Page 30 of Scarlet Thorns
“I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. I’m breaking up with you.”
For a moment, we both stand frozen in the lamplight, my declaration hanging between us like a challenge. Stanley’s face cycles through shock, disbelief, and finally fury as the reality of what I’ve said sinks in.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” I move toward my car door again, and this time he doesn’t stop me immediately. “Move, Stanley.”
“This is insane.” His voice is rising, desperation bleeding through the anger. “You’re having some kind of breakdown because of medical issues, and you’re making decisions you’ll regret—”
“The only thing I regret is staying as long as I did.” I insert my key into the lock, hands steady despite the adrenaline flooding my system. “Now move away from my car.”
Instead of stepping back, he grabs my arm— not gently, not affectionately, but with the kind of grip designed to control. “You’re not thinking clearly. Let’s go back to my place and talk about this rationally.”
“Don’t touch me!” I yank my arm free with enough force to send him stumbling backward. The command comes from somewhere deep, fueled by months of boundaries violated and autonomy ignored. “Ever again!”
Stanley’s face transforms into something I’ve never seen before— ugly, entitled rage at being denied what he considers his property. For a split second, I think he might actually grab me again, might try to physically prevent me from leaving.
But I’m already in the car, doors locked, engine turning over. Through the windshield, I can see him standing in the lamplight looking like a stranger— or maybe like himself, finally, without the mask of charm and manipulation.
I reverse out of the parking space with deliberate care, refusing to screech tires or flee like I’m running away. Because I’m not running. I’m walking toward something better, something healthier, something that honors who I actually am instead of who he needed me to be.
In my rearview mirror, Stanley grows smaller and smaller until he disappears entirely into the darkness behind me.
As I drive through Boston’s quiet streets, the adrenaline begins to fade, replaced by something lighter and more fragile— relief. The kind of relief that comes from finally putting down a weight you didn’t realize you were carrying.
My phone buzzes with a text, probably from Stanley, but I don’t check it. Tonight isn’t about him anymore. It’s about thewoman who walked into Room Five afraid and desperate, and walked out remembering her own worth.
It’s about an unknown man’s hands on my face, treating me like something precious.
It’s about the future I’m finally free to imagine without Stanley’s emotional abuse.
I drive toward home with the windows down, letting the cool air wash away the last traces of a relationship that was slowly killing me.
And for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe.
Chapter Twelve
Osip
The numbers on my computer screen blur together like broken code.
I’ve been staring at the same spreadsheet for twenty minutes, but all I can see are her eyes behind that lace mask. Eyes that roved over me with something raw and hungry that made my chest tighten.
I got home after midnight last night, the drive from The Scarlet Fox passing in a haze of her scent still in my nostrils. Galina was fast asleep, one hand resting protectively over her swollen belly, dark hair spread across Egyptian cotton like spilled ink. She looked peaceful. Innocent. Everything I’m not.
I should have slipped into bed beside her, should have let my wife’s presence ground me back to reality. Instead, I stood in our bedroom doorway for several minutes, watching her breathe while my mind replayed every second of what happened in that burgundy room.
The woman’s voice, defeated and honest:I’m broken in ways that can’t be fixed.
The trust in her eyes when she told a masked stranger about her health problems. The way she said it— quiet, broken, like she was confessing to murder instead of a medical condition.
Endometriosis.
She can’t have children easily. Maybe not at all.
The knowledge sits heavy in my chest. This information should be irrelevant— she’s a stranger, a masked encounter that was supposed to end when I walked out that door. But itgnaws at me anyway, this understanding of her pain, her broken dreams.
I’d tried to sleep. Tossed and turned for two hours while Galina slept peacefully beside me, her pregnancy-deepened breathing a constant reminder of what I was betraying just by thinking about another woman. Finally, I gave up and went to the shower.
