Page 29 of Letting Go

Let’s fucking go.

I get up like a woman on a mission. Hungover, heartbroken, but weirdly laser-focused. Revenge is apparently a hell of a cure for emotional devastation. Better than therapy. Or Xanax. Or wine.

My body’s still puffy with grief and alcohol, but I chug two glasses of water like I’m prepping for battle, then scarf down a slice of leftover pizza. Cold, greasy, perfect. I want to go for a run, burn the rage off with sweat and motion, but I don’t have time. The warpath doesn’t wait.

So, I shower. Dress. Black pants, sharp blazer, boots that say you will respect me or bleed trying. Hair pulled back. Lipstick like a warning label.

Then I leave.

Lorna’s office is downtown, one of those modern, boutique law firms with glass walls, reclaimed wood, and probably a therapy dog in the breakroom. I show up twenty minutes early because I am that level of prepared and that unwilling to give myself time to chicken out. Or spiral.

The receptionist greets me like I belong here, which is probably the first time today I don’t feel like a walking disaster. She points me to Lorna’s office, and as I walk down the quiet, sunlit hallway, my boots tap likea countdown. Each step says: you messed with the wrong woman.

And then I see her.

Lorna Bishop.

She’s standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows of her corner office like she owns the skyline. Petite, poised, and beautiful in that utterly terrifying way. Like if Olivia Pope and a Bond villain had a baby and raised her on feminist theory and vengeance.

Her blazer is white. Crisp. Immaculate. Not a single wrinkle dares show up on her person. Her hair is slicked back in a bun that could cut glass, and when she turns to look at me, her eyes are calm and assessing. Not cold. Just measured. Like she’s already ten steps into the case I haven’t even presented yet.

I haven’t seen Lorna Bishop in years.

We were inseparable in law school. Sweat, caffeine, and ambition stitched us together like wartime sisters. But life, as it always does, carved us into separate shapes. She went east coast; I stayed in Midwest. She chased divorce law like it owed her something, and I went corporate. Contracts, paperwork, power suits. We texted on birthdays. Sent memes when we remembered. Nothing deep. Nothing lasting.

Until now.

She’s standing across from me, framed by glass and skyline, looking exactly like the kind of woman you hire when you want to walk into court and win so hard your ex-cries blood. I don’t know if I want to cry or clap.

“Leni,” she says, with a hint of real surprise under all that sleek composure. “God, how long has it been?”

I manage something that’s technically a smile, even though everything in me feels splintered and brittle. “Too long.”

We both know that’s true. The only reason my friendship with Hannah survived all these years is because our husbands were friends. Couple friends. Dinner-party friends. Lorna? We barely know each other now.

Which means she has no idea what I’m about to drop on her.

I sit. The chair’s too soft. My bones want something harder, something more appropriate for the kind of pain I’m holding. Lorna sits too, folding one perfect leg over the other, eyes scanning me like I’m a puzzle that’s missing too many edge pieces.

“I have a situation,” I start. Understatement of the year. “And I need a lawyer who isn’t afraid of fire.”

Her brows lift just slightly. “You got married before graduation, right?”

“I did.” My voice cracks a little. “To a cheating, lying excuse for a man who apparently thinks wedding vows come with an expiration date.”

“Okay…” She leans in. “How bad are we talking? One-night stand? Co-worker? Someone I can sue and destroy publicly?”

I laugh, sharp and joyless. “Worse. My sister.”

The silence between us stretches so taut I think I might snap with it.

Then: “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Your sister?”

“Keira. Nineteen. Can’t even drive a car. Still lives at home. That sister.”

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