Chapter 2 - Two Weeks With a Stone in My Chest
For fourteen days I carried Brad's little announcement around like a rock lodged behind my ribs.
I stood in front of my bathroom mirror one night and looked at the body he'd spent years turning into a bit.
Twelve years of loyalty. Twelve years of cleaning up other people's messes without so much as a thank-you.
And now a water park, where Brad was clearly planning to make me the centerpiece of every joke he had in the drawer.
I could already hear the one about the whale.
"You don't have to go," my sister told me on the phone. "Just call in sick, Diane. Nobody on earth would blame you."
"He'd love that."
She was quiet for a while. "You've already made up your mind, haven't you? About the retreat. And the other thing."
"I'll call you after and tell you how it went," I said quickly.
I hung up and sat there staring at the wall.
If I did this, there was no walking it back. And I wasn't sure I was ready for whatever came next.
May you like
For about the hundredth time, I thought about how much simpler it would be to just quit and disappear.
But I couldn't. Not like that.
