But the laughter didn't last. Tears rolled down and soaked into the hem of my coat.
The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror and silently handed me a tissue.
I thanked him quietly, pushed open the car door, and dragged the suitcase behind me as I stormed upstairs.
I went straight to Elise's front door and pounded on it with everything I had.
The door rattled like thunder under my fists.
Hurried footsteps echoed from inside, and the door swung open.
"Who the hell—? It's the middle of the night!"
Benjamin stood there in a pink apron, flour dusted across his forehead.
My eyes burned red in an instant.
Benjamin and I had been together for ten years.
I'd watched him go from a penniless student to a respected professor.
The deepest scar he carried was from college, when he'd worked part-time as a kitchen hand at a restaurant to put himself through school. A group of rich kids who resented him had jumped him, pinned him to the ground, and poured leftover food over his head.
"Pathetic little cook. You think you can steal another man's girl?"
After that, he despised the kitchen. Loathed everything about cooking.