Page 39 of After Everything
I'd had bigger offices. Nicer offices. Offices with floor-to-ceiling windows and assistants who brought me coffee and partners who clapped me on the back and told me I was going places.
But I liked this better.
I sat down at my desk and pulled up my client's file. Rebecca Morrison, 42, married for twenty years, two kids in high school. Her husband hadn't technically done anything wrong: no cheating, no abuse, no obvious betrayal. He'd just... stopped trying. Stopped seeing her. Stopped caring.
And she'd finally decided she deserved better.
I'd helped her draft the separation agreement. Worked out a custody arrangement that prioritized the kids. Made sure she got a fair split of their assets. The meeting today was just to review everything before we filed.
It was good work. Important work. The kind of work that actually mattered.
Not the kind of work that got you named partner or featured in legal publications or made your parents proud at dinner parties.
But it mattered to Rebecca. And that was enough.
The meeting ran long.By the time Rebecca left—calmer, more confident, ready to move forward—it was almost eight PM. I locked up the office and headed back down the narrow staircase.
The street was quieter now. The coffee shop below had closed. The restaurants were in their dinner rush, warm light spilling onto the sidewalk.
I thought about going home. The one-bedroom apartment I'd moved into years ago when I finally accepted that the hotel wasn't sustainable. It was small but clean, in a neighborhood that was slowly gentrifying. Not fancy, but mine.
But I wasn't ready to go home yet.
I walked instead. No destination in mind. Just walking, hands in my pockets, watching the city transition from day to night.
I ended up at the park near the university. There was a running trail that circled the perimeter, one I used sometimes when I couldn't sleep and needed to burn off the restless energy that came from three cups of coffee and too many hours sitting at a desk.
I sat on a bench near the trail and watched people go by. Runners, mostly. A few walkers with dogs. A couple holding hands, moving slowly, talking about something that made them both laugh.
Emma used to run. Back in college, she'd do half marathons at the drop of a hat. I'd go watch her sometimes, wait at the finish line with water and a sweatshirt because she always forgot to bring layers.
I wondered if she still ran. If she'd kept that part of herself or if she'd let it go like so many other things during our marriage.
Except she hadn't let it go. She'd letmego. And then she'd rebuilt everything I'd helped destroy.
A runner passed by—tall, auburn hair, moving fast. For a split second, my heart jumped, thinking it might be her. But it wasn't. Just someone who looked vaguely similar in the fading light.
I needed to stop this. Stop thinking about her. Stop wondering what she was doing, who she was with, whether she ever thought about me at all.
Dr. Reeves would tell me to focus on myself. On my own growth. On becoming the kind of person who wouldn't make the same mistakes.
And I was trying… God, I really was trying.
Three years of therapy. Three years of working on my practice, helping clients, doing work that mattered. Three years of staying sober, staying focused, staying away from the self-destructive patterns that had almost killed me.
But seeing her today had cracked something open. Reminded me of everything I'd lost. Everything I'd thrown away for fivemonths in hotel rooms with someone who'd walked away the second it got complicated.
Sarah.
I hadn't thought about her in months. Hadn't seen her since she'd ended things in that hotel room three years ago. I'd heard through the legal grapevine that she'd left her father's firm, moved to New York, was working at some big corporate firm doing M&A work.
Good for her, I guess.
She'd gotten out. Moved on. Rebuilt somewhere else.
And I was still here. Still in the same city where everything had fallen apart. Still running into ghosts on random sidewalks.
My phone buzzed. Not Marcus this time, but a text from Dr. Reeves.
