All Chapters of THE PRICE OF LETTING GO: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

“Selene.” His voice came through low and careful. Like a man who had rehearsed how to say a single word. I stood at the counter with both hands around the phone and did not say anything back. Outside the windows the city was doing its early morning thing. Grey. Slow. Indifferent. “Selene.” Again. Lower this time. “I’m here,” I said. A pause. I had spent four years learning his silences. This was the kind where he was deciding how much to show. “I didn’t think you’d pick up,” he said. “I almost didn’t.” Another pause. Longer. “I called because I needed to hear your voice.” A breath. “Not for any reason. I just needed to know you were okay.” My throat tightened. I pressed my lips together and looked at the counter. “I’m okay,” I said. “You signed the same day.” “You filed.” My voice stayed flat. “What were you expecting from me?” He went quiet. Long enough that I heard the hum of the city through the glass. “I don’t know,” he said. My grip loosened on the phone. Just slig

“Tell me everything,” Camille said. “From the beginning. And leave out nothing that might be emotionally inconvenient.” We were at the coffee place on Bleecker. Our place. Mismatched chairs, and a barista who started our orders the second we walked in. Camille had a flat white. I had something with too much vanilla in it, because I was having a week where I needed too much vanilla. I told her. The papers. The phone call. The bookshop. The pasta. The apology. When I finished she was quiet for three whole seconds. For Camille, that is a geological event. “He made pasta,” she said slowly. “With you. The man with a nutritionist named Francois and a rule about carbs after six. He sat down and ate carbohydrates with you the night after you signed his divorce papers.” “I made the pasta. He just sat.” “Selene.” She leaned across the table. “He was trying to stay.” “He filed, Camille.” “People do all kinds of things they don’t mean when they’re terrified and too proud to say so. You o

I wore the burgundy blazer on purpose. Not because it was my favorite, though it was. Because the old Selene owned exactly zero burgundy blazers. She wore ivory and beige and soft grey. Colors that did not demand attention. Colors that said I am here but please do not look too hard. I had bought this one two days before my first day at Crane & Aldous. Stood in the fitting room mirror for a full minute. Yes, I thought. That one. Her. I took the subway. Another small thing that sounds like nothing and meant everything. For four years I had been driven everywhere, in a car that smelled like leather and Dominic’s schedule. Now I stood on a crowded platform with my portfolio bag on my shoulder and strangers pressing in from every side. I felt, stupidly, free. The Crane & Aldous building was a converted warehouse. Wide windows. Old brick someone had been smart enough not to paint over. I stood outside it for exactly thirty seconds before I told myself to stop being dramatic and walked

I listened to the voicemail four times total. The first time on the subway platform. Standing there while the train filled up around me, people pushing past with their bags and their earphones and their complete indifference to the fact that my ex-husband’s voice was coming through my phone saying he was not going away. The second time that night. Sitting on my kitchen floor with my back against the cabinet, because I had sat down to take my shoes off and just stayed there. The third time on day five. When I had almost convinced myself I had imagined the tone of it. The way he said not this time, like there was a this time before, like he was admitting something he had not meant to admit out loud. The fourth time on day nine. After that I deleted it. Not because it stopped mattering. Because it was starting to matter too much, and I recognized that feeling the way you recognize a road you have driven before. I knew exactly where it led. I was not going back there on the strength

I went back to work the morning after the coffee meeting and did not tell anyone how it went. Camille sent two texts before nine a.m. I replied to both with short answers that gave her nothing to work with. She responded to the second one with a single question mark, which meant she understood she was not getting the full story yet and was filing it for later. Camille had always been good at knowing when to push and when to wait. It was one of the things I valued most about her. The office was already alive when I got in. Ro had his headphones on and three windows open. Petra had a printed spreadsheet covered in colored tabs spread across her desk. Dax was on a call, leaning back with his feet on the edge of his desk in a way that would have looked unprofessional anywhere else and here just looked like Dax. I sat down, opened my laptop, and pulled up the Hargrove mood board. The work helped. It always helped. There was something about a problem with a shape to it, something you cou