Without thinking, I drag the lipstick across the bathroom mirror, my hand steady as I form each letter… FUCK YOU.
I lean forward and press my lips against the glass, leaving a perfect scarlet imprint beside my message—the kiss of death to our marriage.
“Kori?” Jen’s urgent whisper reaches me. “A car just pulled into the driveway. Not Mark’s—it’s a blue sedan.”
Lana. It has to be.
I take one last look at my handiwork—my declaration of independence written in MAC Ruby Woo—and smile. Let him see it when he comes home. Let him know exactly what I think of his unfaithfulness.
I grab my packed bag and rush to where Jen is waiting, her eyes widening when she sees my transformation.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You look...”
“Unhinged?” I suggest running my fingersthrough my jagged hair.
“Magnificent,” she corrects, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Like the Kori I remember.”
Both our eyes zero in on the front door as the sound of keys sliding into the lock ricochets off the walls of the foyer.
“Back door,” I hissed, grabbing her hand. We slip out through the kitchen just as I hear the lock in the front door click.
“Fuck, I need my inhaler!” I whisper as I yank open the kitchen drawer where I keep my spare ones.
My fingers fumble through the drawer, searching desperately for the familiar plastic inhaler. The stress is already making my chest tight, and the last thing I need is an asthma attack while fleeing my own home.
“Got it,” I breathe, clutching the inhaler as we slip out the back door.
In Jen’s car, heart pounding, I duck down as we drive past Lana’s parked car. She doesn’t see us.
“That was close,” Jen says, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
Nodding, I sit up once we’re safely away, touching my newly shorn hair. “I need a ticket to Ireland.”
“Already on it,” Jen says, handing me her phone. On the screen is a booking page for a flight leavingtonight. “I started looking while you were packing.”
“Tonight?” I ask, startled.
“The sooner the better,” she says firmly. “Before you change your mind. Before they try to talk you into forgiveness.”
She’s right. If I stay, there will be explanations, tears, promises. Mark will try to charm his way back, and part of me—the part that’s spent five years loving him—might be tempted to believe him.
“Book it,” I say, a strange calm settling over me.
∞∞∞
Two hours later, I’m boarding a plane with nothing but a carry-on suitcase and a one-way ticket. The woman at the check-in counter had raised an eyebrow at my lack of return flight, but I just smiled my new, wild smile and said, “I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back.”
Jen walks me to the security checkpoint and hugs me fiercely.
“Here.” She thrusts a phone into my hands. “It’s my old one, I already activated it for international texting and calling. Promise you’ll check in,” she demands. “And remember, you’re not running away—you’re running toward something. Yourself.”
My own phone buzzes in my pocket, and without looking at it, I already know it’s either Mark or Lana. I pull it from my pocket and hand it to her. “Throw this out the window on your way home, will you?”
She gives me a watery smile and nods, “Of course.”
Over the loudspeaker, we hear that my gate is open for boarding.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her as we hug for the last time, and for the first time today, I actually believe it.
