Chapter 33
Mary
Idon’t move. I don’t breathe.
Evan leans his shoulder against my bedroom doorframe like it’s a Casual Friday and he just wandered in from the kitchen.
He’s got that soft-eyed look that used to read “sweet” before I learned it meant nothing.
There’s a fading split on his lip—Boris’s work—and a yellow bruise peeking under stubble.
He notices me noticing and tips his chin like a dare.
“Yeah,” he says. “Your boyfriend hits like a truck.”
“He’s not my—” I start, then stop. My throat closes on the lie.
He smirks. “Sure.”
I step inside, keep my bag on my shoulder, fingers curled tight around the strap. My keys are still in my hand. My watch and the bracelet Anton made me wear feel heavy all of a sudden, like ankle weights on my wrist.
“What are you doing here, Evan?”
I look around the apartment.
His gym bag’s tossed in the corner. Sneakers by the couch. Like he’s been here for hours. Waiting.
“Evan.” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. “Why are you here?”
He laughs, running a hand through his hair. “What do you think? I came to see you. After that psycho boyfriend of yours sucker-punched me.” He touches his jaw, wincing for effect. “Nice company you’re keeping these days.”
My heart hammers against my ribs. “How did you get in?”
“Spare key.” He jangles it between his fingers like a trophy. “The one I never gave back. Good thing, too, since you’ve been avoiding me.”
I’ve been avoiding him? He dumped me. Via text. With a ring emoji.
“Evan, you need to leave.” I keep my voice level, reasonable. The same tone I used at the bank when customers got difficult. “We broke up. You made that clear.”
His face shifts. The easy smile cracks, showing something uglier underneath.
“Yeah, about that. See, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I was too hasty.”
“Too hasty?” The words scrape out of my throat. “You called me boring. You said you didn’t see this going anywhere. You blocked me.”
“I was stressed.” He takes a step closer. I take one back. “Work’s been hell. Sandy from Palm Springs turned out to be a total bitch. And then I realized…” Another step. “I realized I missed you.”
Sandy. So that’s her name. The woman he was cheating with while I was buying my own Valentine’s Day chocolates and pretending not to notice the lipstick on his collar that wasn’t mine.
“You missed me?” Something hot and sharp rises in my chest. “Or you missed having someone to take for granted?”
His eyebrows lift. “Wow. Okay. That’s new.” He looks me up and down, taking in my clothes, my hair. “What happened to you? You look… different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Uppity. Like you think you’re better than me now.” His voice has an edge to it I’ve never heard before. “That guy you’re screwing really got in your head, huh?”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharp. “Don’t talk about him.”
“Why? You embarrassed?” Evan laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “You should be. Guy looks like a felon. What’s he got that I don’t?”
Everything. The thought hits me so hard I almost say it out loud. Anton’s never made me feel small. Never made me apologize for existing. Never made me beg for scraps of attention like a starving dog.
But I don’t say any of that. Because Evan’s moving closer, and something in his posture makes my skin crawl.
“Look,” he says, voice going soft and reasonable. “I know I screwed up. I know I hurt you. But we can fix this. Six years, Mary. You can’t just throw that away.”
“You threw it away.” My voice is shaking now. “You cheated on me. For months.”
“That wasn’t—” He stops. Blinks. “How did you—? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Sandy was a mistake. You’re what’s real.”
I want to laugh. Or scream. Or both. “I’m real? I’m real? Where was that when you forgot my birthday three years in a row? When you made me sleep on the wet spot? When you never once, in six years, made me—”
“Made you what?” His voice drops, dangerous.
I stop. Because I almost said it. Almost told him he never made me come. That I faked it every single time because it was easier than explaining what I needed. Easier than seeing that look on his face—the one that said I was asking for too much.
“Nothing,” I whisper.
“No, finish it.” He’s close enough now that I can smell the gym on him. Sweat and desperation and that damn cologne. “What didn’t I make you do?”
“Evan, just… just go. Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” His hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my wrist. Not tight enough to bruise, but firm enough to make his point. “Not until we talk this out.”
“Let go of me.”
“Mary.” His grip tightens slightly. “I lost my job last week. Sandy dumped me the day after. I’ve got nothing left. Nothing except—”
Ah. There it is. The penny drops so hard it echoes in my chest. This is why he’s here. Not because of me. Not because of love. Because his shiny new toy broke, and I’m the last couch cushion where he knows he can still find loose change.
“Except what? Me?” The words rip out of my throat. “I’m your backup plan? Your safety net? The boring girl who’ll always be there when everyone else realizes you’re not worth the effort?”
His face goes dark. “Watch it.”
“Or what?” And suddenly I’m not afraid anymore. I’m furious. Six years of swallowing my words, of making myself smaller, of pretending I was grateful for the bare minimum. “You’ll dump me again? Block me? Find another woman to cheat with while I sit at home wondering what I did wrong?”
“You ungrateful—” His other hand comes up, finger pointed at my face. “Do you have any idea how good you had it? How many guys would put up with your shit?”
“My shit?” I laugh, and it sounds hysterical even to me. “What shit? Wanting you to remember my birthday? Asking you to meet my grandmother? Hoping you might actually care enough to—”
“To what? Marry you?” He laughs, cruel and sharp. “Jesus, Mary. Look at yourself. Really look. You think anyone else is going to want this? You think that felon you’re screwing actually gives a damn about you?”
The words are intended to hurt. But instead of shrinking back, something inside me snaps.
“You know what?” I yank my wrist out of his grip. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe I’m just a job to him, or a convenience, or whatever. But at least he doesn’t make me feel like garbage for existing.”
Evan’s face twists. “That’s not— I never—”
“You did.” My voice is getting louder, stronger. “Every day. Every single day, you made me feel like I should be grateful you bothered to text me back. Like I was lucky you didn’t leave sooner.”
“Maybe you were.”
The words hang in the air between us like poison.
And that’s when he moves.
Not to hit me. Evan’s too much of a coward for that. But to the door. His hand slams against it, turning the deadbolt with a sharp click.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you listen.” He leans against the door, blocking it with his body. “We’re not done talking.”
My blood goes cold. “Open the door, Evan.”
“When I’m finished.”
“Open it now.”
“Or what? You’ll call your boyfriend? The one who looks like he murders people for a living?” He pulls out his phone and waves it at me. “Go ahead. Call him. Let him come rescue you again.”
I reach for my purse, but Evan’s faster. He grabs it and tosses it across the room. My phone skitters under the couch.
“Evan, stop. You’re scaring me.”
“Good.” His eyes are different now. Wild. Desperate. “Maybe now you’ll pay attention. Maybe now you’ll remember who you really are.”
“I know who I am.”
“No, you don’t.” He pushes off the door and starts moving toward me.
I back up until I hit the wall. “You’re Mary Sullivan.
You work at a bank. You live in a shitty apartment and take the bus everywhere because you can’t afford anything better.
You take care of your crazy grandmother because nobody else will. ”
Each word is a knife, cutting deeper than the last.
“You’re the girl who says sorry when other people bump into her. The girl who takes whatever scraps she can get and says thank you for them. The girl who—”
“Stop.”
“—who faked every orgasm because she was too afraid to tell me what she wanted.”
The words leave my head spinning. My vision goes white at the edges.
“How did you—?”
“Please, Mary. You think I’m stupid? Six years of the same three-second performance and you thought I didn’t notice?” He’s too close now. I can see the stubble on his jaw, the red in his eyes. “But I let you pretend. Because it was easier. Because you were easy.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think clearly. Can’t do anything but stand there while he tears me apart with surgical precision.
“And now you think you’re what? Better than me? Because some boyfriend dressed you up and bought you expensive jewelry?” His eyes drop to the Cartier watch on my wrist. “You think that makes you special?”
“You don’t deserve me.” The words come out broken, hardly a whisper.
He stares at me for a heartbeat. Then he barks a laugh.
“I don’t deserve you? Mary, nobody wants you but me. Nobody. “
I don’t mean to do it. My body does it for me. I shove him. Two hands to his chest. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to surprise.
He stumbles, then catches himself, eyes going wide like a dog who just realized the rabbit has teeth.
“Get out.” My voice is stronger now, fed by a rage I’ve never let myself feel. “Get out of my apartment. Now.”
“No.”
“GET OUT!”
The scream rips out of my throat, raw and primal. Evan flinches back, genuinely surprised.
“Jesus, Mary, calm down—”
“I said GET OUT!” I’m shaking now, fury and terror and six years of suppressed rage pouring out all at once. “I never want to see you again! You cheated on me! You lied to me! You made me feel like I was nothing, and I let you, but I’m done! I’m DONE!”
“You’re done?” His voice drops, dangerous. “You don’t get to be done. You don’t get to decide when this is over.”
He lunges forward, hands reaching for my arms.
I try to dodge, but there’s nowhere to go. His fingers close around my biceps, grip tight enough to leave marks.
“Let go—”
“Not until you listen—”
“LET GO OF ME!”
I’m fighting now, really fighting, clawing at his hands and trying to twist away. But he’s stronger, bigger, and he’s not letting go.
“Stop making a scene,” he hisses. “God, you’re embarrassing. Acting like you’ve got options. Acting like I didn’t make you.”
I twist, trying to pry him off. He squeezes harder. The panic comes up ugly and fast, the old kind that shuts your throat.
“Get out,” I gasp. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
He leans in, breath sour under the cologne. “Don’t kid yourself.”
I whip around, fingers scrambling at the knob, desperate for the exit—
He yanks me sideways, shoving me off the door. His other hand comes up, flat against my chest, shoving me backwards. My knees clip the coffee table, and I stumble toward the sofa.
“Evan—”
“Shut up.” His voice is low now, meaner than I’ve ever heard it. His weight crowds mine, pressing me down until the back of my legs hit the cushions. He’s on me in a second, the smell of sweat filling my lungs. Fingers slip under my blouse, rough, entitled, like he’s reclaiming property.
“You think some meathead who punched me gets to keep you? You think you’re his now?” His laugh scrapes ugly against my ear. “You’ll always be mine. Always.”
I shove at him, panic roaring up into my throat, making me gag on air. “Don’t—”
“Stop pretending you don’t want this.” His hips grind against me, disgusting, desperate. “You never had anyone else. Who else would even look at you?”
The words slice deeper than his grip. For a second, I’m twelve again—unwanted, small, invisible. For a second, I almost believe him.
Then—
The door explodes inward.
The sound is a gunshot made of wood. The frame splits, metal screams, and the lock rips straight out of the jamb. Evan’s head whips toward it.
A man steps through the hole where the door used to be.
He fills it.
Calm. Deliberate. Eyes like a loaded weapon set on safety.
“Did you not hear her?” Anton says, voice low enough to make the room smaller.
Evan’s hand loosens on my wrist without meaning to. I’m still pinned by it anyway.
Anton’s gaze drops once—bracelet, bruise forming, proximity—then lifts to Evan’s face with the kind of cold that makes you understand your mistakes in a single second.
Everything in me goes hot and stupid. Tears, snot, the whole humiliating mess. I can’t stop it. I can’t move.
Anton takes a step in.
And that’s where it ends.