The courthouse smelled of printer ink, damp coats, and relationships that had discreetly ended in front of strangers.
I sat on a hard wooden bench outside Courtroom 2A of the Franklin County Justice Center, pressing my hand against my purse as if I could silence whatever was hidden in there.
Underneath my purse, my lip balm, and a crumpled pharmacy receipt, there was a pregnancy test wrapped in a tissue with two bright pink lines, and I would have counted at least six weeks if fear hadn’t distorted my perception of time.
My husband wasn’t there, and his absence didn’t hurt me as much as I expected because something inside me had already been consumed long before that morning.
“Miss Bennett?” said the lawyer in a refined, distant tone, as if emotions were a nuisance he refused to acknowledge.
“Her husband held back,” she continued, in a tone that sounded like a rehearsed apology for a man who had simply chosen not to witness the end of his own marriage.
—Of course —I replied curtly as I accepted the documents that would legally put an end to three years of my life.
Before I could sign, voices behind me created a peculiar atmosphere, and I looked up, seeing a group of men walking with an air of quiet authority, which made the corridor seem smaller.
The man who was guiding them moved as if gravity had no power over him, dressed in a black suit and with an expression that suggested patience was a weapon, not a virtue.
Someone behind me whispered a name and I recognized it before I even realized it.
Ethan Vale.
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