The bearded man blinks, his brown eyes etched with sympathy. “It’s on the house.”
For the next hour, I toss axes at a target.
It’s cathartic until Olive’s phone rings, and she steps away from our throwing stall.
“Hey, Jillian, what’s up?” she asks softly.
I turn away from the lane, my ears pricked, eager to hear what’s going down at the crime scene where my marriage was pronounced dead on arrival at four forty-five on a Saturday.
Olive’s jaw drops to the wood shavings on the floor. “For real?”
I groan in misery, my axe in hand, my heart in my throat. What now? I don’t know how this day could get worse, but I’m certain it’s about to.
Olive hangs up, takes a bracing breath, and says, “They’re flying to Dublin right now. They’re taking your honeymoon. He just posted it on social. They’re at the airport on their way.” She winces in sincere sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
But fuck sympathy. Fuck my mom. Fuck my ex.
I see red. I see all the bull’s-eyes in the world.
I turn to the target, raise the axe over my head, channel all the rage, and throw. The blade slices deep into the bull’s-eye.
Then I spin around, dust one hand against the other, and adopt a smile.
Apparently, I am making my way through the seven or seventy stages of getting-left-at-the-altar grief, lickety-split.
And right now, I’ve entered the burn-his-stuff-down phase.
“Can you guys go to my apartment, get rid of all of Silvio’s things, change the locks, and then bring me a key?”
The answer from everyone is a resoundinghell, yes.
***
A few hours later, the deed is done.
My ex-fiancé has been kicked out of my place, where we lived together for the last month.
Good riddance. The man can’t tie a bow tie but can untie the knot like Benedict Arnold.
I push open the door and enter my now emptier apartment, fearful of how much it’ll hurt.
I brace myself as I drink it in.
His stacks of hardcover biographies are gone from the coffee table.
His framed photographs of moody skylines are nowhere to be seen.
His paintbrushes have vamoosed from the kitchen.
What’s left are my pink and purple pillows scattered across the couch, myWine is my friendcorkscrew on the kitchen counter, and myFor Fox Sakecollection of pun art hanging on the walls.
This home is for someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously.
Only, I did take commitment seriously.
I sure as hell did.
And he did not. So I suppose I’m glad he showed his true colors now. Glad he revealed his trickery before I saidI do.
