But for tonight, I'll shut down analytical, logical Dahlia and just allow myself to wallow in misery. I reach for my favorite robe, but when I see it stuffed into the trash, the tears start up all over again. Breaking my own rule about using the decorative guest bath towels, I grab two and wrap my hair and body, then trudge back to my closet to find the rattiest, most comfortable sweats I own.
When I open my sock drawer to grab my fuzzy slipper socks, my breath catches. All of the pictures of us—the snapshots I lovingly framed and arranged just so on our shared dresser—are stuffed inside, hidden away as if they were nothing. Key moments of Ben and me frozen in the timeline of our life together, forever immortalized, shoved in here as if they don’t matter. As if they never mattered.
As ifInever mattered.
I grab the entire stack and flip through them, recognizing a pattern. One I hadn’t noticed before. They all highlight him and his achievements. I’ve continually helped him move forward, prioritizing his successes above my own—his lab work, his research, his doctorate, his appointment as a professor.
Hell, even our engagement and marriage were scheduled to accommodate his academic calendar. I would have married him years ago. Thanks the gods for small favors.
In each one, he looks at the camera while I gaze at him adoringly. I feel so damn stupid. Everything was about him, and I blindly followed along.
When I reach the photo from our engagement party, my stomach twists. Standing in the crowd of our university colleagues, Ben’s friends really, I seeher. Felicia stands at the fringe, lips pressed tight, fists clenched at her sides. How did I not see it? How long has this been happening? Months? Years?
But now that I’ve seen it, it’s so damn obvious. She’s been there all along in the sidewings. Or maybe she’s been center stage. I thought Ben and I were equally devoted not just to each other, but also to our work and shared future. But now I see the truth: it was painfully one-sided.
I gather the pictures to my chest and storm out to the backyard, grabbing the gas for the mower and the fireplace lighter from the garage along the way. The fire pit is already stacked with wood, and I give it a generous soaking of the accelerant, a maniacal grin splitting my face.
I hold up our engagement photo, studying the frozen moment of fake happiness under the fading twilight. For one ridiculous second, I almost pull it back, the weight of what we’d built together tugging at my hand. But then I remember the look on his face when I caught him in the shower—wide-eyed, not with guilt, but with surprise that he’d been caught. Not a trace of shame. Not a shred of remorse.
Not even a fucking apology.
With finality, I light the corner of the frame, my satisfaction growing as hot orange flames lick up the cardboard backing. I toss it into the pit and flames shoot up into the sky with a satisfying whoosh as the fire roars to life, and for the first time in weeks, so do I.
“Yeah! Take that, fucker!” I whoop into the night, pumping my fist as adrenaline surges through my veins and the fire burns brighter—just like me.
I’m done feeling hopeless. I don’t need Ben to help me figure this out—he never helped me. I’ve been the one researching, planning, and holding everything together. The realization hits me like a tidal wave, resolve and independence surging through me with a force I can’t ignore.
I march back inside, dumping out a basket of laundry onto the floor and filling it with his things. His favorite hat. The photo albums I spent hours making for his milestones. Hiscollection of journals he’d been published in. And with a wicked smile, I raid his underwear drawer.
Grabbing handfuls, I toss his absurdly expensive briefs into the basket, barely able to keep from laughing. Who spends this much on underwear? They’re just another reminder of how pretentious he is, how everything about him screams self-importance.
As I walk through the kitchen on my way back outside, I throw a bag of chips on top, a tub of ice cream with a spoon, and the bottle of expensive tequila he had been saving for a “special occasion.” After all, I think this qualifies.
Flopping into one of the Adirondack chairs that surround the firepit, I try to get comfortable for my conflagration celebration, but I hate them. I’ve always hated these stupid chairs. Ben is the one who had loved them because they looked “perfect,” but I found them awkward and impossible to get out of with my petite height.
I wrestle my way out of it, turn around, pick it up, and hurl it out into the yard for all I’m worth. What my throw lacks in distance, it makes up for in satisfaction when the dumb thing breaks with a crack as it bounces on the lawn.
“Stupid chair,” I mutter, brushing my hands off like I’m dusting off his pretentiousness.
I grab a folding chair and a sleeping bag from the garage instead and stomp back to the firepit. It’s easier to sit in, but nothing about this night feels comfortable. The fire is starting to die down, so I start feeding it my pilfered items as I steadily make my way through the tub of ice cream, the bag of chips, and Ben’s expensive tequila.
“Cheers, fucker,” I mutter, raising it in mock toast to the fire before taking a swig straight from the bottle. I sputter and cough, but choke it down, welcoming the heat that follows in its wake.
Repeating the process—swig, toss, swig, toss—I’m surprisedto find just how quickly the laundry basket, and the tequila, empties.
Despite my best efforts—the fiery revenge, the snacks, the booze—the hollow ache inside me refuses to burn away. The throbbing emptiness spills over, carving hot, salty tracks down my cheeks. I shove another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth and chase it with another swig of tequila.
The flames are starting to die down, flickering lower and lower as the last bits of Ben’s life disintegrate. For the first time since walking into that bathroom, I feel the weight of it all hit me.
This was my life, too. Carefully built, brick by brick, around someone who never gave me a second thought. Everything I burned tonight wasn’t just his—it was the version of me that bent over backward to keep him happy. I spent years making myself small so he could take up more space.
Never again.
Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I let my fuzzy gaze drift to the edge of the woods. Even though I’m half a world away, I find myself scanning for those silver eyes again. Their absence triggers an ache within me—irrational, impossible, and yet so visceral.
A desperate, relentless need to see them again curls in my gut, even in this drunken, grief-slicked haze. There is nothing left for me here. The life I built is gone. And if I don’t find that plant, things will only get worse.
The flickering embers bring me back to that last night in India, to the firepit where I sat, staring across the river at those silvery, luminescent eyes in the woods. Whatever is pulling me back to that place isn’t finished with me yet.
