Page 28 of Letting Go

I step into the doorway, and it hits me like a gut punch. I don’t even see them anymore, just echoes. Her moaning. His hand gripping her hip. My own yells ricocheting around the room like grenades that never stopped exploding.

Nope. Nope, nope, absolutely not.

I turn around so fast I nearly trip over my own feet.

I’m halfway down the hall again when Hannah appears, moving up the stairs like a goddess sent to manage my meltdown. She takes one look at my face; whatever horror show of grief and disgust I’m currently wearing; and doesn’t ask a single thing.

“Guest room,” she says firmly, already veering past me. “You’re not showering in there. I’ll get your stuff.”

And just like that, she disappears into the room I can’t even look at, braver than me, quieter than me, strong in the way I used to pretend I was.

I stumble into the guest bathroom and brace myself against the sink. My reflection stares back at me; smudged mascara, red-rimmed eyes, blotchy cheeks. A woman cracked open. A woman who finally saw the truth and didn’t look away.

I turn on the shower. The sound of water drowns out the silence that’s been howling in my ears since I walked in on my life falling apart.

Steam fills the room.

I step under the spray and let it burn.

Not hot. Scalding.

Because maybe if I melt my skin off, I’ll stop feeling like he ever touched me at all.

Chapter 11

I wake up and, no surprise, not even for a second do I forget.

There’s no blissful, blurry moment of disoriented peace. No “where am I?” fog. Just boom, straight into the goddamn visual. Her legs around his waist. His hand on her hip. That look on his face. Like he was enjoying himself. Like he wasn’t dismantling the last shreds of my reality one thrust at a time.

Even in my sleep, they haunted me. Dreams full of sheets and sweat and the sound of my own scream. Honestly? If I believed in exorcisms, I’d hire one for my subconscious.

Last night, right before Hannah left, she asked, “Now what?”

And I knew. Oh, I knew.

Now, it’s revenge.

Not the messy, dramatic kind that ends in a mugshot and a Netflix documentary, tempting as that is. No, this is the cold, calculating, strategic kind. The kind that leaves no fingerprints but absolutely devastates. Because he doesn’t have brothers, so revenge sex is out. And his father? God, Judge Miller is practically my dad. Too kind. Too decent. Too disappointed in his son already to weaponize like that. Although the idea of sending him the video has crossed my mind. Twice.

So yeah. No blunt-force vengeance. This will be surgical.

Because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, sure, but that’s such a small fury. So unimaginative. So basic.

What I’m about to do will make hell look like a charming Airbnb.

And it starts today. With Lorna Bishop.

Lorna is a friend from law school, but calling her just a “friend” is like calling Beyoncé “a singer.” She’s a goddamn force. While I nerded out over contracts and mergers, Lorna went full gladiator. Divorce law. Specializing in high-conflict, high-stakes, scorched-earth separation.

Her origin story? Her dad left her mom for his twenty-two-year-old secretary and kicked them both out of the house they paid for. Lorna and her mother spent months bouncing between shitty rentals while he and his slimeball attorney made it rain settlement loopholes.

So yeah, if anyone knows how to burn a cheating bastard to the ground legally, it’s her.

And today at ten, I’ve got an appointment.

I sit up, stretch, and wince at the hangover that feels like it’s trying to climb out of my skull. Wine. So much wine. But I still manage a smile. Crooked, bitter, satisfied.

Time to put on a killer outfit, sip a gallon of water, and ruin a man with nothing but a signed affidavit and a well-timed deposition.

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