6. Brittney
— ? —
Brittney
The car ride home is silent.
I sit in the passenger seat and watch the lights blur past. My hands are still. My breathing is even. Something has gone cold inside me and I’m grateful for it.
Shawn tries twice to speak. Both times I hold up a hand. He stops.
The third time, he reaches for me.
I flinch away.
His hand hovers in the space between us for a moment, then retreats to the steering wheel. I watch his knuckles go white around it and feel nothing.
The elevator ride takes forever. We stand on opposite sides of the small space, and the distance feels like miles. Shawn keeps glancing at me, his jaw working, words forming and dying on his lips. I stare at the numbers climbing and wait.
The second the doors close behind us, I speak.
“You let her put the pearls on that woman. On our anniversary. While I watched.”
“It was a gesture.” Shawn drags a hand down his face. The motion is so familiar, so worn into my memory, that I could draw it blindfolded. “Mom gets dramatic. I’ll talk to her tomorrow-”
“I heard you.” My voice is ice. “In the corridor. ‘Let her go.’ ‘Dead weight.’ ‘She’s embarrassing the family.’”
He goes pale.
The color drains from his face so fast I almost feel sorry for him. Almost. Then I remember what he said, how he said it, how tired he sounded when he agreed with his mother that I was the problem.
“I AM your family. Or I was supposed to be.” I step toward him. “You promised me those pearls. You promised I’d carry your name. Tonight I watched you hand both to another woman and clap.”
“That’s not what - I didn’t mean-”
“You chose.” The words are coming now, clear and sharp, years of swallowed silence finally finding their way out. “You chose the stage over the alley. You chose your mother’s dinners over our conversations. You chose peace with her over protecting your wife.”
“I was trying to-”
“And tonight you chose those pearls on her neck over keeping the ONE promise that should have been easy.”
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. He looks like a man drowning, reaching for something to hold onto and finding only water.
Elise’s voice drifts from the living room. She’s let herself in - of course she has. The woman has a key and no concept of boundaries.
“Is she having another episode? Shawn, let her tire herself out.”
Another episode. Like I’m a child throwing a tantrum. Like my anger is a weather pattern that will pass if everyone just waits it out.
His phone buzzes. Mikayla’s name on the screen.
His thumb moves toward it. Automatic. Trained.
I laugh. The sound comes out broken and terrible, nothing like the laugh I used to have.
“Answer it.”
“What? No. Britt, let me-”
“Answer. It. I want to watch you choose her one more time.”
He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t put the phone down either. It keeps buzzing in his hand, and he stands there frozen, caught between two women who both want something from him and unable to decide which one matters more.
That’s answer enough.
I slide my rings off. All three. Engagement. Wedding. Eternity.
The diamonds catch the light as I set them on the marble countertop. The click of metal on stone sounds like a door slamming shut.
“Brittney-” Shawn’s face goes white. “Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking - we can fix it. Tomorrow. Just sleep on it.”
“Sleep on it.” I laugh again, and this time there’s no humor in it at all. “That’s your answer? I just watched you give away my pearls and agree with your mother that I’m dead weight, and you want me to sleep on it?”
I’m already moving. One bag. My father’s photo from the nightstand, the one of him holding me on my first birthday, his smile so wide it barely fits the frame.
The acceptance letter, printed and folded and tucked into my wallet like a talisman.
My old boots, the ones I wore when Shawn and I first met, before the penthouse and the pearls and the slow erosion of everything we used to be.
The sewing kit that smells like my mother’s house, lavender and old thread and home.
I pack like I’ve been planning this for years. Maybe I have. Maybe some part of me always knew this day would come.
When I come back out, Shawn is blocking the elevator.
“Please.” His voice cracks. “I’ll fix it. I’ll talk to Mom. I’ll-”
“You had years to fix it.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” I press the elevator button. “That’s the saddest part. You loved me the whole time. You just never loved me enough to choose me.”
The doors open. I step in.
“Brittney. brITTNEY-”
“Goodbye, Shawn.”
“I hope it was worth it.” My voice cracks but holds. “The empire. Your mother’s approval. Those pearls on-” I stop. Breathe. “You know what’s funny? THAT was always the real marriage. The company. The name. The performance.”
The doors start closing.
“I was just the woman who made it look human.” I watch his face through the narrowing gap. “And you didn’t even notice when I stopped trying.”
The doors close.
The last thing I see is his face. Terrified.
Good.
Downstairs, the rain hits the sidewalk in sheets.
I walk toward the only place I’ve ever felt real, my hands bare for the first time in years.
The water soaks through my dress in seconds, plastering the fabric to my skin, but I don’t care.
I can’t remember the last time I let myself get rained on without worrying about what Elise would say, what the neighbors would think, what kind of impression I was making.
My phone buzzes. Shawn. I silence it.
It buzzes again. And again. And again.
I turn it off completely.
The rain soaks through my dress. I don’t care. I just keep walking, heels clicking on wet concrete, lightning flashing overhead like the sky is finally saying what I’ve been feeling for years.
Free. Terrified. Alive.
For the first time in years, I have no idea what comes next.
It’s the best feeling in the world.