Before Dawn: a Prequel Novella to Where the Stars Fall

1 Letting go ~ Olivia

Barcelona ~ Friday, 24 July

Tracing a finger along the elegant silk ribbon on Jimmy's wedding invitation, I can't help but feel turned inside out all over again. Everyone I know is either celebrating their engagement, getting hitched or popping out babies. That or spectacularly wrecking their marriages.

Yet here I am. Home alone on a hot Friday night, with nowhere to go, indulging myself in red wine and self-pity.

I close my eyes and drag in a long breath, holding it for a moment, repeating it to myself like a mantra: cut it all off, Olivia. It's time to move on. But, dammit, like everything else in life, it's always much easier said than done. The moment I saw them is still so vividly framed in my memory, sometimes it feels like it only happened yesterday.

His tall frame pinning her up against the wall, towering over her.

My initial incredulity.

Her panted gasps.

My utter shock.

His disgruntled growls.

The stabbing pain in my chest and the sound of the hospital tablet slipping from my hand and falling on the floor. My eyes fixed on the screen cracked into little pieces in the middle of the meds room―because they refused to look up at it again and acknowledge the scene was real: the man who'd just asked me to marry him lost in the arms of another woman, the new supervisor of the Nurse Internship Program.

Something inside me broke that day. I wanted to cry, to scream at the hurt, at the disappointment and anger, but I didn't. I just stood there. Still. Frozen. There was nothing around me except a blur and everything went on in slow motion.

Him, dismissing her so coldly and running to me.

His apparent regret.

His repeated apologies.

"I... I don't know what to say... I'm so sorry," I remember vaguely him breathing out against my skin, rocking me in his arms almost desperately, his words a distant echo rumbling in my head.

"I've been such a fool, that didn't mean anything. Please, forgive me," he asked me later that night, crying like a young boy. "Ask anything you want. What can I do to make it up to you?"

As if there was something he could say or do to lessen the blow.

"Enough!" Gathering strength from somewhere deep within me, I pulled myself together and pointed to the door. "It's not like this is the first time you've cheated on me, is it? But guess what? You won't do that again. Ever. Get the hell out!"

Swirling my second glass against the dim light of the side lamp, I force myself to shove it all away from my mind, the hurt and disappointment, this deep sense of hollowness in my chest, the–

"Holy fuck, I'm so sorry, Hun. You got my text, didn't you?" Juggling the laptop case, a couple of bags and a raging fury, Julie, my occasional roommate, closes the front door with her bum and rushes to the kitchen.

"No problem. I wasn't in the mood anyway..." For our Zumba class, scheduled for a couple of hours before, hadn't she been called to a last-minute meeting. "Need help?"

"Dammit!" Returning to hang her coat, she almost stumbles on the box placed near the entrance door, next to the hanger. "What's this? Your ex-box?"

"Hmm-hmm." Taking a long sip, I feel the restless inside seep even deeper into my chest.

"Finally! So proud of you, darling! Now, when are we going to burn this shit?" she asks dryly before heading back to the kitchen.

It has taken me a while but today I finally managed to go through the drawers and gather all the things he'd left here. Clothing, some CDs and books, basically. I look at it again and almost feel nauseous; six years of my life stuffed and sealed in a not even large carton, ready to be delivered to his desk.