Page 38 of After Everything
CHAPTER 13: DAVID
Istood on the sidewalk for a full minute after she walked away.
Just stood there, laptop bag over my shoulder, watching her disappear around the corner. The canvas bag with the flowers sticking out. The confident stride. The way she didn't look back.
Not once.
My coffee had gone cold in my hand. I dumped it in the trash can next to the bench and sat down.
Emma.
Three years. Three years of therapy and rebuilding and trying to become someone I could stand to look at in the mirror. Threeyears of wondering if I'd ever see her again, playing out scenarios in my head about what I'd say, how I'd apologize, whether she'd even give me the chance.
And when it finally happened, I'd frozen. Stumbled through three minutes of awkward small talk like an idiot. Watched her check her phone and excuse herself because she had somewhere better to be.
Which, of course, she did. She had an entire life. One that didn't include me.
I pulled out my phone and stared at it. Dr. Reeves had told me a thousand times: "Leave her alone. Let her move on. If you actually care about her, you'll respect that."
I'd been good. For three years, I'd been so fucking good. No texts. No calls. No showing up places. I'd deleted her number from my phone after the first year because the temptation was too much. I'd avoided her street, her favorite restaurants, anywhere I thought she might be.
And now I'd seen her, and she was... fine. Better than fine. She was thriving. Nurse practitioner. Women's health. She'd finished the program, built the career she deserved,become the person she was always supposed to be.
And all that without me.
A couple walked past, holding hands, laughing about something. The woman looked at her partner like he'd hung the moon. I remembered when Emma used to look at me like that. Back in college, before I'd slowly, systematically destroyed everything good between us.
My phone was still in my hand. I pulled up my calendar by instinct. I had a client meeting in an hour; a divorce case, ironically. Woman leaving her husband after twenty years because he'd been "emotionally checked out" for the last five. She'd cried in my office last week, asking if she was making a mistake, if she should try harder.
I'd told her what Dr. Reeves had told me: "You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. And you can't stay in a marriage where only one person is trying."
The client had nodded, signed the retainer agreement, and scheduled the meeting for today to go over the filing.
I was good at this now. Helping peopleleave bad situations. Helping them rebuild. Helping them see that starting over wasn't the end of the world… it was just the beginning of a different one.
It was penance, maybe. Or just the only kind of law I could stomach anymore.
I stood up and started walking toward my office. It was a small space above a coffee shop three blocks away; nothing like the corner office I'd had at Olson, Chen & Lowe. But it was mine. Paid for by clients who actually needed help, not corporations trying to avoid liability.
My phone buzzed with a text from Marcus, one of the few friends I’d found after everything imploded.
Drinks tonight? I’m closing early.
Marcus owned a bar downtown. We'd met through a mutual client two years ago and had somehow become friends despite the fact that I was a walking disaster at the time.
I texted back:
Can't. Client meeting until late. Rain check?
No problem. Let me know when you're free.
I pocketed my phone and kept walking. The city was busy: people rushing home from work, tourists taking photos, life happening all around me. I used to hate this neighborhood. Too loud, too crowded, too far from the gleaming high-rises where "real" lawyers worked.
Now I liked it. It felt honest. Real. Like the kind of place where people actually lived instead of just performed.
My office was on the second floor, accessible by a narrow staircase that probably violated about six building codes. The door still had the previous tenant's name on it, some accountant who'd retired to Florida. I kept meaning to change it but never got around to it.
Inside, the space was small but functional. A desk I'd bought used, two chairs for clients, and a bookshelf with my lawbooks and case files. Then, a window that looked out over the street, giving me a view of the coffee shop below and the people coming and going.
