Chapter 13 Roxy
Out of sheer necessity, I finally put on some makeup and drove five minutes to the closest grocery store. It was nothing fancy. There was a small parking lot, a pair of automatic glass doors that slid apart when I approached, blasting AC, and a dozen aisles of purchasable provisions.
There was an upbeat rock song playing on the speakers when I walked in.
It sounded like the Goo Goo Dolls. With a basket threaded onto my arm, I went straight to the produce section because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had something green.
Just as I reached the tomatoes, I happened to glance up and catch the eye of someone across the aisle.
I didn’t recognize him at first, what with the black eye and all. But something clicked in my brain, and my mouth spat out his name before my mind could catch up with itself.
“Mark?” I said.
Scrunching his nose, Mark stiffly pivoted and walked off in the opposite direction.
“Hey!” I called, breaking after him.
I managed to catch up to him in the middle of the bread aisle.
“I know you saw me!” I cried out, raising my voice just a smidge. It wasn’t a scream, but it was just loud enough to make the elderly woman at the end of the aisle glance up from the package of hot dog buns she’d been studying.
Mark spun around, red-faced and glowering. “What do you want?” he snapped.
I flinched and took half a step back, surprised by his obvious disappointment at running into me. “I just wanted to apologize.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. His right eye widened, but his swollen left eye continued to squint. “Okay. Great,” he said, turning away.
“Wait! I just need you to know that I wasn’t stepping out on anyone. Liam and I are over, even if we’re still tied together in the eyes of the law.”
Mark huffed and gave a sarcastic laugh. “Well, it might be a good idea to get divorced before you get back on Tinder. It’s just common sense.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I mumbled. “Is your eye okay? It doesn’t hurt, does it? It just looks—” I stopped myself just before I could say the world awful. Which was also a great way to describe how I felt inside at that very moment.
Mark stared at me for a while with his mouth tensed up. “He threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again. Did he tell you that?”
“Wait, what? No—”
“So if you don’t mind, I’d rather avoid seeing him, and you, ever again.”
“Message received.”
I watched him leave, trying and failing to ignore the tide of humiliation crashing down over my head. With my mood spoiled, I abandoned my basket and went outside. Took in a lungful of fresh air.
And got pissed.
I felt the rage moving through my body, coating my veins like lava. With sweating fingers, I dug my phone out of my purse and called Liam, only to get his voicemail.
“Liam, I got a bone to pick with you!”
A few parking spaces away, a blonde woman in cat-eye sunglasses frowned in my direction.
I turned away and lowered my voice. “I just ran into Mark. He says you threatened to kill him. You better call me back the moment you get this and tell me it isn’t true.”
I hung up and stormed to my car, feeling helpless in my anger. It seemed like every time I tried to move along, Liam had to make his presence known, clinging to me like iron chains while I tried to swim for shore.
I couldn’t live like this for long. I had to move things along.
The first step was to find a divorce lawyer.
I didn’t want to just Google “divorce lawyer near me.” I wanted someone vetted, someone I could trust to act in my best interest. I didn’t know of any divorce lawyers personally, but I did know someone who could point me in the right direction.