Chapter 1
Esme
The bay is quiet tonight. Alki beach is lovely. A strip of heaven right in the city. Tonight it’s a black velvet paradise, city lights shimmering and undulating along the flat surface. I remember the first time I stood here. James took me for lunch in the Junction—a little artsy restaurant surrounded by artsy shops dotting artsy streets. Every other building had a mural painted on the side. Some were old. Brick. Full of character. The people that flowed down the street all seemed sovibrant.
Seattle’s skyline is beautiful during the day, but at night, it’s something else. From the water, it almost looks like one big castle, all the lights and forms jutting and flowing into each other. It somehow seems so small. Usually it’s the other way around. I’m the one who is tiny. Insignificant.Alone.
I stared at the ceiling for hours tonight. The house was perfect. Too perfect. A dream. Everything I wanted since I was a little girl. It was too quiet, like my unhappiness had settled into its foundation and was slowly seeping up, creeping into the air, filling up my lungs until I suffocated. I finally rolled out of bed, tugged on clothes, grabbed my keys, and hurtled into my car. I sat on the driveway for a moment, panting like I was being chased, but there was nothing. No one. Only the still, quiet peace of a prestigious neighborhood at one in the morning.
I parked and walked down to the beach.
I walked down the sand, studying the skyline from the water, trying to inhale some of that peace that I craved so badly earlier. My breathing hasn’t settled much. I sink down onto the sand and draw my knees up. I wrap my arms around them, uncaring that I could ruin a three hundred dollar pair of pants, or that I should have grabbed jeans and not dressed like I was going to the office. I wore heels too. They were the first thing I saw when I opened the closet. They’ve fallen on the sand beside me. I carried them from the grass and let the cool sand tickle the soles of my feet as I walked.
I look out over the water. Even in summer, it’s cold. Elliot Bay belongs to the Puget Sound, which is part of the Pacific Ocean. During the day, the salt waters are host to all forms of life. People even swim here.
At night, it’s silent. The waves lap the beach like tender kisses. They’re drowned out by the dull hum of the city. Of life happening even in the middle of the night. My eyes find the horizon, where the black sky and the dark water meet.
Alone out here, I can admit that it’s over. It’s been over since it began.
I was so determined to hold it together with the neat stitches of my unfailing love. The glue of my determination. I gathered up the tatters every time, the broken edges, smoothing them out and clamping it all up together with patience.
I just turned thirty. James treated my birthday like the beginning of the end. Like I should be entering into mycrisisasawomanera. He joked that it was fillers and compensating from here on out. I don’t know why he even pretended to care. He’s not interested in having children, so it’s not like mybiological clock matters. What does it even matter what I look like when he’s never cared about that either? Never fully noticed me, or listened to me, or even wanted me?
I was justthere. The girl others wanted, so of course he had to have me. To the world, we’ve always been perfect. The cheerleader and the quarterback. Rags to riches high school sweethearts. Soulmates and lovers who set each other on fire and grow old together.
It’s all bullshit. It always was.
I scramble upright. It’s harder to get a footing in the sand, but I do. I abandon shoes that cost over a grand. Who’s out here to take them anyway?
I hurtle toward the water’s edge and I don’t stop when I reach it. The water is shockingly cold. It numbs my skin immediately. The wet sand shifts beneath my feet. The water appears so calm on the surface, but underneath, it’s always moving. Down here, there is so much life. Unseen. Unknown. So many mysteries and creatures the world probably doesn’t even know about. I walk out further, the salty waves soaking my pants, ruining them. It numbs my ankles, then my calves, then reaches my knees.
I don’t stop.
I walk until the water is waist deep, until the current pulls at my legs, until it sucks and licks and tempts me with seductive little slithers.
What if I just kept walking?
I mean, I know what would happen. Eventually, the ground would give way and I’d float. I’d swim.
I don’t want to die.
This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve truly wanted tolive.
My birthdaywasthe beginning of an end. The end to a fifteen-year-old girl who thought the world stopped because James Avery looked at her. The end of a sixteen-year-old who would do anything to be liked. The end to every version of me every day after who has been obsessed with perfection, because perfection meant not being like my parents. The end to the me that stopped feeling, stopped caring, stopped hoping. The end to the me that fell out of love with a man who hasn’t ever once treasured me the way I should be. The end to a woman who believed that she deserved nothing more, because she already hadeverythingthat people said mattered.
I wrench the diamond ring off my finger and let the weight of it settle in my palm. Forty thousand dollars. This ring costs more than a car. I want to hurl it, to send it flying into the dark waters and let it sink lower and lower, let it return back to the earth, but the girl in me who grew up listening to her parents screaming about money, and all the parts of me that clawed, tooth and nail to end up here, stops me.
Maybe it’s just common sense.
Even if I don’t want this ring, someone else would. I could sell it and someone else could use the money. A shelter. Families. Children who are hungry. Women escaping from violent men. People who have a world falling apart around them.
Even though my heart is still racing, I tuck the ring into my pocket. I turn and trudge slowly out of the water. Sand coats my feet and my pants, inside and out. It rubs against mylegs, chafing them raw as I gather up my shoes and walk barefoot back to the car.
I’ve lost my fear of the night. I’ve lost my fear ofallof it. Leaving. Leaving behind this life that mattered more than anything. Leaving a man who has been anything to me but faithful. Leaving a house that never felt like home. Maybe even leaving a job that I’ve thrown myself into just so that I could find a shred of purpose. This isn’t a life of gold. It’s always been pyrite. Shimmering. Glittering. Worthless.
I grasp the wheel for a moment before I push the button on the dash. I pull out of the parking space and head home. Four days. When James is back, I’m going to tell him. We’re not getting married. We’re not staying together. We can split the assets we have. It’s not going to be much, given that everything is on payments. If he wants it all… whatever. He can have it.
I’ll sell the ring tomorrow. Before he can ask for it back. I’ll donate the money.
