleven years of my life.
Marcus's account had always been private. He was careful about his digital footprint, paranoid about clients finding personal information. I'd teased him about it once, called him old-fashioned. He'd just shrugged and said some things were meant to stay private.
The account was public now.
I scrolled. Each photo felt like a knife sliding between my ribs.
Marcus and Emma were at a rooftop bar, the Denver skyline glittering behind them. She was wearing a dress that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget, laughing at something off-camera. Marcus had his arm around her waist. Possessive. Comfortable. The way he used to hold me, back when he still touched me like I mattered.
Marcus and Emma went hiking, posed at the summit of some mountain I didn't recognize. Matching athletic wear. Matching smiles. The caption said something aboutfinding your adventure partner. Forty-seven likes. Comments full of heart emojis.
Marcus and Emma were at a gallery opening. His hand was on her lower back, guiding her through the crowd. The same hand that used to rest on my shoulder in the kitchen, back when he still noticed I was there.
