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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I wake up Monday morning without the familiar weight pressing down on my chest. No lingering fog. No fractured memories from a restless night. No slow, uneasy climb back into myself.
Just... peace.
It takes me a second to realize what's different, why my body feels lighter, less braced for something I can't quite put my finger on. Then it hits me.
I slept.
Not the kind of sleep that comes in broken pieces, or the kind that leaves me more exhausted than when I started. Real sleep. The kind where you close your eyes and don't open them again until morning.
No Ambien. No tea. No yoga poses that promise to promote relaxation. No lying there dissecting every second of my time on the swing with Greyson.
Just pure, nightmare-less, uninterrupted sleep.
I sit on the edge of my bed for a moment, letting it sink in, testing it like it might disappear if I move too fast. I feel like myself again. The myself I was before I left this town behind for ten years.
Yesterday morning didn't start like this. I woke up with a racing heart, my chest tight, my body already halfway to panic before I'd even opened my eyes. The memory is still close enough that I can feel the echo of it if I really let myself.
But I didn't let it take me under. I did what Greyson showed me – focused, counted, forced my breathing to follow something steadier than the spiral trying to pull me in. It wasn't immediate, and it wasn't easy, but it worked.
And when it was over, I didn't cry.
I got angry.
It wasn't the sort of anger that sends you reaching for your phone or replaying every wrong thing that's been done to you, but something quieter. Deeper. The sort that makes things crystal clear.
I sat on my bedroom floor for a long time, my phone in my hand, his name pulled up like it always is when I start to slip. My thumb hovered over the screen, close enough to call. And I can't lie; I thought about what would happen if I did. If hearing my voice would make him soften. If there was still some version of him that would pick up and care that I'm not entirely okay.
The thought didn't hold the same weight it used to. Because I already know how that conversation would go. He wouldn't apologize. He wouldn't comply. If anything, he'd say something just cutting enough to remind me exactly where I stand now. And I'd hang up feeling worse than I did before.
So, I didn't call. Not because I didn't want to – but because I finally understand that wanting something doesn't make it real.
I placed my phone down on my nightstand and sat there for a while longer, letting that settle in.
Seven years.
For a long time, that number felt like something I needed to defend, something that had to mean more than this ending. Now it just feels like time. Time I spent loving someone who turn out to be very different than who I thought he was. Time I don't get back. But also time I survived.
