Too Late, I'm Done Crying

Laure

ears did I let myself picture it, and yet here I was, s

folded in my handbag under a pack of tissues. Five years of nothing. Five years of his mother's eyes dropping to my fl

t on the cream dress he said he liked in our first year, back when he still said things like that.

nt of the hallway m

ell you." I pressed my hand to

mirror. I looked like a

he gate, then the car pulling into the driveway, and my heart started pounding so hard I felt it in my

oor o

d hanging on his side, her fingers locked in his, was a w

and phone screen I had ever scrolled past. Long glossy waves, wine-r

fron's face th

, not on any anniversary, not on one single night of the five years I had waited up for him. I coul

here. Holding her, pulling her in close

oice came out s

me with the candles and the cold food, and there was nothing in them. No

e his jacket and pulled out a stapl

gn

rder than anything anyone had ever said to me. My legs went weak. I looked do

my face with my right hand, fast, like I could hi

pped right to it and move

r me?" he sa

d a pen from his pocket and held it out, a plain black

re going to throw

. I wanted a lie, an excuse, even an insult, anything.

her arm around his neck and rested her shoulder against his chest. Her breast

g in me

wife. I cooked, I waited, I swallowed every insult your family threw at me. I kept believing you would change." I laughed, an

ough," Saf

aven

orced." Nyx's voice was sweet, almost friendly. She look

ed like

shut up. To say something, anything, in my defense, just once.

as my

. I thought about saying it out loud. I'm pre

ed little curl of her mouth, and at the man who hadn't

h to look at me, he did

I pressed the pen to the page and my hand stopped shaking. Just like that. I do

I signed it slow

he pen on t

something I couldn't read, and then it was gone. He

to the door. Nobody stopped me. Nobody said my name. Behind me Nyx laug

or I turn

aid. My voice was quiet, but it di

ike I'd told a bad joke. Then h

lked

fry a person alive, and my dress was stuck to my back before I reached the gate.

o my stomach a

e'd thrown away his child too, and I swore under that burni