So why does it feel like he’s reaching through the phone and dragging me back underwater?
I clear my throat, loudly.
Norah looks up, covering the receiver on her phone. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. My voice sounds thin, brittle. “It’s just… slow. Really slow.”
I grab my keys from the counter, the metal jingling too loudly in the quiet shop.
“I think I’m going to run over to Lorelai’s. Grab some of those cookies we were talking about. Maybe see if they have any fresh bread or anything else stocked. Since the deliveries are delayed, we might as well stock up on carbs.”
Norah’s eyes narrow slightly, studying my face. She has that Omega intuition, that nose for distress. “You sure you’re okay? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” I insist, forcing a smile that feels grotesque. “Just hungry. Cookie craving. You know how it is.”
“Okay…” She doesn’t look convinced, but she’s too polite to push, and Wren is still talking in her ear. “Get me two of the cinnamon ones?”
“You got it.”
I turn and flee out the front door this time, ignoring the bell. The cold air hits me, but I don’t feel it.
I walk quickly to my car, my boots crunching on the salted pavement. I fumble with the key, dropping it once before managing to shove it into the lock.
I dive into the driver’s seat and slam the door shut, sealing myself in the familiar, ugly beige interior.
And then I break.
The sob tears out of me, raw and ragged. It hurts. My whole body hurts—from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes. It’s a physical ache, a deep, throbbing bruise on my soul.
I grip the steering wheel, burying my face in my arms, and let the tears come. I cry for the baby I lost. I cry for the fear that still lives in my bones.
I cry because he won. He got to rewrite the story, and I’m just the footnote, the crazy ex-girlfriend who couldn’t handle it.
I cry until my throat is raw and my eyes are swollen. I cry until I have nothing left, sitting alone in the parking lot, while the snow begins to fall again outside the window.
The paper bag containing the cinnamon sugar cookies sits on the passenger seat, the scent of sugar and spice wafting through the car, taunting me.
I should be driving back to the shop. I should be eating a cookie with Norah and laughing about whatever Wren said on the phone.
Instead, I’m parked outside the local market, staring at the automatic doors like they are the gates of hell.
My hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard my fingers ache. The tears have stopped, leaving me feeling hollowed out and scrubbed raw.
Luke’s voice still echoes in my head, mocking me.You were the problem.
I know better than this. I know the path of self-destruction better than I know the back of my own hand.
It’s been years since I touched the hard stuff—since the whippets and the pills that Stella and I used to chase away the emptiness.
I was never an alcoholic, not really. Liquor was too slow, too messy. I wanted the lights-out switch. I wanted the immediate obliteration of consciousness.
But right now, staring at the fluorescent glow of the market, that old, seductive whisper is back. It would be so easy to grab a bottle. Just to take the edge off. Just to numb the edges of this pain so I don’t feel like I’m bleeding out internally.
A bottle of tequila would burn going down, but it would silence the noise in my brain. It would make me forget that he’s happy. It would make me forget that I’m not.
You’re better now,I tell myself.You have Maisie.
But Maisie isn’t here. Maisie is at school, safe and unaware. And I’m just a woman with a broken heart and a car.
