God.
I’ve been such a fool.
Not just a fool.
A full-on, heart-on-my-sleeve, believe-in-fairytales kind of idiot.
Three years.
Three years of grief.
Three years of carrying around the weight of a marriage I thought I lost.
Three years of telling myself I’d been abandoned, betrayed, discarded.
And now?
Now I find out it wasn’t even real.
A broken laugh trembles in my chest, but I swallow it down before it can escape.
Because it’s not funny.
It’s humiliating.
It’s devastating.
It’s hollow.
Like someone reached inside me and scooped something out.
I close my eyes.
“Stop,” I whisper, barely audible over the hum of the engine.
Because if I let myself go there—if I really start pulling at that thread—I’m going to unravel completely.
And I don’t think I have the strength to put myself back together again.
Not this time.
Last night?
God.
Last night was a mistake.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
That’s the worst part.
I don’t even know anymore.
All I know is I cried myself to sleep.
Curled up in that too-small bed, the sheets twisted around me like they could hold me together when everything inside me was falling apart.
My chest hurt.
