Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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Somehow, I hold myself together until I'm alone, but once the first tear breaks free, even a dam wouldn't be able to stop the rest. I grip the sink as I collapse to the ground, banging my knees on the floor of the women's restroom in Manhattan Mocha, sobbing with a strength that terrifies me. My body shakes violently with each cry, and no matter how much I try to breathe through it, I can't stop the wails that choke me.
My husband just left me.
I'll never smile again. I'll never laugh again. I'll never listen to a love song or read a romance novel with the same idealistic heart. I won't watch a romantic comedy and cry tears of joy when the protagonist gets her happy ending. I'm numb. I'm completely empty. I'll never recover from this.
I just want to disappear.
After I force myself to stand up, I clean my face with a tissue and sneak out before someone investigates the strange wails coming from the women's bathroom. I burst through the front door and quickly get lost in a crowd of people, but as I walk down 5th Ave, I realize I have nowhere to go. I can't go back to work in the state I'm in, and honestly, I don't want to. I can go to Nico's, but both him and Sloan won't be home until at least eight o'clock, and I shouldn't be alone right now. There's a Barnes and Noble nearby, but I can't look at books for the next seven and a half hours. I'm not my sister.
There's only one place left for me to go – home.
When I walk through the front door everything looks the same. My heels are still on the floor in the entryway where I left them. My umbrella is still in the stand. The latest copies of Vogue and Sports Illustrated are in the mail holder. Pictures of Will and I at our engagement party and on our wedding day, at a banquet for one of his mother's charities and at Niagara Falls last spring are still in their frames, placed neatly on end tables around the house and hung on the walls leading up the stairs. The house we've shared for the last four years looks the way it always has, but it's colder somehow.
I climb the stairs, memories of the last time I did this flashing through my mind, and when I get to the top, I take a deep breath.
"Just get your stuff and get out," I say to myself. "You can do this."
A surge of bravery rushes through me as I open our bedroom door, but when I see the sight in front of me, I cover my mouth with my hand as I choke back a sob.
Chelsea is everywhere. Her clothes are thrown around the room, there's a red lace bra draped over the arm of the black, velvet upholstered bench at the foot of the bed and the smell of her cheap perfume invades my senses and burns the back of my throat. The bed is unmade, the same sheets from the morning I found them together hanging off the mattress. There's an empty wine glass with a bright pink lipstick stain on the rim on the nightstand next to where I sleep, and the picture of Will and I from my twenty-fifth birthday is facedown.
My chest aches as I try to catch my breath and I squeeze my eyes shut, hot tears pouring down my cheeks and over the back of my hand. A strangled moan builds in my throat, and I clutch the doorframe to keep my legs from crumbling like damaged drywall. If I go down, there's no guarantee I'll be able to get back up.
