"Relax. Give it an hour and she'll come crawling back."
Every word out of Nigel's mouth suffocated me.
A few careless sentences, and eight years together were buried in the past.
——
I walked the streets alone, staring at the neon lights of this city.
His words kept circling in my ears.
The alleyways we'd walked hand in hand, the shops we'd lingered in, the parks we'd strolled through on lazy afternoons. In that moment, all of it became foreign.
Whatever sense of belonging I'd built here vanished the instant those words left his mouth.
So this was what it really meant to marry far from home.
I walked in a wide, aimless loop and ended up right back at the foot of our apartment building.
I looked up at the light in our window, and the tears came before I could stop them.
What hurt the most was that Nigel was right.
I had nowhere to go.
In this city that was never mine, I didn't even have somewhere to run after a fight.
I'd left without my phone. I didn't even know how long I'd been gone.
I stood outside the front door, listening to the noise still going on inside, and drew one long breath before pushing it open.
The room went quiet. Every pair of eyes found me, loaded with meaning.
"You're back?"