12. Fiona
Fiona
The morning light crept into the bedroom, casting soft, gray streaks across the sheets. It was quiet. Too quiet. Like the apartment itself was waiting to see what she would do.
She hadn’t slept, not really—just drifted on the surface of exhaustion, her mind replaying everything over and over. The captions. The comments. The idea of strangers laughing at her.
And worst of all—Dean telling her to grow up.
She turned her head slowly to look at him.
Dean slept easily beside her, one hand flung carelessly over his chest, his handsome face calm and familiar. The man who made her feel safe. That’s what gutted her.
His phone sat charging on his nightstand, the same phone he'd used to photograph her, to type captions about her "adorable naivety" while she slept inches away. How many times had he pretended to scroll through work emails while actually crafting posts about her latest embarrassing confession?
She studied his face—the face she'd kissed thousands of times, the mouth that had whispered "I love you". Even asleep, he looked self-satisfied. Like a cat who'd cornered a mouse and was saving it for later.
She’d spent their whole relationship feeling protected by him. He'd always known what to say when she doubted herself. Had a way of making her feel like the world could be sharp, but he was soft in all the right places.
And now?
Now she finally knew which version of him was real.
Quietly, she slid out of bed and tiptoed into the bathroom. She dressed quickly—jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers—clothes that felt like armor. Her fingers grasped at her toothbrush: yes, take that too.
She stuffed a few essentials into a bag.
Back in the bedroom, she grabbed her phone from the nightstand just as Dean stirred.
"Fi?" Dean's voice was thick with sleep. "What time is it? Come back to bed."
"I'm going to Emma's," she said softly.
Dean blinked slowly, processing. "Emma's? Why?" He sat up, running a frustrated hand through his messy hair. "Babe, if this is about last night, you're being a little dramatic. It's not that big a deal."
The casual dismissal in his voice—like her pain was an inconvenience, like her humiliation was something to be managed—made her chest tighten.
"I need space."
She knew when it hit him. His eyes focused on her fully for the first time—the bag in her hand, the way she was dressed.
"You're not seriously leaving over this." His voice was getting louder, more awake, tinged with something that sounded almost like fear.
Fiona paused, hand on the strap of her bag. "Yes."
"You're overreacting—" His hands reached toward her, then fell back, like he didn't know what to do with them.
"No," she said, more firmly now. "I'm finally thinking clearly."
"Wait—just—wait." Desperation was beginning to bleed through the sleep-roughened edges of his voice. "Fi, please. Don't do this. We can talk about it. We can figure this out." He was fully awake now. “You can’t leave."
She looked at him—really looked—and felt the ache of it deep in her chest. Because she still wanted him to be the man who made her feel safe.
But the truth was sharp and undeniable now: he hadn’t protected her. He’d exposed her. Dressed her up in innocence and softness for other people’s amusement.
And she hadn’t seen it coming for one moment. Because she’d trusted him.
Dean scrambled out of bed, the covers tangling around his legs as he fought to stand. His hair was sticking up, his T-shirt twisted, and there was something wild in his eyes—like an animal that had just realized it was trapped.
She walked to the door.
Dean called her name, but she didn’t answer.
Because if she turned back, she might hesitate. And she couldn’t afford that now.
She stepped into the hallway. Closed the door behind her.
And kept walking.
Each step wasn't just distance from him.
It was a step back toward herself.
Sweetwater was only an hour out of the city in good traffic, but as Fiona drove, the world softened around her. The buildings got lower. The concrete gave way to grass. The sky felt bigger, less crowded.
The city was her favorite place in the world. She loved its noise, its energy, the rhythm of it under her feet. She loved her school, her kids, the street cart that knew her coffee order.
But right now, she needed to be with people she could trust.
She’d thought she had that in the city. She’d thought she had that in her marriage. She’d been wrong.
She didn’t know what was worse—being lied to, or being laughed at.
Maybe it was both. Maybe it was being lied to so well that she’d clapped for him while he made her a punchline.
She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been wound until the skyline slipped from her rearview mirror and her shoulders finally, finally dropped.
It wasn’t that Sweetwater was perfect. But it was familiar. It was hers . And right now, she needed that.
Emma’s house came into view—a squat, cheerful thing with blue shutters and an overgrown hydrangea bush that looked like it had ambitions of world domination.
Fiona parked in the gravel drive and sat still for a moment, hands resting on the wheel.
The weight of her wedding ring felt suddenly enormous—foreign and foolish on her finger.
Like wearing a promise no one else had kept.
Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat. Dean.
She’d been such a fool. She’d thought he respected her. God, how stupid could she have been?
She flipped it face-down.
The front door creaked open. Emma stood on the porch in socks and an oversized sweatshirt, her hair in a messy bun.
Without a word, Fiona got out of the car and walked up the steps. Emma opened her arms and Fiona folded into them. The warmth, the weight, the quiet safety of being held by someone who didn’t need a story or an explanation.
The adrenaline that had carried her through packing, through walking away, through driving these winding roads—all of it drained out of her at once. She felt hollow, scraped clean, like someone had taken a spoon to her insides and left nothing but the ache.
They stood like that for a long moment.
Then Emma pulled back and said, “I made banana bread.”
Fiona laughed—a small, surprised sound. “Of course you did.”
Inside, the house smelled like cinnamon and butter. Fiona sank onto the couch, tucking her knees up. The cushions sagged exactly the way she remembered. Safe. Lived-in. Real.
“I left Dean,” she said, eyes on the chipped polish of her thumbnail.
Emma sat beside her. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Fiona opened her mouth—and then closed it again.
The man she loved thought she was a joke. Made her a joke. Publicly and unapologetically.
She couldn’t make sense of that yet, let alone speak it.
She swallowed. “I don’t think I can talk about it yet.”
Saying it out loud would make it real. Would mean accepting that the man she'd built her life around had spent years turning her love into content, her trust into entertainment.
Would mean admitting that she'd been living with a man who thought she was a joke. Who thought she was a foolish, childish moron, who didn’t think she was his equal—intellectually or socially.
Emma reached over and squeezed her hand.
Fiona felt something in her begin to shift.
She felt her shock, her sadness, coalesce into something new.
Anger .