Chapter 2 #3
I stand alone in the mirrored box, staring at myself beneath the bright overhead lights that make my skin look far too pale and my eyes too green and my mouth too soft.
My left hand looks naked.
I flex my fingers.
I do it again.
No ring, but a pale indentation reminding me that it existed.
My chest tightens.
I press my lips together so hard they hurt.
The elevator stops at the fifteenth floor.
A woman in a gray suit steps in, her eyes glancing at me before quickly looking away with the panic of someone trapped with a stranger on the edge of a breakdown.
I smile at her.
She stares at the coffee splattered on my boots.
“Rough morning?” she asks weakly.
“My fiancé slept with his secretary,” I say.
Her eyes go wide. The elevator rings, and I walk out.
Behind me, she says, “Oh my god.”
The lobby is brighter than when I arrived. People move through it carrying briefcases and iced drinks.
I walk past the fake plant. Past the reception desk. And past a security guard who looks like he wants to ask me if I’m okay but values his life enough not to.
Outside, Baltimore hits me in the face.
Heat, traffic, horns, someone yelling near a curb. The smell of exhaust and coffee.
The world has the audacity to continue.
I stand on the sidewalk with empty hands. No coffees. No croissant. No ring. No future that made any lick of sense.
My car is parked two blocks away. I hate paying for the garage Grant wants me to use.
Walking to it feels strange. Normal. My boots stick slightly, my cardigan slips from one shoulder, and a delivery cyclist nearly takes out a businessman in front of me and calls him some choice words I wish I could scream.
I almost laugh.
And then I almost throw up.
By the time I reach my car, my hands are shaking.
Silence. Not the real kind.
City silence. Muffled horns. The thump of my own pulse.
I grip the steering wheel. The first sob comes out of nowhere.
Ugly and embarrassing even though no one can hear me.
I slap my hand over my mouth like it could do something. The next one rips out anyway.
My entire body folds around it.
I cry like someone died, which is dramatic but also a little accurate.
A version of me died upstairs in that office.
The version who believed that being loved meant being chosen once and safely.
The version who thought a ring is a promise.
The version who ignored every single red flag because the parade was pretty and everyone kept clapping.
My phone buzzes in my purse.
Then again.
And again.
I dig it out. A stupid part of me hopes it’s Grant.
It’s not.
MARLEY
How did Operation Croissant Peace Offering go?
OLIVER
Did you give him the pastry or commit arson?
MARLEY
If you committed arson, call Oliver first. He has a truck.
OLIVER
Do not involve me in arson before noon.
Their texts sit there, ordinary and ridiculous. Maybe even a little sweet.
I stare at them until the screen blurs.
I could call them.
Instead, I open my texts with Grant.
My thumb hovers.
There are so many things I want to say.
How could you? Why wasn’t I enough? Do you love her? Did you love me?
I lock the phone and throw it into the passenger seat and start my car.
I don’t not know where I’m going, but I know I’m not going home. I can’t.
Home has Grant’s things. It has wedding magazines on the coffee table, seating chart notes on the fridge. A garment bag handing in the guest room with a dress inside that I haven’t let anyone see yet because I wanted just one single thing about the wedding to feel private.
Home has our toothbrushes in the bathroom, and our phone chargers plugged into the wall.
I can’t go into Bitter Bloom because my employees will see my face.
I can’t go to Oliver’s because he will know within seconds.
And I can’t go to Marley because she will ask if I wanted comfort or revenge, and I’m not sure I know what I want.
So I drive.
Out of the city. Past streets I know. Past signs I ignored. Past the life I had decorated around the crack.
At some point, I stop crying.
At some point, emo music comes on because my phone connects to my Bluetooth automatically. Even my car knows I’m ruined.
At some point, I see a sign for I-95 South.
Florida, I think. My dad’s in Florida.
Eddy Smith. A baker with sunburned shoulders, a big laugh, and terrible texting habits. The parent who had left Maryland after the divorce and somehow made distance feel like a personality trait instead of a wound.
He would answer if I called.
But I don’t.
Calling would require me to talk.
So I take the exit.
My car makes a funny clicking noise as I accelerate onto the highway. I ignore it.
My gas gauge hovers near a quarter tank. Good enough for me.
I drive south with coffee dying on my boots, no ring on my finger, and the horrifying certainty that if I stopped moving, the rest of my life would catch up. That I’d have calls to make and plans to cancel and reasons to explain.
For twenty minutes, escape feels possible.
For thirty, it feels cinematic, even. Like that scene in Gone Girl.
At forty-seven, it becomes inconvenient.
The engine coughs. Once. Then again.
I look down at the dashboard. The gas gauge still claims I have fuel.
“Liar,” I hiss.
The car shudders.
“No, no,” I repeat.
It coughs again.
A warning light flickers on like it just remembered it has a job.
“You absolute traitor.”
With one final gasp, my car coasts toward the shoulder with the dignity of a fainting goat.
I grip the wheel, guiding it as far off the road as I can, and come to a stop beneath a green exit sign that points toward a Wawa.
A Wawa. I haven’t even made it out of the state before my fresh start road trip brought me to a convenience store.
For a long moment, I sit there with both hands on the wheel.
And I laugh.
I laugh so hard that it turns into a sob halfway through.
Outside, cars rush past me. The whole world keeps going.
Inside, my car smells of old coffee, vanilla lip balm, and failure.
I pick up my phone and open Marley’s contact.
Then Oliver’s.
And then Marley’s again.
I imagine having to explain this.
Hi, best friends. Funny story. I found Grant with Elise, that girl I was weirdly insecure around, and dissolved my engagement into an iced Americano.
Then I attempted to flee to Florida like a woman in a country song even though I know we fucking hate country music, and now I’m stranded near a Wawa because my car’s gas gauge is a lying little cunt.
My thumb hovers.
Pride is such a useless emotion. But so is shame. And neither of them can bring me gasoline.
I call Marley.
She answers on the second ring. “Hey, hun. Did he love the croissant?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Her voice changes instantly. “Halston?”
I press my hand to my eyes. “He cheated on me.”
Silence.
Then, very softly, “Where are you?”
That does it.
She doesn’t ask what happened. Or if I’m okay. She doesn’t say she’s going to kill him, though I know that will come.
Where are you?
The words of someone already reaching for the keys.
I look out at the exit sign. “Near a Wawa,” I say before bursting into tears again.
Marley inhales. “Oh, honey.”
“My car ran out of gas.”
There’s a pause, and I know it holds no judgment. It’s worse. Effort.
Marley is trying not to react.
“Marley.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re doing your quiet voice.”
“I’m processing multiple pieces of information.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You sound like you’re laughing spiritually.”
“I am spiritually committing homicide, actually.”
A wet, awful laugh rips through me.
“Are you safe?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’m on the shoulder I think. People are honking like I personally designed traffic.”
“Stay in the car. Lock the doors. Send me your location.”
“Okay,” I say softly.
“I’m calling Oliver.”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want him to know.”
“Babe, he owns a truck and a gas can,” she argues.
“I have dignity.”
“You are crying near a Wawa with no gas after finding your fiancé inside his secretary.”
I close my eyes, no effort to correct her. He wasn’t inside her yet. “When you say it all together, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad. That’s why I’m calling Oliver.”
“Marley.”
“Halston.”
Her voice softens. “You don’t have to be less humiliated before you let us help you.”
My face crumples, tears running down my cheeks.
“I’m sending my location,” I whisper.
“Good. Lock the doors. We’re coming.”
The call ends, and I send my location.
I sit there on the shoulder of the road, ringless and stranded, watching as cars fly past me toward places where people presumably still believe their lives make sense.
My phone buzzes.
Oliver.
I answer it before I can overthink.
His voice comes through, flat and calm. “Most people spiral inside city limits.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I was trying to be mysterious.”
“You ran out of gas near a Wawa.”
“It feels liminal.”
“It’s a popular exit.”
I wipe my face with the sleeve of my cardigan.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
I swallow. “He cheated.”
The line goes quiet. When Oliver speaks again, his voice is different.
It’s not dry or grumpy or funny. Just there.
“We’re coming.”