Page 31 of After Everything
"Nope." I set down the champagne. "Just making sure we had enough to celebrate properly."
"That's my girl." Jess popped the cork, and everyone cheered.
I glanced back at the window one more time. Sarah was still there, still talking to her friends, but her posture was stiff. Uncomfortable.
Good.
I turned back to my table, to my friends, to Connor asking me a question about the NP program, to Jess pouring champagne, to this life I was building.
And I realized something.
I didn't just feel nothing about Sarah.
I felt free.
CHAPTER 11: DAVID
Icouldn't sleep.
It was 11 PM on a Saturday, and I'd been lying in bed for two hours staring at the ceiling, listening to the couple next door argue about whose turn it was to do the dishes. The same argument they had every weekend. Sometimes I wondered if they even remembered what they were really fighting about.
I gave up and got dressed.
My therapist—Dr. Reeves, a woman in her fifties who didn't take any of my shit—had said insomnia was normal. "Your body is adjusting," she'd told me at our session last week. "You've spent months numbingyourself with alcohol. Now you're feeling everything. It's uncomfortable, but it's progress."
Progress. Right.
Four months since Emma kicked me out. Three months since I'd signed the divorce papers. Six weeks since I'd lost my job.
Margaret had been apologetic about it. "We gave you every chance, David. But you missed another deadline, and the client complained. We can't keep you on." She'd offered me a severance package and a neutral reference. I'd taken both and left without fighting it.
I should have been devastated. Should have spiraled. A year ago, losing that job would have destroyed me.
But I'd just felt... tired. Relieved, almost. I'd hated that cube, hated the looks from junior associates, hated being a cautionary tale.
So I'd started planning. A solo practice, maybe. Small cases. Simple work. Rebuilding from the ground up, on my own terms.
Dr. Reeves had called it "accepting reality and moving forward." I called it survival.
I walked down the empty street, hands in my pockets. The city was quieter at night, less frantic. A few people passed by: a couple holding hands, a group of friends laughing, a woman walking her dog.
Everyone else seemed to know where they were going. What they were doing. Who they were.
I was still figuring that out.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. For a second, my heart jumped—stupid, pathetic hope that it might be Emma. Even after all these months, this still happened every time. But no… no Emma.
It was my mom. A text.
Checking in. How are you doing?
We'd been talking again. Not a lot, but enough. She called once a week, asked how therapy was going, whether I was eating,whether I was taking care of myself. She didn't ask about Emma anymore.
I texted back:
Okay. Can't sleep. Out for a walk.
Three dots appeared. Then:
