Chapter 1
Elizabeth climbed out of the cab. Her knees made a loud cracking sound when she stood up. She slammed the door too hard and the noise was way too loud for such a quiet street. Her bag strap kept sliding, so she yanked it up, grumbling under her breath.
The New York wind was the worst part. It was freezing and went right through her thin coat. It made her jaw hurt.
She didn’t watch the cab drive away. She just turned around and looked up at the third-floor window of the apartment she shared with Jamie.
Jamie Hower had been around since college, back when nineteen meant yelling over music, staying up too late, and pretending the world would never end. Most nights, they ate greasy takeout on the dorm floor, leaning over the wobbling desk like it was going to collapse any second. Napkins stuck to the floor, sauce smeared on her textbooks, and Jamie would drag his backpack in, dump it on the floor, flop onto her bed mid-bite, and somehow just… fit there. No one questioned it. No one overthought it. It just worked.
Graduation changed things in a way she hadn’t expected. At twenty-one, the future didn’t feel exciting or open anymore. It felt closed off, like a door she kept pushing against without any luck. Going back home wasn’t an option she could live with. Their house was already too crowded and money was always a problem. She remembered how her father looked when the bills started piling up on the table. He looked so tired. She just couldn’t bring herself to make things harder for him.
Moving in with Jamie hadn’t felt romantic. It had felt necessary. It had felt like survival. She told herself it was temporary, that they would find their footing together. But her inbox kept filling up with polite job rejections, each one landing like a punch to the gut, like the world was slamming doors in her face over and over.
She realized she couldn’t wait around for her big dreams to magically happen. She needed money now. That meant putting aside thoughts of owning her own fashion studio, at least for the moment, and taking a job that actually paid bills. She picked up her tools, got her hands on a needle and thread, and started working for someone else. This was a difficult choice, but it was the only way for her to survive and stay in the city.
Working for Mrs. Ramirez was nothing like the stories people told about breaking into fashion. It meant long hours bent over a studio floor, pinning hems while her back ached and her knees protested. Most of the women she worked on barely acknowledged her presence. Ramirez herself was demanding and unsentimental, the kind of woman who noticed every flaw and missed nothing. Elizabeth started out tucked away in the back, handling difficult fabrics and repairs no one else wanted.
Over time, she earned more trust. She was brought into private fittings, stood quietly while fabric was shaped and reshaped on bodies that filled magazines and headlines. The work left her tired and sore, her hands rough and her ears ringing with constant instructions, but there were moments when a design came together beneath her fingers and something inside her eased.
It wasn’t the life she’d imagined yet, but it felt like progress. And for now, that was enough.
She had just returned from a fashion event that was very long and tiring. Her feet were in pain because she had been wearing high heels for many hours. Her head felt heavy from the loud music and her eyes were tired from all the bright camera flashes. She only wanted to take a hot shower and go to sleep immediately.
She had not sent a message to Jamie to say when she would be home. He had not checked on her either, but this did not surprise her. Their relationship had felt cold and distant for a long time. She did not want to think about their problems tonight because she was too exhausted to deal with them.
She found her keys in her bag and opened the front door. The apartment was dark and very quiet as she stepped inside. She took off her shoes and started walking down the hallway toward her bedroom.
She stopped walking because she smelled something strange. It was a very strong and expensive perfume that did not belong in her home. Then she looked down at the floor and saw a pile of clothes. Jamie’s favorite gray hoodie was tangled together with a pair of silk tights that were not hers.
She felt a strange sense of curiosity instead of immediate sadness. She looked at the bed and noticed that Jamie’s foot was moving under the blanket. Then a woman moved and looked up from the pillow.
Blood of Jesus.
It was Gina Meyers. Elizabeth could not believe what she was seeing. Gina was the same person who had been mean to her throughout college. She had made fun of Elizabeth and tried to ruin her work in the past. Seeing Gina in her bed with Jamie felt like a bad dream. She blinked her eyes several times, but the scene did not change.
The second they realized she was there, the room dissolved into chaos. Jamie shot upright, scrambling for the sheet and dragging it up to his chest, while Gina let out a sharp, startled cry and tried to cover herself, her hands moving everywhere at once. In their rush and panic, they bumped into each other, lost their balance, and slid off the bed together, landing in a tangled, awkward heap on the floor.
Elizabeth stayed where she was. She didn’t gasp or shout. She didn’t even blink. She stood in the hallway, silent and still, her fingers tightening slowly around the strap of her bag as she watched them struggle to make sense of themselves.
Jamie finally looked up. He didn’t say anything at first. He just stood there with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He had the same panicked, empty expression he used to get back in college when he’d mess up a project, except this time, he couldn’t just start over on a fresh canvas. He looked like he wanted to disappear right into thin air.
Every second he stayed still made Elizabeth’s head throb even harder. Then, like a dam breaking, the words finally spilled out.
“Betty, wait,” he said, his voice coming out too fast and desperate. “I can explain, please.”
Elizabeth took a step back. “Don’t.”
She didn’t scream. She stayed calm, and somehow that was worse.
Gina froze where she was on the floor, clutching the sheet tightly against her chest as if it might hide her. “Hear him out, this isn’t what it looks like...” she blurted, the words tumbling out as panic crept into her voice.
Elizabeth tilted her head slightly, her eyes fixed on Jamie like she was looking at a stranger. “Oh, I think it’s exactly what it looks like.”
Her voice stayed cold, even as her heart hammered painfully in her chest. She took in the scene again, forcing herself not to look away. The man she had loved for two years sat there tangled in sheets with Gina, the same girl who had made her life miserable in college. Elizabeth remembered Gina’s smug smile from years ago and saw that it was finally gone. Now, Gina only looked afraid.
Elizabeth felt her hands squeeze shut so tight that her knuckles started to ache. A hot, dark feeling rushed up her neck and made her ears ring. Years of keeping calm, biting her tongue, pretending she was the bigger person just shattered all at once. She didn’t care anymore. All she could feel was the sharp need to lash out at anyone who had ever hurt her. Her chest heaved. Her fingers twitched. Every part of her wanted to explode.
She moved across the hardwood floor before she could even talk herself out of it. Her bare feet made a dry, slapping sound against the wood as she closed the distance. Her eyes were locked on Gina’s face. She didn’t plan the move, but her arm swung up, her muscles tensed and ready to lash out.
Gina let out a thin, jagged scream. She didn’t try to stand up. Instead, she stayed on the floor, her limbs moving like a frantic animal as she scrambled toward the corner of the room. The white sheet she had been holding tangled around her legs and then slipped away entirely. She grabbed her crumpled shirt from the rug and hugged it against her chest, as if it could shield her from what was coming.
“Help!” Gina screamed, her eyes wide as she pressed herself farther into the corner. “There’s a crazy woman in here!”
Elizabeth barely registered the words. She kept moving, her expression set, her voice low and tight. “Crazy huh?” she said quietly. “I’ll show you crazy.”
She had always thought of herself as someone who kept her temper in check no matter how bad things got. That part of her disappeared the moment she saw Jamie in bed with someone else.
He could have told her the truth. He could have ended things cleanly. Instead, he had chosen this. He had chosen to lie, to humiliate her, to let her walk into this mess like it meant nothing. That specific thought made her feel like she had been punched in the stomach.
She tried to get to Gina again, but Jamie wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her back. He was much heavier than her and his skin was sweaty, which made it hard for her to get a grip.
“Betty, stop,” Jamie said. He sounded like he was out of breath. “Just calm down!”
She did not want to calm down. She thrashed around and kicked her legs back, hitting his shins and the bed frame. She dug her elbow into his side as hard as she could. Jamie let out a low groan, his grip loosening for just a second.
That was all she needed.
She twisted free and swung on pure instinct, slapping him right across the face. His head jerked to the side and he looked completely shocked. Before he could even put his hands up, she brought her knee up hard between his legs.
Jamie made a gross choking sound and hit the floor. He curled up into a ball on the rug with his head against the ground. He was gasping for air and his face went totally white. He looked like he was about to pass out.
“Oh God,” he wheezed. He sounded like he was talking through a straw. “What the hell, Elizabeth!”
She stood over him, chest rising fast, her hands shaking at her sides. Her face was tight with anger and hurt, the kind that made her jaw ache. When she spoke, her voice wobbled, but the words landed hard. “You jerk,” she said. “I loved you. I loved you, you weak piece of shit!”
Behind them, Gina bolted for the door, half-dressed and scrambling, her shirt still clutched to her chest. Her bare feet made a fast slapping sound on the hardwood floor. A second later, the front door slammed so hard that the pictures on the wall rattled.
Jamie tried to push himself up from the rug. He was pale and his forehead was shiny with sweat. He winced as he shifted, one hand pressed to his side. He looked up at Elizabeth, still stunned. He had never seen her like this. Not once in all the years they had been together.
“If you didn’t love me, I could have dealt with that,” Elizabeth said. She was getting louder now and her voice was breaking. “You should have sat me down. You should have told me the truth like a man with a spine!” She let out a short, mean laugh. “but you didn’t. You looked me in the eye and talked about marriage. You talked about having kids and growing old together. You promised me all of that.”
Jamie just stared at her. He didn’t have an answer. Elizabeth was shaking from head to toe, but her eyes were dry. The fact that she wasn’t crying made him feel even more afraid.
He remembered how Elizabeth used to be his everything back in college. They were so broke they split one sad bowl of noodles for dinner and pretended it was funny. She was beautiful back then, and she was still beautiful now with her messy curls and radiant skin. But she worked herself to the bone for nothing. She was always exhausted. She was always talking about some big dream that was never going to happen. Jamie was just done with the waiting. He was sick of being poor.
Gina... Gina was different. Gina didn’t dream because she didn’t need to. She already had everything. She had a bank account that never hit zero. She had a car that started every single morning without a prayer. When he was with Gina, he didn’t feel like he was drowning. He felt like he finally got to breathe. He liked the way Gina’s friends looked at him. He liked not having to check the price of a sandwich before he bought it.
Gina also made him feel wanted in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. She looked at him like he was already a success, not a project she was still working on.
That was the part he hadn’t wanted to admit. Maybe what he and Elizabeth had wasn’t love anymore. Maybe it never really was, not in the way people talked about. Maybe it had just been two broke people holding onto each other because letting go felt too scary.
He looked at Elizabeth now, hoping she would see the “love” in his eyes, but he was mostly just hoping she wouldn’t hit him again.
“Betty, listen,” he said, his voice breaking as he tried to stand, still bent over from the pain. “I still do love you...”
“Don’t you dare,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was quiet but it felt like a knife. She looked right at him and her eyes were bright with a mix of heat and pain. “Don’t you ever use that word with me again. You don’t get to say you love me. Not after I had to see this.”
Jamie opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but nothing came out. He just stood there in his skin, breathing like he had been running a race. He looked like he finally realized how badly he had messed up.
“We are done,” she said, and the words felt like they were covered in acid. “This is over. There is nothing left for us to fix. Don’t try to explain it away. You don’t get to have me anymore. Look at my face, Jamie. It is finished.”
The room went completely silent for a second.
Elizabeth walked across the rug. Her hands were trembling so much she could barely grip the leather strap of her bag as she picked it up. She forced her face to stay still even though her chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand.
She got to the door and stopped for a heartbeat. The apartment felt different already. The walls looked thin and the air felt stale. All the times they had laughed in that room or watched movies on the couch felt like they belonged to someone else. It was all turning into trash right in front of her.
She stepped out and the cold air hit her face. She pulled the door shut and the click of the lock sounded like a final period at the end of a long sentence. Jamie didn’t follow her. He just stayed there, staring at the wood of the door.
Elizabeth didn’t look back.
She stood on the front step of the building and looked out at the street. Her breath was shaky and came out in little clouds of steam. The night was freezing, but she didn’t even feel the wind on her skin. Her eyes were stinging, but she refused to let a single tear fall. She shoved all that sadness down deep into her stomach.
She had left him.
She had actually walked out on the only person she thought she could count on.
She stood there alone on the sidewalk with nowhere to go. Her brain kept spinning in circles, asking her the same question over and over again.
Where was she supposed to go now?
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