Chapter Sixteen
Harrison
He wasn't eating there. He was working.
The gig economy was the only thing that didn't ask for references from his previous employer. So, Harrison Miller, former Senior Project Manager, was now a "Delivery Partner." The back seat smelled of Thai food and soggy cardboard.
He was tired. His back ached from the cheap mattress in the apartment. His ears rang from Emily’s complaints about her swollen ankles and the lack of money for a "proper" baby shower.
He pulled his collar up against the biting November wind and stepped out of the car.
He walked toward the restaurant entrance, keeping his head down. He lived in constant terror of running into a former colleague, a client, or anyone who knew who he used to be.
He grabbed the handle of the heavy oak door.
Then, he froze.
Through the large, floor-to-ceiling glass window of the restaurant, he saw her.
Sarah.
She was sitting at a corner booth, bathed in the warm, golden light of the dining room. She wasn't wearing the gray sweatpants she used to wear when she was stressed. She was wearing a sleek black dress that exposed her shoulders. Her hair was loose, shiny, and full.
She looked... renovated.
Harrison felt a physical blow to his solar plexus. He forgot how to breathe. He forgot the delivery order. He stepped back into the shadows of the awning, pressing himself against the brick, unable to tear his eyes away.
She wasn't alone.
Sitting across from her was a man.
He wasn't a kid. He wasn't some rebound fling. He was a fortress of a man. Broad shoulders, salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a suit that cost more than Harrison’s current car. He sat with a stillness that Harrison envied—a calm, anchored presence.
Harrison watched, paralyzed, as the waiter placed a dessert between them.
The man said something. Harrison couldn't hear it through the glass, but he saw the result.
Sarah threw her head back and laughed.
It wasn't a polite chuckle. It was the full, radiant laugh that Harrison used to prize above everything else. The laugh he hadn't heard in two years. The laugh he thought he had extinguished forever.
That’s mine, his brain screamed, a primal, irrational claim. She’s my wife. That’s my laugh.
But it wasn't.
He watched the man reach across the table. He didn't grab her; he simply offered his hand. Sarah took it. She didn't hesitate. She didn't flinch. She laced her fingers through his, her thumb brushing over his knuckles with an intimacy that made Harrison’s stomach churn with acid.
"No," Harrison whispered, the word lost in the wind.
He analyzed the man. He looked at the way the man watched Sarah—not with the hungry, desperate lust Harrison had felt for Emily, but with total, unshakeable adoration. He looked like he was proud to be seen with her. He looked like he knew exactly what she was worth.
Comparison destroyed Harrison in seconds.
He looked at his own reflection in the darkened glass of the door. Unshaven. dark circles under his eyes. A stained windbreaker. A man who had traded a diamond for a grenade.
Then he looked at the man inside. That man was an upgrade. That man was who Harrison used to pretend to be.
Sarah said something, her eyes soft, and the man smiled. It was a private moment, a secret language being built right in front of him. A new world where Harrison didn't exist.
She wasn't mourning him. She wasn't angry at him. She had replaced him.
The jealousy didn't feel like fire; it felt like liquid nitrogen. It froze his blood. It shattered his ego. He realized, with devastating clarity, that Sarah wasn't just surviving the divorce. She was thriving because of it. He was the dead weight she had dropped.
The restaurant door opened. A couple walked out, laughing.
Harrison scrambled back, terrified Sarah might see him. He ducked behind a decorative planter, hiding like a criminal.
He watched through the leaves as Sarah and the man stood up. The man helped her with her coat—a heavy wool trench. He adjusted the collar around her neck, his hands lingering for a second too long, protective and gentle.
Sarah looked up at him and smiled. It was a look of peace.
Harrison felt tears prick his eyes—hot, angry tears of self-pity. He wanted to run in there. He wanted to scream, I know her coffee order! I know she hates cold feet! I know her!
But he didn't know her. Not this Sarah. This Sarah was a stranger.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
DoorDash: You are at the location. Please pick up the order.
Harrison looked at the phone. Then he looked at the golden couple inside, safe and warm and whole.
He turned around. He walked back to his car.
He got in, cancelled the order, and slammed his head against the steering wheel.
He screamed. A raw, guttural sound of a man realizing he had locked himself out of paradise.
He sat there for ten minutes, shaking. Then, he put the car in drive. He had to go back to the beige apartment. He had to go back to Emily and the complaints and the looming baby.
He drove away, watching Sarah disappear in the rearview mirror, knowing that he would never, ever get close enough to hear that laugh again.