Double Regrets: My Boyfriend Is My Ex’s Boss

Adrian smiled. Real. Warm. The kind of smile he hadn't given Amelia in three years.

"Good boy."

He held out his hand. Leo dropped the necklace into his father's palm.

Adrian closed his fingers around it.

"That's my big man."

* * *

Amelia was still on her knees.

Her hand was at her throat where the chain had been. Her neck was bleeding in a thin red line where the broken links had cut.

She didn't feel it.

She got up off her knees. Slowly. Wiped her face on the back of her wrist.

She did not look at Leo.

She looked at Adrian.

"Adrian."

"What."

"I married a devil. And I gave birth to a little one."

Adrian rolled his eyes.

He actually rolled his eyes.

"Oh, here we go," he said. "Here we go, the drama. Are you done? Are you finished with the show?"

"Adrian - "

"You always do this, Amelia. Every time something doesn't go your way. You make a scene, you cry, you say the meanest thing you can think of, and then you wait for me to come find you and bring you home." He laughed. Short. Cold.

"Not tonight. I'm done. I'm going back inside to my guests. And just so we're clear - me and Leo? We're not coming to find you this time. We're not calling. We're not talking. So before you flounce off, you'd better be sure. Because there's no coming back."

She stared at him.

"You'd better not regret this," he said.

Then her son spoke.

"Mommy."

She looked down.

Leo had his little hands on his hips. He was looking up at her with the most disappointed expression a five-year-old face could hold.

"Mommy, you graduated from kindergarten a long time ago. You're not supposed to throw tantrums anymore."

He shook his head - a small, sad, grown-up shake.

"Daddy says big girls don't cry over little things."

Amelia looked at her son.

She looked at her husband.

She looked at the gold chain in Adrian's fist.

And something in her went very, very quiet.

"You're right," she said softly. "Big girls don't."

She turned.

She walked.

Bare feet on cold pavement.

She did not look back.

Behind her she heard Adrian mutter, "Unbelievable," and Leo say, "Daddy, can we go back to Aunt Sera now?" and Adrian say, "Yeah, buddy. Come on."

Two sets of shoes, walking the other way.

She kept going.

* * *

Three more blocks.

Past a closed pharmacy. Past a 24-hour bodega. Past a chain coffee shop with one bored cashier wiping the counter.

Amelia stopped at the corner. Pulled out her phone with hands she could not quite make stop shaking.

She scrolled to a name she hadn't called in eight months.

Maya.

Maya, who'd been her best friend since seventh grade. Maya, who had thrown her bridal shower. Maya, who had walked out of Amelia's apartment two years ago after one too many fights about Adrian, and said, Call me when you're ready, babe. I'll be here. I'm always here.

Amelia hit the green button.

Maya picked up on the second ring.

"Babe." No hello. Just - babe, like no time had passed at all. "Okay. What did that pair of sorry-ass mutts do to you this time?"

A laugh punched out of Amelia's chest. Wet and ugly. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep it in.

"Maya - "

"Talk to me."

"Maya, I - " She pressed her forehead to a cold streetlight. Her voice wouldn't come.

"Hey. Hey. Breathe. I'm right here."

"I lost everything tonight."

Silence on the line.

"I lost everything, Maya. I don't want them anymore. Either of them. I'm done."

A beat.

Then -

"OH MY GOD."

Amelia almost dropped the phone.

"OH MY GOD. AMELIA. AMELIA, BABE. ARE YOU SERIOUS?"

"Maya - "

"I want to hire a plane," Maya said. "I want to hire a plane and fly a banner over this whole goddamn city. SHE FINALLY WISED UP. Yeah! YEAH, BABY! WELCOME BACK!"

Amelia laughed. She was crying. She was laughing.

"Maya, I'm - I'm on the corner of Eighth and forty-something, I don't have shoes, I don't have a coat, I have cake in my hair, and I - "

"Stay there. Don't move. Don't blink. Mama's coming. Twenty minutes."

"Maya - "

"And, Amelia?"

"Yeah."

"Happy birthday, you free woman."

The line clicked.

Amelia stood on the corner with the dial tone in her ear and the April cold biting at her bare feet, and she looked up at the streetlight and let herself laugh - really laugh - for the first time in six years.

She was twenty-eight.

She had no shoes. No husband. No son.

And for the first time in her adult life, she was free.

* * *