“My husband texted from vegas: ‘just married my coworker. You’re pathetic BTW.’ I replied: ‘cool.’ Then I blocked his cards and changed the house locks. Next morning, police were at my door…”

It sat on the twelfth floor of a building with floor-to-ceiling windows, exposed concrete columns, and a balcony that overlooked a web of city lights I could watch for hours without getting bored. The kitchen was compact but smart. The bedroom got morning sun. The closets were not huge, which I considered a public service against ever again sharing space with a man who owned seventeen versions of the same navy quarter-zip.

For the first few nights there, I slept with the balcony door cracked open just enough to hear the hum of the city below. Not because it was soothing in a romantic way. Because it reminded me I was inside a life in motion, not trapped in a house built around old routines and quieter forms of neglect.

Ethan’s name came up less and less.