Delaney James was wearing Chanel the night her husband told her he didn't love her anymore.
In an instant, her picture-perfect Manhattan life-complete with a brownstone on the Upper East Side, a blossoming career as a fashion journalist, and a devas...
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Somehow, I keep it together until I'm alone. But the moment the first tear slips free, the rest follow in a torrent that nothing could stop. I clutch the edge of the sink as my legs give out, crashing to the floor of the restroom at Manhattan Mocha. My knees hit hard, but I barely register the pain over the sound of my own sobs—loud, guttural, and unrelenting. My body convulses with each cry, and no matter how hard I try to steady my breathing, I can't silence the wails tearing out of me.
My husband just left me, and with him, he took every trace of joy.
I'll never laugh the same way. Never hear a love song without flinching. Never open a romance novel or watch a happy ending without remembering that mine fell apart.
There's nothing left in me. No fight. No hope. Just a hollow ache where my heart used to be.
I don't want to feel this. I don't want to feel anything.
I just want to disappear.
I force myself to stand, blot my face with a tissue, and slip out before anyone investigates the sobs echoing from the women's restroom. Outside, I push through the front door and disappear into the rush of pedestrians. But as I walk, it hits me—I have nowhere to go. I'm in no shape to return to work, and the truth is, I don't want to. Nico's apartment is an option, but he and Sloane won't be home until tonight, and being alone feels dangerous. There's a Barnes & Noble nearby, but I can't look at books for the next eight hours. I'm not my sister.
There's only one place for me to go.
When I step through the front door, everything looks exactly the same. My heels are still by the entryway, right where I kicked them off. The umbrella rests in its stand. The latest issues of Vogue and Sports Illustrated sit neatly in the mail holder. Framed photos of Will and me—our engagement party, our wedding day, a banquet for his mother's charity, Niagara Falls last spring—still line the end tables and climb the wall along the staircase.
The house we've shared for four years hasn't changed at all. And yet, it feels colder. Like the warmth left with him.
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 false bravery rushes through me as I open our bedroom door—and then it dies. I slap a hand over my mouth to muffle the sob that claws its way up my throat.
Chelsea is everywhere.
Her clothes are scattered across the room, a red lace bra draped over the arm of the velvet bench at the foot of the bed. The sickly-sweet scent of her perfume clings to the air, sharp and cheap, burning the back of my throat. The bed is unmade, still tangled in the same sheets from that morning—the morning I found them. On my nightstand, the one next to where I sleep, an empty wine glass waits with a bright pink lipstick stain marking its rim. The photo of Will and me from my twenty-fifth birthday lies face down.
