Chapter 3

The next morning, just past dawn, I was woken by my phone buzzing.

Alex's name flashed on the screen.

I answered but didn't speak.

His voice came through the speaker, tired from staying up all night but still self-righteous. "Evelyn, you up? Lillian's craving the crab cakes from that little spot in Brooklyn. I've got an international video call at eight that I can't get out of. Go pick up an order and bring it to her hotel. Make sure they put it in an insulated bag. She doesn't eat anything cold."

His tone was as casual as if he were giving instructions to a personal assistant, as if last night's argument had never happened.

He had always been like this, used to being taken care of, used to putting the damage he did to me on hold for later.

I looked at the apartment key I had already set down on the coffee table and cut him off calmly. "Alex, we're done."

For a few seconds, the other end of the line was silent.

Then he let out a cold laugh, barely containing his anger. "What's gotten into you this early in the morning? All because of last night's party? Evelyn, give it a rest."

He didn't believe for a second that I would actually leave.

"I ask you to drop off one breakfast and you act like a martyr? Lillian has a bad stomach. You're usually so good at taking care of people, aren't you?" He paused, a warning threading into his voice. "It's been ten years. Your whole life revolves around me and the company. You don't have a real job, no income of your own. Even your health insurance is on my plan. Where would you go if you left me?"

"You don't actually think Harvard's invitation from ten years ago still stands, do you? If you went back now, who would even remember you?"

He was using ten years of sunk costs to hold me hostage.

He thought he had already ground me down into a vine that could only cling to him.

I thought of ten years ago, when his startup failed, creditors chased him, and he broke his ribs falling in the snow. I carried him on my back for a long time, and he clung to my shoulder, crying. "Evelyn, I'll never let you suffer again."

Time turned promises into jokes and the man who once loved me into someone handing out charity.

"Don't worry about me." My voice didn't waver in the slightest. "Alex, you're free."

I hung up.

I canceled our shared phone plan, deactivated my old number, and snapped the backup SIM card in half. I signed out of our shared cloud storage, revoked his access to my personal email, medical accounts, and travel apps, and transferred all my important files to a new account.

As for the jewelry and credit cards he had given me, I left them all on the living room table.

I wheeled my suitcase to the door and left the apartment key in the tray by the entryway. Before closing the door, I took one last look at the place I had lived in for ten years.

There were the walls we had painted together, the red wine he had knocked onto the carpet the night his company took off, and the bedroom where I had lain alone for three days after the miscarriage.

But it had never been my home.

Two hours later, I sat in the terminal at LaGuardia Airport, holding a one-way ticket to Boston.

Sunlight poured through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows onto my shoulders. I felt no fear, only the kind of relief that comes from cutting away dead flesh.

The wound was still bleeding, but at least it would no longer fester.

When the boarding announcement came on, I stood, took my suitcase, and walked toward security.

This time, I didn't look back.