Delaney James has it all: a handsome husband who just made partner at his law firm, a gorgeous townhouse in NYC's Upper East Side, and a blossoming career in fashion journalism. Life is perfect - until her husband leaves her for another woman. With...
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I manage to hold back my tears until I'm alone, but once the first one 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 hardwood 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.
I don't think I'll ever smile again. I'll never laugh at another episode of Impractical Jokers, or a lame joke my dad tells me. 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, and a part of me – a part that's stronger than it should be – wants to just disappear.
Once I get control of myself, I grab a tissue and wipe streaks of mascara from my cheeks with shaky hands and sneak out before someone calls for help about 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 if I'm being honest, I don't want to. I can go to Nico's, but he'll be at the studio with Sloan until at least eight o'clock, and I don't think it's best for me to 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.
So, 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 last week. My Louis Vuitton umbrella is still in the stand. The latest copy of Sports Illustrated I subscribed to years ago to follow Greyson's career but never had the heart to cancel when he retired is in the mail holder. Pictures of Will and I 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 tentatively 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 has been placed facedown.
