I am happy for them.Really.
It’s just, my life kind of sucks right now.
People are laughing around us.
Glasses clink.
Someone’s kid runs past, waving a sparkler like a tiny drunk firework.
It should feel festive.Sweet.
Instead, I feel like I’m watching it all from the outside.
Because somewhere out there my ex-husband is probably living it up with his teenage bride, spending money he stole from me like he earned it.
My money.My son’s college fund.The equity in our house.
My stomach twists.
God, I hate that Mike still sneaks into my thoughts like this.Not even because I miss him—because I don’t.
I really don’t.
If I’m being honest?I feel relieved that he’s gone.
And that realization makes me feel like the worst person in the world.
Because I should be grieving twenty-something years of my life, shouldn’t I?I should be heartbroken.
But instead, I just feel lighter.
Except, of course, for the doubt he left behind.
That part stuck.The part that tells me I’m to blame.
That I’m too old.
Too soft.
Too much.
Too fat.
Too tired.
Too boring.
It turns out, when a man says those things to you long enough, they stick like burrs under your skin.
And the worst part?A tiny voice in the back of your mind starts whispering that maybe he was right.
My gaze drifts across the yard and lands back on the man sitting beside me.
J.T.Lawrence.
The man looks like he belongs on the cover of some ridiculous billionaire romance novel—big shoulders, thick dark hair threaded with gray, a jaw that looks like it could split granite.
He’s got the kind of presence that makes people instinctively step aside when he walks into a room.
