Chapter Ten – just quiet and me
Izzy:
By morning, I was hollow.
The office was still dark, save for the faint gray of dawn slipping through the blinds; my body ached from sleeping on the floor, my head heavy with the dull throb of too many drinks of coffee and too little peace.
I sat up slowly; My blazer clung to me like armor gone stiff, useless; I gently peeled it off and reached for the bottle of water in my drawer, something I always kept for long nights, .. especially the one I hadn't planned on it being for survival.
I didn't go home, I didn't call him, and I didn't say a word, instead, I changed into the spare dress I kept in my office closet, pulled my hair back into a tight bun, dabbed concealer under my swollen eyes, and walked into the courtroom like nothing happened.
Because that is what I do, I survive, even when I don't recognize myself in the mirror.
The next few days passed in fragments, depositions, late nights, too much coffee, and not enough sleep.
Too many calls from Carl that I ignored. He texted, left voicemails, and even sent flowers, those white lilies I used to love. I tossed them in the trash without reading the card.
I didn't know what I was waiting for.
An apology? A confession? A time machine?
Or maybe for the numbness to thaw.
But then came the message I couldn't ignore:
"I know I messed up. Please, Izzy. Let's talk. Dinner. Anywhere. Just us. I need to fix this."
Fix it. Like a broken heart was just another artery he could stitch back together.
Still, I said yes.
Not because I wanted to forgive him.
But because I wanted to look him in the eyes and ask why.
Why did he take something so sacred, so rare, and shatter it?
We met at our favorite restaurant. The same table where he proposed.
He stood when I walked in, nervous in a way I hadn't seen since our first date. His tie was crooked, his hands twitching. He'd aged in three days—guilt and fear carving new shadows into his face.
"Izzy," he said softly, pulling out my chair.
I sat but didn't smile.
Silence stretched between us until the waiter brought wine. He poured. I didn't touch mine.
"I'm sorry," Carl began. "There's no excuse. No explanation that'll make it right."
"You're right," I said, staring at him, stone still. "There's not."
He exhaled, nodding. "It wasn't about love. It wasn't even about her. It was stupid and reckless... I felt distant from you, and I—God, I'm not saying this to make it your fault. It's all mine. I was afraid we were slipping, and instead of reaching for you, I ran."
I swallowed hard. "Do you know what you broke?"
"I do. I see it every time I close my eyes."
"You don't," I whispered, voice tight. "Because if you did, you wouldn't have done it."
His eyes glistened. "I want to fix this. Please. Therapy. Time. Whatever it takes. I'll do anything."
I looked at him...really looked. The man who once knelt in front of me on our wedding day. The man who made me pancakes. The man who held my heart in his hands and dropped it.
And I realized something chilling.
I didn't know if I could ever trust him again.
And worse—
I didn't know if I wanted to.
....
The restaurant conversation didn't give me closure.
It gave me silence.
The kind that hums in your ears when a storm passes too quickly like the eye of something bigger still circling.
Carl kept reaching out after that night.
Texts. Calls.
A letter left at my office, in that annoyingly perfect surgeon's handwriting, apologizing again, begging for time.
I didn't respond.
I didn't know how to.
Because what do you say when someone hands you your heart back in pieces?
Thanks, but I don't know where this part fits anymore?
---
Work became my drug.
Courtrooms were the only places where I still knew who I was.
Where the ground didn't shift beneath me.
Where truth mattered—at least in theory.
But even there, I was different.
Sharper. Colder.
Like all the warmth had been siphoned out and replaced with pure, pointed precision.
"You okay?" Maya, my assistant, asked one morning, hovering by my office door with my usual coffee order and too-soft eyes.
"I'm fine," I said.
"You look tired."
"Then close the door."
She hesitated, then quietly obeyed.
The second the latch clicked, I dropped my face into my hands and breathed through the exhaustion. Not the kind sleep could fix—the kind that seeps into your bones and makes everything feel like a performance.
---
Nights were the worst.
Too quiet.
Too still.
Too full of ghosts.
I moved from my office to the hallway. My boss Erin didn't know I was sleeping in my office, I was too ashamed and too hurt to go home
Carl tried to drop by once.
But I didn't open the door.
I sat in the hallway instead, listening to his muffled voice through the wood.
"Izzy… I know you're in there. Please. Just talk to me."
I didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't move until his footsteps faded down the stairs.
Only then did I break all over again.
---
A week passed.
Then two.
Then I stopped counting.
He finally stopped trying.
Or maybe I just stopped noticing.
The world moved on like it didn't know I was grieving something still alive.
....
.
It happened on a Wednesday.
The kind of Wednesday where the air feels heavy, like it's warning you of something before it happens.
I was brushing my teeth when I noticed it—my wedding ring, still gold and new, I wondered if Eddie saw the ring in his fingers before she opened her legs for him.
Three weeks had passed.
, "Three weeks had passed. And I still couldn't forgive."
That was it.
The breaking point wasn't the cheating.
Wasn't the apology.
Wasn't the dinner or the tears or the goddamn lilies.
It was the ring
Because that tiny, stupid thing reminded me that he is still my husband and the love of my life, and I'm beginning to miss him,
And I don't know if it was okay to miss him, so I decided not to anymore.
---
That night I decided to go home and
packed that night.
Not just his things. Mine.
Two suitcases. A laptop. A box of court files. One framed photo of me and my mother from law school graduation.
I left everything else.
The wedding photos. The scented candles we argued about. The mug with "World's Best Husband" is on the shelf above the fridge.
I didn't want to burn the place down.
I just wanted to stop suffocating inside it.
---
My parents' house smelled like lemon cleaner and old books.
My mother opened the door with surprise in her eyes and quiet concern in her voice. She didn't ask questions when I walked in.
She just hugged me. The kind of hug that reminded me I used to be a person before Carl.
"You can have your old room," she said gently. "I haven't touched it."
It was childish, maybe. Running home. Curling up in a bed covered in old debate trophies and high school photos. But for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel like I was performing grief.
I was just living it.
---
That night, I sat at the edge of the bed and let the silence hold me.
No beeping from Carl's pager.
No sce
nt of his cologne on my pillow.
No sound of guilt creeping down the hallway.
Just quiet.
And me.
I could feel it.
The slow return of something that once lived in my chest.
Not strength. Not yet.
But space.