I believed him. I would put my life on hold for eight years, sacrificing everything for him. In the end, he had left me with nothing, not even dignity.
I blocked Chloe. If she wanted him, she could have him. I was finally done.
***
The next morning, I woke to my phone vibrating, Mark’s name lighting up the screen. I ignored it, but his voice echoed in my head. "Where did you go this time? Do you think you are still twenty, running off like this? You are nearly thirty, Rachel! And what's with the blood on the carpet? Do you know that's a custom-imported carpet Chloe picked out herself? It cost over two hundred thousand dollars ……!"
I hung up. He had not noticed that I had packed up my life and had not even asked why I was bleeding. To him, as long as it was related to Chloe and what she liked, it was worth more than me—or my mother's life.
If it was me a day ago, I would have blamed myself for those words and tried to find a way to apologize to Mark. But that version was gone.