Chapter 4
Nika
For the first time, I could put Finley into perspective.
He was a big man baby.
A thirty-year-old man sat on the couch sulking because I was going on holiday without him. Because I’d refused to fund it. His income was lower than mine—that was true—but that had never stopped him letting me carry the weight of everything else. It wasn’t my problem. Not anymore.
I almost walked into the living room to pat his scruffy hair. It matched his stubble. Both were at that length that suggested not neglect exactly, just a man who’d stopped making effort and rebranded it as a personality.
“So you’re going,” he said. Not a question. His voice was flat and cold.
I looked at him. Then at the carry-on suitcase beside me—the one I’d sat on and bounced on three times trying to get the zip around the corner. The one that was absolutely, definitely within cabin baggage allowance if you held it at the right angle.
“I am.” I nudged it with my foot, tilting it onto its wheels. “I left you meals in the freezer. Labelled.”
His head snapped up.
I went still.
I’d expected sulking. I’d steeled myself for cold silence or a pointed comment about the cost of flights or another reminder that I was being selfish. What I hadn’t expected was what was actually looking back at me.
There was anger, yes. That was there.
But behind it, underneath it—burning and steady and completely unmasked for once—was something that looked a lot like hatred.
I stood in my own hallway and felt the ground shift slightly beneath me.
We weren’t a passionate couple. We never had been—no grand declarations, no dramatic rows, no highs that made the lows feel worth it.
But there had been Valentine’s flowers. Every year, without fail.
Grocery store bouquets that I’d told myself meant something.
That I’d wanted to mean something. Evidence that somewhere underneath the routine and the split bills and the slow drift apart, he cared.
Looking at him now I wondered how long that had been behind his eyes and I simply hadn’t seen it.
“I’d better go,” I said.
I didn’t wait for a response.
The hallway felt very long. I rolled the suitcase to the door, lifted my jacket from the hook, and tried to remember how to breathe normally.
“Fucking bitch.”
Muttered. Low. Just loud enough.
I stopped with my hand on the door.
I thought of my dad. I don’t know why—just the sudden, quiet image of him.
And then I understood why. Because in every argument I’d ever witnessed growing up, every frustrated silence and slammed cupboard and raised voice, my dad had never once spoken to my mum like that.
Not once. Not even when they thought we couldn’t hear.
This was what settling looked like.
I opened the door and walked out and closed it behind me quietly, because I wasn’t going to slam it. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled anything loose.
The tears came in the corridor.
I blinked them away.
I’d already given him enough.
??
??
??
I called my parents while I waited for the boarding call.
They didn’t know I was travelling alone.
There was no point worrying them unnecessarily—my mum would spend the whole five days sending me safety articles and my dad would want a detailed itinerary and the address of the nearest pub within walking distance of wherever I was staying.
He would no doubt grill me about the prices as soon as I returned.
I kept it brief. Cheerful. The version of me they expected.
My sister sent a message while I was still on the call.
Sara: Safe travels, have fun!
??
Standard. Warm enough on the surface. I stared at it for a moment longer than I needed to.
We’d grown up in the same house, shared a bedroom until I was eighteen, knew each other’s worst moods and secret fears.
And now we communicated in emoji and the occasional voice note.
I didn’t resent her for it—she was living her life and that was fine, that was good.
But there was a quiet loneliness in it that I couldn’t quite shake.
All those years of closeness and then—nothing.
Just the gradual drift that nobody planned and nobody stopped.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and looked out at the runway.
It was drizzling. Of course it was. This was London saying goodbye in the only language it knew. Grey skies, damp tarmac, the kind of morning that made you feel vaguely guilty for leaving.
Then the clouds shifted.
The sun came through so suddenly and so brightly that I had to look away from the window, spots swimming in my vision. When I looked back the rain was still there, catching the light, the runway gleaming.
I sat with that for a moment.
Something slow and unfamiliar was building in my chest. Not quite excitement. Not yet. More like the first breath after holding one for a very long time.
I was leaving. Five days. No one to cook for, no one to manage, no split bills or lukewarm dinners or carefully worded texts designed to avoid friction. No more prostrating myself to people who handed me back the bare minimum and called it enough.
No more biting my lip.
Freedom. Adventure. Nature.
I checked my bag for my inhaler.
It was there.
The airline attendant’s voice came over the tannoy—boarding for my flight.
Around me people immediately stood, as if the twelve inches between their seat and the queue made any meaningful difference.
I stayed where I was. I always did. What was the point of rushing on to sit in a metal tube and wait anyway?
I let the vulnerable passengers board first. Then the families. Then the eager ones who needed to be first for reasons I’d never fully understood.
When the queue had thinned I stood, collected my bag, and took one last look at the grey London morning through the terminal window.
Then I walked toward the gate and didn’t look back.