Chapter 4
The grocery bags were digging into my wrists, and the dry–cleaning slip kept sliding through my fingers. I had frozen meat in one hand, the pricey facial masks Evelyn swore by in the other, and a set of stiff, freshly cleaned coats hanging off my arm like lifeless shadows. The taxi didn’t even wait around for a thank–you.
By the time I made it through the front gate, the sky was already shifting toward dusk. I eased the front door open out of habit. No one ever noticed when I left or came back- but somehow, silence still felt safer.
Inside, Evely Added to the library vet couch like a queen in exile sunglasses on indoors, legs propped up, while a nail tech filed her toenails with surgical precision. Her voice,
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bright and poisonous, floated through the air.
“Well, look who finally made it,” she said with mock surprise. “The maid graces us with her presence.”
I didn’t answer. I walked straight to the kitchen.
Setting the bags on the counter, my hands still numb from carrying everything, I went into autopilot–sorting groceries, labeling leftovers, wrapping up meat. The small rituals kept my mind from unraveling.
But then her voice rang out again, sugary and sharp.
“So, what’s for dinner, maid–I mean, bestie?”
I kept my back to her.
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“Seriously?” she called louder. “You’re not even gonna answer me now?”
I stayed silent. I chopped onions like I was peeling away the hours of my life.
“You know,” she said, her heels clicking closer, “it only takes one word from me to make Elias furious with you. Don’t test me.”
I gripped the knife harder. Her footsteps stopped behind me.
“What do you want, Evelyn?” I muttered. “Isn’t it enough that you’ve taken everything?”
All I had left were invisible bruises, memories of silence, and a house that had stopped being mine the second she moved in- with her perfume and wine–stained lipstick glasses.
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on
2
She leaned in, her voice low and venomous. “No. Because I want you gone.”
The room turned to ice.
I looked at her–not as the girl I once giggled with at sleepovers, not as the woman who once shared my secrets–but as a stranger who had stolen my life and now wanted to erase me from it completely.
“I thought you were my best friend,” I whispered. “But you betrayed me.”
I walked out. No shouting, no slammed doors. I just climbed the stairs like I was climbing out of a grave, one hand gripping the banister like it might break. I shut my bedroom door, locked it, and collapsed onto the bed, shoes still on.
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I stared at the ceiling for what felt like forever.
Daylight faded slowly, and I didn’t move.
Then Elias barged in.
No knock. Just a door slamming behind him.
“What did you say to Evelyn?” he snapped.
I turned to him slowly. “What?”
“She doesn’t want to go to Norway anymore. Says you made her feel guilty. Like she didn’t deserve it. What the hell did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything” I said, sitting up. “She came at me. I barely said a word.”
“Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You’re always the problem. Always jealous.”
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“Jealous?” I said, my voice calm but sharper than it had been in years.
“Jealous? I’m your wife, Elias. And yet, time and time again, you choose her. You treat me like I don’t exist–and now I’m supposed to smile while you take her to see the aurora borealis?”
His face contorted in fury. And then he hit
- me.
Not the first time. But this one would be the last I’d ever let matter. His hand struck my cheek hard enough to make my teeth clack. My head turned, the room swayed–but I stayed standing.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” he bellowed. “You ungrateful bitch!”
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I shut my eyes.
“If I could go back,” he hissed, “I never would’ve married you. Never.”
The air blurred. Not from tears. Just the weight of truth landing.
And he wasn’t done.
“I didn’t even want you. Evelyn didn’t want commitment back then, so I settled. I settled for you. But I regretted it every single day. You’re nothing. Not beautiful. Not exciting. You’ve never measured up. You never will.”
I didn’t scream. I didn’t argue.
I just… listened. And for the first time, I truly heard him.
He never loved me–not really. I was just the
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convenient choice, picked in a moment of in need, not affection. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t devotion. And now, two decades later, he
held that choice against me like it was my fault.
He leaned closer, voice low and venomous. “If you upset Evelyn again, you’re gone. You hear me?”
Then he slammed the door behind him.
Silence settled like dust.
I touched my cheek. It throbbed under my fingertips, but the tears didn’t come.
Not this time.
Instead, I stood up. I walked to the mirror and looked–not at the bruise, but at the woman behind it. My reflection looked tired.
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But it wasn’t scared anymore.
“I’ll leave before you get the chance to erase me,” I whispered.
That night, I didn’t set the table. I didn’t unpack their coats or scrub their dishes. I stayed in my room.
I lit a candle by the window and watched its tiny flame dance until the wind stole it away.
Then my phone buzzed. One message.
“Ms. Sophia Grant, your divorce has been finalized and recorded. You are now legally free.”
I whispered, and this time my voice didn’t tremble:
“You’ll all regret losing me. Every last one of
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