Left Bleeding While He Chose Her

The emergency room door was left slightly ajar, and Teds voice cut through the sterile hallway, reaching me loud and clear.

He was telling the doctor that Daphne was a violinist. That her hands were her livelihood, that they absolutely could not be damaged. He demanded they treat her first.

At that exact moment, I had just been pulled from the twisted metal of our car by the firefighters. My left wrist was slick with my own blood, a gash on my temple was steadily weeping down the side of my face, and a massive, ugly bruise was blooming across my thigh.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the pain had escalated into a dull, terrifying numbness.

My knees had been pinned in the crumpled gap of the passenger seat, the seatbelt biting into my collarbone so hard I couldnt move. Half my body had lost all sensation.

I remember the torrential rain hammering against the shattered windshield, the freezing wind howling through the broken glass. And I remember watching, helpless and pinned, as Ted kicked his door open, scooped up a bleeding Daphne, and disappeared into the storm with her.

He moved like a man possessed. He never once looked back.

"Daphne!"

In the chaotic second the car was struck and the metal buckled inward, I didn't even hear my own scream. I only heard my husband screaming another woman's name.

Right then, in the freezing wreckage, I simply stopped struggling.

I finally understood. I could live a hundred lifetimes, and I would never win against the ghost of his first love.

"How is this woman related to you, sir?" the doctor asked.

Ted hesitated. The silence lasted exactly two seconds.

"Just treat them both."

That sentence was the perfect summary of what he had given me for the past three years.

He never rejected me. He never truly acknowledged me. He never blatantly picked a side, but he never, not once, stood firmly in my corner.

Lying on the narrow hospital bed, staring at the fluorescent ceiling panels, I suddenly let out a laugh.

The nurse bandaging my head paused, her voice gentle. "Does it hurt?"

"I'm okay," I whispered.

The truth was, the pain was blinding. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. But compared to the physical agony, what hurt far worse was the realization that I wasn't surprised. Not even a little.

Because this wasn't the first time.

And it wouldn't be the last.

When Ted finally pushed open the door to my cubicle, I had just finished getting stitches.

His shoulders were still soaked from the rain. There was blood on the cuffs of his expensive dress shirt, and I didn't know if it was Daphne's or mine.

"How bad is it?" he asked.

I looked at him, my voice eerily calm. "Ted, I want a divorce."

He froze. He clearly hadn't expected me to drop that word, not here, not now.

His brow furrowed, and his tone slipped into that familiar, restrained impatience. "Nancy, you're running high on adrenaline right now. We'll talk about this when you've calmed down."

"I am perfectly calm."

"Today was an accident."

"You're right," I nodded slowly. "The crash was an accident. But every single time you choose her over me, Tedthat is a choice."

His eyes darkened, his jaw ticking. "Do you really have to throw a tantrum right now?"

I actually wanted to laugh again.

A tantrum.

To him, me asking for a divorce was just another hysterical female tantrum.

We had been married for three years.

Three years of staying up until dawn to help him draft proposals when his tech startup was bleeding money. Three years of wrangling his board of directors, drinking on his behalf at endless corporate dinners to secure funding, cleaning up his messes, and playing the perfectly poised, soft-spoken wife to the world.

Everyone in our circle always said the same thing: Ted might be a little cold, but he takes good care of Nancy.

He gave me black credit cards. He gave me a penthouse. He gave me a title.

He gave me everything except his heart.

Because every instinct, every subconscious reaction he had, belonged to someone else.

Daphne.

His untouchable golden girl. His first love. The dream he had never been able to wake up from.

I used to be so painfully naive. I thought that if I poured enough warmth, enough devotion into him, I could eventually thaw the ice around his heart.

It took me three years to realize the heart wasn't frozen. It just didn't belong to me.

That night in the hospital, Ted didn't argue with me anymore.

He stood by the bed in silence for a long time before finally saying, "My grandmother's birthday is next week. We'll talk after that."

Classic Ted.

Every time I backed him into a corner for an answer, he gave me a raincheck.

I closed my eyes. "Fine."

Maybe it was how quickly I agreed, but he lingered, looking at me a second longer than usual.

But I was already done explaining myself.

The next morning, I discharged myself from the hospital.

Ted had gone to check on Daphne. He sent me a brief text.

Gideon is going to drive you home. Remember to take your meds.

It read like instructions left for an assistant dealing with a minor inconvenience.

Not a husband.

Not a lover.

Walking into our apartment, I really looked at the place for the first time in three years.

Ted had bought this penthouse. He had chosen the interior design. Slate gray, stark white, matte black. It was beautiful, but it was as sterile as a luxury hotel lobby.

The flowers on the kitchen island were white roses. Daphnes favorite.

The crystal wine glasses in the cabinet were a niche French brand. The exact ones Daphne had posted on her Instagram a year ago.

The vintage record player in the study? The same brand Daphne used to obsess over in college.

Even the low-fat yogurt permanently stocked in the fridge was Daphnes preferred flavor.

I am lactose intolerant. One bite gives me agonizing stomach cramps.

It wasn't that I hadn't noticed these little breadcrumbs over the past three years. I just chose to play blind.

Because acknowledging them meant admitting that I was living inside someone elses lingering love story. That I was just a squatter in my own marriage.

Even though I was the one wearing the ring.

As I packed my bags, I pulled open a nightstand drawer and found an old, brushed silver lighter. In the bottom corner, deeply engraved, was a tiny letter "D."

A gift from Daphne.

I had asked him about it once, shortly after we got married. He had come home drunk, and as I was helping him out of his coat, it fell from his pocket.

"You still have this?" I had asked.

He only gave me three words.

"Forgot to toss it."

And yet, here it was, years later.

Some things don't get thrown away because they are much more than objects.

I put the lighter back in the drawer and slid it shut.

Then I began clearing out my life. My clothes, my books, my skincare, my files. I erased every trace that I had ever breathed the air in this apartment.

When Gideon, Teds executive assistant, showed up to help, he stood in the doorway, totally bewildered.

"Mrs. Crystal... what is all this?"

"I'm moving out."

He opened his mouth to argue, then wisely shut it.

Anyone who worked closely with Ted knew that while I appeared soft-spoken, once I made a decision, God himself couldn't change my mind.

Gideon stood awkwardly for a long time before muttering, "Mr. Crystal didn't mean anything by it yesterday, you know."

"Didn't mean what?"

"With the crash... Ms. Daphnes injuries just looked more severe in the moment..."

I didn't stop folding my sweaters.

"Gideon, you've worked for him a long time. Do you honestly believe I'm only upset about yesterday?"

Gideon fell silent.

Because he knew.

It wasn't just yesterday. It was never just yesterday.

The first time was three months after our wedding.

It was my birthday. Ted had promised to take me out to dinner. I sat in an absurdly expensive, dimly lit restaurant for two hours. I stayed until the busboys were wiping down the tables and I was the only patron left sitting by the window.

When he finally called, his voice was hushed. "Daphne ran into some trouble in Paris. I'm dealing with it. I'll make it up to you."

I had gripped the phone, my voice trembling. "What about my birthday?"

Silence on the line. Then: "We'll celebrate tomorrow."

The second time, my fever had spiked to 103 degrees.

He was supposed to be in Chicago on a business trip. I didn't want to bother him, so I drove myself to urgent care for an IV drip.

Sitting alone in the clinic at 2:00 AM, I opened Instagram. Daphne had posted a story.

The location tag was the exact same hotel Ted was staying at in Chicago. The photo was just two coffee cups, but in the corner of the frame was a man's wrist. The watch on that wrist was the Patek Philippe I had bought him for our anniversary.

He came home the next day, bringing me medicine and a tasteful gift, his explanation airtight. "Ran into her in the lobby. She was having a panic attack, so I sat with her for a bit to talk her down."

I didn't call him on his lie.

Because I was still lying to myself. I was still foolishly believing that one day, he would wake up and realize who was actually building a life with him.

The third time was last year, when his grandmother was hospitalized.

The doctors needed a family member to sign the consent forms for surgery. His phone went straight to voicemail for hours. I ran around the hospital alone, dealing with insurance, doctors, and nurses, absolutely frantic, until 2:00 AM.

When he finally walked into the waiting room, I thought he had rushed back out of fear for his grandmother.

Instead, his first words were: "Daphne has a big recital tomorrow. She was spiraling tonight, so I drove her up to her friend's cabin to get away from the noise. I didn't have service."

His grandmother had looked at me from her hospital bed and let out a long, heavy sigh.

I still remember the look in her eyes. It was a mix of pity and absolute clarity. She saw the truth then.

I was just the only one who refused to see it.

I taped up the last box of books. My phone buzzed.

It was Daphne.

I stared at the name glowing on the screen, then answered.

Her voice was just as soft and melodic as always, carrying a hint of a delicate, post-traumatic rasp.

"Nancy? Could we meet up?"

My first instinct was to hang up.

But then I thought, no. Some things needed to be said out loud, once and for all.

"Text me the address."

I met Daphne at an upscale cafe a few blocks from the hospital.

She was wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater dress. Her face was fashionably pale, and a tiny, pristine gauze pad was taped to her forehead. She looked like a bruised porcelain doll.

As soon as I sat down, she spoke. "I'm so sorry about yesterday."

"You don't need to apologize to me."

She traced the rim of her latte, offering a small, self-deprecating smile. "I actually didn't even want to move back to the States. Ted was the one who insisted I come back to recover."

I raised an eyebrow, staring right at her.

If she noticed my frigid demeanor, she ignored it. Her tone remained impossibly gentle, almost aggressively harmless. "Please don't misunderstand us, Nancy. There is truly nothing going on. Its just... weve known each other for so long. Its natural for him to feel a little protective of me."

It was a masterclass in manipulation.

It wasn't a direct insult, but it was far more humiliating than one.

I kept my eyes locked on hers. "Did you ask me here just to tell me that?"

She finally looked up, a flicker of mock-sympathy in her eyes.

"Nancy, I know you hate me. But there are some things in life you just can't change, no matter how much you dislike them."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that he cares about me."

She let that hang in the air for a second before delivering the final blow.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?"

In that exact moment, the fight completely drained out of me.

Because she was right.

I did know.

I knew better than anyone that the softest, most fiercely guarded part of Ted's heart was never meant for me.

I had just spent three years operating under the delusion that if I was just a little more perfect, a little more understanding, a little more patient, he would eventually turn around and see me.

I waited three years.

I waited until I was sitting in a crushed car next to his golden girl.

I waited until he left me in the bleeding dark.

I was finally done waiting.

I picked up my black coffee, took a sip, and looked at her with total calm.

"You can relax, Daphne."

She blinked, confused.

"I'm done competing with you."

For a fraction of a second, her perfectly curated expression slipped into rigid shock.

I smiled. "And it's not because you won. It's because I don't want him anymore."

I stood up and walked out without looking back.

Stepping out of the cafe, the autumn wind stung the fresh stitches on my temple.

But inside, I felt unimaginably, euphorically light.

Walking away didn't mean I lost.

It just meant I refused to bleed to death for a man who would only ever see me as second best.

That night, I checked into a boutique hotel downtown.

By the time Ted got back to the apartment, half the place was empty.

My phone rang.

I answered it.

"Where are you?"

"I moved out."

"Nancy."

His voice dropped an octave, the warning tone he used in boardrooms. "I told you, we will discuss this after my grandmother's birthday."

"And I told you, fine."

"Then what the hell is this?"

"It means that until then, we're sleeping in separate zip codes. It saves us both a headache."

A heavy silence fell over the line.

"Are you really going to push this?"

I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of my hotel room, watching the headlights blur into rivers of gold on the street below.

"Ted, do you honestly still think I'm just throwing a tantrum?"

He didn't answer.

I let out a soft breath of a laugh.

"I guess I can't blame you. You're used to it. You're used to me acting out and then quietly cleaning up the mess anyway."

"That's not what I think."

"It's exactly how you act."

I hung up before he could string together another excuse.

The next morning, I went into the office.

I was the Director of Corporate Communications for Crystal Technologies. I was one of the founding executives who had been with Ted since the garage days.

When I handed my resignation letter to the VP of HR, he practically fell out of his Herman Miller chair.

"Nancy... are you absolutely sure about this? Should we take a few days to"

"I'm sure."

"Does Mr. Crystal know?"

"He's about to."

I walked out of HR and nearly bumped into Gideon in the hallway.

He looked panicked. "Mrs. Crystal, Ted is in a board meeting"

"Perfect timing. Tell him to check his email when he gets out."

When I went back to my office to pack my desk, my two junior managers were practically in tears.

"Nancy, are you seriously leaving us?"

"Yeah."

"What are we supposed to do?"

I dropped a stack of PR strategies into my cardboard box, not missing a beat. "Keep doing your jobs. This company won't collapse just because I'm not here."

One of the girls sniffled. "But without you, Mr. Crystal is going to lose his mind."

My hands paused over the box. A slow smile spread across my face.

"Then let him."

I think that was the first time in my adult life I ever prioritized my own peace over his stability.

It felt intoxicating.

Less than ten minutes after the company-wide email went out, my phone rang.

"Are you in the building?" Ted demanded.

"Yes."

"My office. Now."

"If you have a work question, you can ask it over the phone."

"Nancy." The suppressed fury in his voice was vibrating through the speaker. "Do not make me say it again."

The old me would have caved instantly.

But today, I just adjusted my phone against my ear and said, "I'm busy packing up my desk. I don't have the time."

Click.

Three minutes later, he materialized in the doorway of my office.

He was a tall, imposing figure in a bespoke suit, and the second he stepped in, the entire floor went dead silent.

Every head in the bullpen swiveled toward my glass walls.

I didn't look up. I kept sorting my files.

Ted stepped inside and closed the door. His eyes locked onto the printed resignation form on my desk. His jaw clenched tight enough to snap bone.

"Is this a joke to you?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

He stared at me, the anger barely contained. "You are the head of PR. Do you have any idea what kind of market panic it will cause if you walk out the door right now?"

I finally looked up at him.

"Are we having a professional conversation right now, Ted? Or a marital one?"

His lips thinned into a hard line.

I stood up and handed him my signed handover checklist.

"If this is about work, my contract requires a three-month transition period. You have me until then. If this is about our marriage, we can go straight to the courthouse the morning after your grandmother's party."

You could have heard a pin drop in that office.

He probably never imagined that Ithe woman who spent years protecting his ego and our public imagewould pull the trigger so ruthlessly in the middle of corporate headquarters.

He never expected the woman who always left him a way out to barricade the door.

It took him a long time to find his voice. "Are you really doing this?"

"I'm just sorry it took me this long to do it."

After that day, Ted and I entered a bizarre, suffocating cold war.

He didn't bring up the divorce again, and he stopped trying to block my resignation.

But suddenly, he was everywhere.

When I went to drop off tea for his grandmother, he was sitting in her parlor.

When I went to the hospital to get my stitches removed, the elevator doors opened, and he was standing there.

When I took a client out for drinks, the waitress came over and told me the gentleman at the bar had already covered the tab.

Even the concierge at my hotel whispered to me, "Ms. Crystal, a gentleman has been calling every night for three days to ask if you've checked out."

It was insulting.

When I slept next to him every night, I was invisible.

Now that I was walking out the door, he suddenly knew how to pay attention.

Too little. Too late.

Grandma Estelle's birthday dinner at the estate was a massive affair.

The sprawling living room was packed with aunts, uncles, and cousins. The champagne was flowing, and everyone naturally assumed Ted and I would arrive together.

But I walked through the double doors alone.

The collective shift in the room's energy was immediate. The glances turned sharp and speculative.

"Nancy, sweetheart, where's Ted?" an aunt asked.

"He's on his way."

The words had barely left my mouth when the front doors opened behind me.

Ted walked in.

And walking right beside him, looking like a vision, was Daphne.

The entire room went dead silent for two agonizing seconds.

I stood holding a glass of sparkling water, and in that moment, I realized I didn't even have the energy to be angry anymore.

This was who he was.

Just when you thought about letting your guard down, he found the perfect, surgical way to plunge the knife back in.

Daphne was wearing a sweeping champagne-colored gown, her hair pinned up elegantly. She looked fragile, artistic, and completely out of place at a private family dinneryet she stood next to my husband as if she owned him.

Ted spotted me, and his footsteps faltered.

Even he seemed to realize the catastrophic optics of what he had just done.

But the older relatives were already sizing Daphne up.

One of his uncles frowned. "Ted, who is this?"

Daphne opened her mouth, her voice trembling slightly, but I cut her off with a bright, razor-sharp smile.

"She's a friend."

A friend.

A friend he brought to his wife's family dinner. A friend he chose to pull from a burning car while his wife bled in the backseat.

What a lovely, versatile word.

Ted's face darkened. "Nancy."

"Did I say something wrong?"

I looked right into his eyes, my smile not reaching my own. "If she's not a friend, what is she? Family?"

The air in the room practically crystalized. No one dared to breathe.

The tension broke only when Grandma Estelle emerged from the hallway, leaning heavily on her silver-tipped cane.

"Nancy. Come here."

I walked over and gently took her arm.

She patted my hand, her sharp eyes lingering on the faint, pink scar near my temple. Then she looked at Ted, and her expression turned to absolute ice.

"In my study. Now."

She was talking to Ted.

Before the heavy oak doors of the study clicked shut behind them, I caught a glimpse of Daphne standing alone in the center of the lavish room, looking pale and humiliated.

I just felt bored.

Half an hour later, Ted walked out of the study. He looked like he had been put in front of a firing squad.

The housekeeper came out and told me Estelle wanted to see me.

The old woman was sitting in a velvet armchair, looking exhausted. She patted the ottoman next to her.

"Sit, child."

When I sat down, she reached into her pocket and pressed a heavy, velvet box into my palm. Inside was an antique emerald ring, framed in crushed diamonds.

It was the Crystal family heirloom.

I stared at it, horrified. "Nana, I can't take this."

"It's yours."

"I can't."

"And why not?" She looked at me, her voice quiet but carrying the weight of a judge's gavel. "You've been married to that boy for three years. You've swallowed more poison than you've had champagne. If I don't give this to you, who on earth deserves it?"

My throat tightened.

Estelle sighed. "I already took a strip off that idiot's hide. Nancy, I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for my grandson. If you are too tired to carry this marriage anymore, I won't stand in your way."

Tears prickled the back of my eyes.

In three years, the only person in this family who had ever truly seen my worth, who had ever truly protected me, was his grandmother.

She squeezed my hands tightly.

"But I need you to remember one thing, Nancy. It is not because you weren't good enough. It's because he doesn't deserve you."

I kept my head bowed. I couldn't speak.

The rest of the birthday dinner tasted like ash.

Halfway through the meal, Daphne excused herself to the powder room. Ted immediately stood up and followed her.

If this were last year, my stomach would have been in knots. I would have agonized over what they were whispering about in the hallway. I would have wondered if he was holding her, comforting her.

But tonight, I just quietly picked up a piece of sea bass and put it on Estelle's plate.

Estelle watched me for a moment. "You're really done, aren't you?"

I paused, then smiled softly.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

Estelle let out a grim huff of laughter. "About damn time."

I almost choked on my wine.

By the time I left the estate, a light drizzle had started falling.

I had just reached the bottom of the front steps when Ted caught my arm.

"I'll drive you."

"I have a cab coming."

"Nancy, we need to talk."

I looked at him. "Shouldn't you be driving Daphne home?"

A muscle feathered in his jaw. "She already left."

"Got it."

I tried to step around him, but his grip tightened on my wrist.

His fingers pressed directly into the deep, bruised laceration from the airbag.

I hissed, sucking in a sharp breath of pain.

He dropped my arm instantly as if I had burned him, staring at my wrist in horror.

"God. I'm sorry."

What a novelty.

Ted Crystal, apologizing to me.

Unfortunately, I had outgrown the need for his apologies.

"You don't need to do this, Ted." I took a step back, the gravel crunching under my heels. "What do you want to talk about? Do you want to explain how bringing her to Nana's birthday was just 'helping a friend'? Or do you want to break down the logistics of why pulling her out of the wreckage first made tactical sense?"

"Does every single word out of your mouth have to be an attack?"

"Is the truth attacking you?" I smiled dryly. "Because none of it is a lie."

He stared at me, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply, swallowing down some heavy, unnamed emotion.

Finally, his voice cracked. "She came tonight because Nana used to be fond of her. She just wanted to pay her respects."

I nodded slowly. "And?"

"I didn't do it to humiliate you."

"But you did."

The silence that followed was absolute. The only sound was the rain hitting the pavement.

I looked at him, feeling a sudden, bone-deep exhaustion.

"Ted, stop explaining. Every time you hurt me, you tell me you didn't mean to. But the bleeding is always the same."

"I used to think you were just emotionally stunted. That you didn't know how to love someone. But I realize now that's not true. You know exactly how to love. You just don't want to put me first."

"So let's just call it. We're done."

I turned and climbed into the back of my waiting Uber.

As we pulled away, I looked in the rearview mirror. Ted was standing alone in the rain. He didn't chase the car.

A few days later, my notice period officially ended.

On my last day, my old team threw a small farewell party in the breakroom.

It was just the core group, the people who had survived the startup trenches with me.

One of the senior developers had a few too many IPAs. He got red in the face and pointed a plastic cup at me. "Nancy, I'm telling you, without you here, the boss is gonna lose half his soul."

I tapped my plastic cup against his and smiled. "That sounds like a 'him' problem."

When I walked out of the lobby with my final box of belongings, Declan was leaning against the hood of his matte-black Porsche.

Declan was a partner at a massive, cutthroat PR agency in the city, and a rival I had battled in boardrooms for years. Hed been trying to poach me for eighteen months.

"Finally escaped Alcatraz?" He spun his keys around his index finger. "I thought you were going to die behind a desk at Crystal Tech."

"I almost did."

"And now?"

"Now, I'm going to figure out what I actually want."

Declan studied my face for two seconds before a slow, wicked grin spread across his face.

"Welcome to the dark side."

A week later, I accepted an offer as VP of Crisis Management at Declan's firm.

The day the press release went out, the corporate grapevine caught fire.

Some people gossiped that Ted and I had an explosive fallout.

Some said I was smart to jump ship.

And a few veterans whispered that letting me walk away was the most catastrophic miscalculation Ted Crystal had ever made in his career.

When I read that last rumor, I smirked. At least someone in this city had some sense.

It was two weeks after I moved out that Ted finally cracked and came to my hotel.

I had been working late, drafting a campaign launch. When I stepped off the elevator at 9:00 PM, I found him standing outside my room.

He was in a tailored suit, but he looked wrecked. The dark circles under his eyes made him look like he hadn't slept in a week.

I walked past him, slid my keycard into the door, and pushed it open. I didn't invite him in.

"Can I help you?"

He stared at me. "You look thin."

Coming from him, the concern was so utterly absurd I almost laughed out loud.

"And?"

"Nancy, please. Stop this. Come home."

My hand tightened around the doorknob.

"Whose home?"

"Our home."

"That was never my home," I looked him dead in the eye. "That was a museum dedicated to your memories of her."

His frown deepened. "I know Ive been neglecting you lately. I admit that. But divorce isn't a game. You shouldn't throw our marriage away just because you're angry"

"Ted."

I cut him off.

"Do you really, truly believe I'm doing this out of spite?"

He went quiet.

I held his gaze. My voice was dangerously quiet, dropping every word like a stone into a glass lake.

"The day of the crash. When I was trapped in that seat, bleeding, and I watched you carry her away... I had an epiphany."

"I spent three years bending over backwards for you. I sold my soul for your company, I drank your clients under the table, I played the perfect wife for your family. But the second it was life or death, your body moved toward her."

"In that moment, I wasn't angry. I woke up."

"I finally realized that no matter how much I bled for you, no matter how perfect I was, I was never going to win against her."

"And since the game is rigged, I'm done playing."

I watched the words hit him. He actually flinched.

It was the look of a man who suddenly realized the ground beneath him was gone. He realized I wasn't negotiating. I wasn't punishing him. I wasn't waiting for flowers or an apology.

I was just gone.

Watching the color drain from his face, I felt a morbid sense of amusement.

So, Ted Crystal knows how to panic.

Too bad it didn't move me at all.

"Have a good night," I said. "Don't come back here."

I went to shut the door, but he slammed his hand against the wood, holding it open.

"Nancy, what do you want me to do? Tell me what to do."

I looked at his hand.

This was the first time in three years he had ever asked me what he should do.

Usually, I was the one swallowing my pride, adjusting to his orbit, fixing the cracks.

Now he wanted a map. But I had burned it.

"It's simple," I said. "Sign the papers."

The tendons in his hand stood out in stark relief.

It took him a long time to speak, his voice thick and wrecked. "Anything but that."

A tiny tremor went through my chest.

Not from pity. From irony.

"That's funny," I smiled thinly. "Because 'anything but that' is what you gave me for three years. You're an expert at it."

I pushed his hand back and slammed the door.

The hallway outside remained perfectly silent.

It was silent for so long I thought he had left.

But when I finally peeked through the peephole, he was still standing there.

Standing perfectly still, staring at the closed door, like a man who had arrived years too late to realize the woman inside was never coming back out.

I walked away and didn't look again.

For the next month, I didn't ask anyone about Ted. I didn't care.

Until his company blew up in a spectacular PR disaster.