After His Affair with Serenity, I Walked Away

Dane started showing up like a bad habit. He didn't text. He didn't call. He just appeared at the edges of my life, a dark shadow lingering right in my peripheral vision.

On Tuesday morning, I saw him outside the coffee shop two blocks from my new apartment. I hadn't told him where I moved. He must have tracked down the address through Carter. He stood by the streetlamp on the corner, his hands buried deep in the pockets of the wool coat I bought him last Christmas. He didn’t come inside. He just watched me through the glass window while I waited for my order.

I didn't blink. I didn't turn away. I stood at the counter, paid for my iced latte, and pushed the heavy glass door open. I walked right past him. Our shoulders almost brushed. I didn't look up, and I didn't slow my pace.

On Thursday, he was at my new gym. He was pretending to stretch on a mat near the treadmills. On Sunday, I saw his familiar dark hair at the local farmers market. I had mentioned that market to him exactly once, over six months ago. Now, he was lurking by the organic apples, watching me pick out vegetables.

He wanted me to snap. He wanted me to march over and yell at him. Yelling meant there was still passion. Yelling meant I still cared enough to be angry. But I didn't give him the satisfaction. I treated him like the weather. You don't yell at the rain. You just open your umbrella and keep walking.

My mother called me on Wednesday evening. The caller ID flashed 'Jacqueline' on my screen. I was standing in my tiny kitchen in bare feet, waiting for the kettle to boil. I took a slow, deep breath and answered the phone.

"Hello, Mom."

She didn't say hello back. "I just think you're being impulsive, Lauren," she started right away. Her voice had that familiar, tight pitch of anxiety.

I leaned my back against the cold counter. "Word travels fast."

"Your Aunt Susan spoke to Carter. Carter says Dane is a complete wreck," she said sharply. "He’s trying to reach you. He wants to fix this. And you are parading around the city ignoring him."

"There is nothing to fix, Mom. It's over."

She sighed loudly into the phone. It was the sigh she used when I was a difficult child. "You're not getting any younger, Lauren. Do you know how many women would kill for a man who's willing to fight for them? He's wealthy, he's handsome, and he wants to marry you. You throw away two whole years over one little mistake?"

My grip on the phone tightened. My knuckles turned white. A year ago, her words would have crushed me. I would have cried. I would have tried to explain Serenity, the secret flights to London, the constant, suffocating feeling of being his second choice.

Not today. The kettle began to whistle, a low, sharp sound in the quiet room.

"It wasn't a mistake, Mom," I said softly. "It was a choice. He made his. Now I'm making mine."

"You are throwing your life away!" she snapped. "You expect perfection. Men aren't perfect, Lauren. You secure the ring, and you build a life. That is how it works."

"I don't expect perfection," I replied. My voice was completely steady. I felt a strange, cold power rising in my chest. "But I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than spend another day shrinking myself to fit inside someone else's idea of what I should want."

The line went dead quiet. I could hear her breathing. She didn't have a script for this. I wasn't the daughter who backed down to keep the peace anymore. I had run out of peace to give.

"I have to go, Mom," I said. I hung up the phone and poured my hot water. My hands weren't shaking at all.

Friday night was loud. Hayley dragged me to a rooftop bar in the Meatpacking District to celebrate my first week of freedom. The air was warm. The city lights blurred into long, beautiful streaks of gold and red against the dark sky.

I was two glasses of wine deep. The DJ was playing something with a heavy, pulsing bass that thumped right in my chest. I felt light. I felt like I had dropped a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight.

Hayley was laughing, shouting something funny over the music. I climbed onto the bottom metal rung of my high barstool. I threw my arms up, swaying to the beat. I closed my eyes and let the night wind mess up my hair. I felt alive.

Then, my heel slipped on the slick metal.

I fell backward. I gasped, bracing myself for the hard impact of the wooden deck.

But I didn't hit the ground. Two strong hands grabbed my waist out of nowhere. The grip was tight, desperate, and entirely too familiar. The scent of expensive cedar and bergamot cologne filled my nose. My stomach dropped.

I opened my eyes. Dane.

He was looking down at me. His jaw was clenched tight. His dark eyes were wide and frantic. He had been lurking at the far end of the bar the whole time, watching me in the dark.

"I've got you," he whispered. His voice was rough. He pulled me flush against his solid chest, steadying me on my feet.

The contact was electric. It sent a hot shock right up my spine. But it wasn't a good shock. It was the sharp, warning sting of touching a hot stove.

He didn't let go. His hands stayed firmly on my hips. He stared down at my mouth. He thought this was a movie. He thought this was the grand romantic moment where I melted into his arms, cried into his shirt, and begged him to take me back. He thought his physical touch was enough to erase London.

I looked at his handsome face. I saw the arrogant, desperate hope shining in his eyes.

Suddenly, a wild, reckless idea sparked in my head.

If I pushed him away now, he would just keep following me. He would keep showing up at my gym. He would keep thinking he just needed to try harder. I needed to burn that hope to the ground. I needed to crush his ego so completely that nothing would ever grow back.

I didn't push him away. Instead, I let my hands rest flat against his chest. I felt his heart hammering wildly against my palms.

I tilted my head and gave him a slow, heavy look.

"Take me home," I said quietly.

Dane’s breath hitched. His eyes widened in pure relief. He really thought he had won. He grabbed my hand, lacing his warm fingers tightly through mine, and pulled me toward the exit.

I followed him out into the neon-lit street. I watched his broad shoulders relax with victory. I smiled to myself in the dark. He had absolutely no idea what was coming.