I sat in the plush leather chair of Sean’s law office, my body still aching from the miscarriage three days ago. The cramping hadn’t stopped completely. Neither had the bleeding. The doctor had advised bed rest, but Sean’s lawyer had made it clear—today was non-negotiable. “Mrs. Harrington, please sign here… and here.” The lawyer’s voice was clinically detached as he slid the divorce papers across the polished mahogany table. His finger tapped impatiently at each yellow tab. I couldn’t look at Sean. In the ten years we’d been married, I’d memorized every expression that crossed his face. Today, I couldn’t bear to see which one he wore—contempt, perhaps, or worse, nothing at all. Instead, my gaze drifted to Natalie Benson, perched beside him like a bird of prey. Her red-lacquered nails rested possessively on his forearm, her diamond bracelet catching the light. My bracelet. The one Sean had given me on our fifth anniversary. “June.” Sean’s voice finally broke the silence. Cold. Distant. A stranger’s voice. “The sooner you sign, the sooner we can all move on.” The lawyer cleared his throat. “I should remind you, Mrs. Harrington, that should you choose not to sign today, Mr. Harrington is prepared to contest any custody arrangements for future children and—” “Future children?” The words escaped me before I could stop them. My hand instinctively went to my abdomen, still tender from the loss. “I just lost our baby.” Natalie’s lips curled into a smile that never reached her eyes. “Well, that simplifies things, doesn’t it?” Sean didn’t even flinch at her cruelty. He just stared at his watch, as if my grief were an inconvenience, a meeting running overtime. “Sign the papers, June,” he said flatly. “Or you’ll leave with nothing.” My hands trembled as I picked up the pen. Each signature felt like another piece of myself being carved away. With the final stroke, ten years of marriage—of loving Sean, of building a life with him, of sacrificing everything I’d ever wanted—was reduced to a stack of legal documents. The drive back to our apartment—no, Sean’s apartment now—was a blur of rain-slicked streets and blurry traffic lights. My chest felt hollow, as if something vital had been scooped out. When I reached the door, my key still worked. Small mercies. But inside, everything had changed. The closet in our bedroom stood open, emptied of my clothes. The bookshelves had been purged of my novels and textbooks. Even the photographs had been removed from their frames, leaving ghostly rectangles on the walls where our memories had once hung. In the living room, cardboard boxes were stacked neatly, labeled in a handwriting I didn’t recognize. “June’s Things.” “Kitchen—June’s.” “Miscellaneous.” A note sat on the kitchen counter, Sean’s precise handwriting unmistakable: *June, The movers will collect these boxes tomorrow. You have until noon to vacate the premises. Your access to our joint accounts has been temporarily suspended pending the finalization of our divorce. —Sean* No goodbye. No acknowledgment of our decade together. Just logistics. A soft knock at the door startled me. When I opened it, Mrs. Chen from across the hall stood there, her kind face creased with concern. “I saw the movers earlier,” she said softly. “They left these by the door.” She held out a pair of worn ballet flats—my favorite shoes for padding around the apartment on Sunday mornings. That night, I sat on the bathroom floor, the cool tiles pressing against my legs. The bottle of sleeping pills Sean had gotten prescribed for his insomnia sat in my palm. How many would it take? Would it hurt? “June?” The voice was so achingly familiar that for a moment, I thought I’d imagined it. But when I looked up, he was there in the doorway—Sean. Not the Sean who had sat across from me in that sterile law office, but Sean as he had been when we first met. Eighteen years old, with warm eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Hair slightly too long, falling across his forehead in that way that had made my heart stumble the first time I saw him. “Sean?” My voice cracked. He knelt beside me, and when his hand touched mine, it was warm but somehow not quite solid—like touching sunlight through a window. “What are you doing?” he asked gently, his eyes fixed on the pill bottle in my hand. Morning came with cruel persistence. I hadn’t slept—not really. The pills remained uncapped beside me, a temptation I’d resisted only because of him. Because of young Sean, whose impossible presence had somehow anchored me through the darkest hours. I dragged myself to the bus stop, my belongings stuffed into a single suitcase. Mrs. Chen had offered her couch, but pride—the last thing I owned that Sean couldn’t take—made me refuse. The bus lurched forward, and I clutched my phone, scrolling through credit card applications. Each rejection notification felt like another door slamming shut. *Insufficient credit history. Application denied. Unable to verify income.* ‘They’re making a mistake,’ came a soft voice beside me. I looked up to find young Sean sitting there, his eyes warm with concern. In the harsh morning light, he seemed more substantial than he had in the bathroom darkness, yet still somehow ethereal—like a photograph coming to life. ‘What are you?’ I whispered, earning a concerned glance from an elderly woman across the aisle. He smiled that crooked smile I’d fallen for a lifetime ago. ‘I’m here because you need me to be.’ His hand covered mine as another rejection flashed across my screen. Though I couldn’t truly feel his touch, something warm spread through my fingers. I bit my lip hard, fighting back tears that threatened to humiliate me further in this bus full of strangers. ‘You’ll figure this out,’ he said quietly. ‘You always do.’ The bus jolted to a stop, and when I looked again, the seat beside me was empty. — ‘You came!’ Sarah Evans exclaimed, her surprise poorly concealed as she air-kissed my cheeks at the law firm’s holiday party entrance. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d… well, you know.’ I smoothed down the borrowed dress—a castoff from Mrs. Chen’s daughter. Too tight across the chest, too loose at the waist, but it was black and unremarkable. Perfect for disappearing. ‘I appreciate the invitation,’ I lied, scanning the room for Sean. This was madness, coming here. But I needed to speak with him about the accounts. About the future. About anything that might give me closure. The party hummed with expensive conversation and tinkling crystal. I sipped champagne that tasted like ashes, nodding at former friends who suddenly found the appetizer table fascinating when they spotted me. David Miller, the managing partner, tapped his glass for attention. ‘If I could have everyone’s moment, please! We have something special to celebrate tonight.’ The crowd parted, and there they were—Sean and Natalie, her arm possessively wound through his. She wore red, vibrant as a fresh wound against the sea of conservative black and navy suits. ‘To new beginnings,’ David continued, raising his glass. ‘And to the future Mr. and Mrs. Harrington!’ The room erupted in applause. My champagne glass froze halfway to my lips. ‘And because a picture is worth a thousand words,’ Natalie’s voice cut through the congratulations, ‘we’ve prepared a little slideshow of our journey.’ The lights dimmed. The projector flickered to life on the wall behind them. And there I was—pale, hollow-eyed, curled in a hospital bed. The date stamp showed three days ago. My miscarriage. My private agony, projected six feet tall for everyone to see. ‘Oops,’ Natalie giggled, feigning embarrassment as gasps rippled through the crowd. ‘Wrong folder!’ The room spun. Faces blurred into masks of horror and morbid fascination. I stumbled backward, knocking into a waiter, sending a tray of glasses crashing to the floor. The shattering sound broke whatever spell had frozen me in place. I fled. — ‘Sean!’ I called out, my voice echoing in the parking garage beneath his firm the next morning. He was walking toward his car, briefcase in hand. He turned slowly, his face a perfect mask of indifference. ‘June. You shouldn’t be here.’ ‘The accounts,’ I said, my breath forming small clouds in the December air. ‘They’re empty. All of them.’ ‘Yes.’ No explanation. No apology. ‘How am I supposed to—’ ‘You should check your credit report,’ he interrupted coolly. ‘The mortgage, the car loans, your student debt—they’re all in your name now.’ The ground seemed to tilt beneath me. ‘You can’t do that.’ ‘It’s already done.’ He checked his watch. ‘Anything else?’ A sleek black limousine pulled up behind him, its tinted window rolling down to reveal Natalie’s smirking face. ‘Sean,’ I whispered, searching for any flicker of the man I’d married. ‘Why?’ He turned away without answering, sliding into the limo beside her. As they pulled away, I caught a final glimpse of Natalie’s triumphant smile through the darkened glass. Standing alone in the cold garage, I realized with sudden clarity that the man I’d loved was truly gone. And in his place was someone I no longer recognized—someone capable of destroying me without a second thought. I stared at the ceiling of Chris’s spare bedroom, watching the shadows from passing cars slide across the cracked plaster. The mattress smelled faintly of mothballs and something else—a lingering scent of my brother’s military life, perhaps. After the parking garage confrontation with Sean, I’d had nowhere else to go. My credit cards were maxed out, my accounts emptied, and my name was now attached to debts I hadn’t even known existed. “You can stay as long as you need,” Chris had said when I showed up at his door, suitcase in hand, eyes swollen from crying. His apartment was small—a one-bedroom converted to two by adding a wall that didn’t quite reach the ceiling—but it was clean and warm. Military precision evident in the perfectly made bed, the precisely aligned shoes by the door. I rolled onto my side, wincing at the hollow ache that still lingered in my abdomen. The physical reminder of everything I’d lost. “Hey, you up?” Chris’s voice came softly through the thin door. When I didn’t answer, he pushed it open anyway, his wheelchair barely fitting through the narrow frame. “Brought you something.” He wheeled over to the bed and handed me a battered leather journal. The cover was worn smooth at the corners, the pages yellowed with age. “What’s this?” I asked, running my fingers over the soft leather. “My therapist gave it to me when I came back from Afghanistan. Said writing down the next steps, no matter how small, helped make the impossible seem possible.” His eyes, so like mine, held no pity—just quiet understanding. “Thought you might need it more than I do now.” I clutched the journal to my chest, tears threatening again. “I don’t know what the next steps even are, Chris.” He gestured to the wall behind me, where his service medals hung in a simple frame. “When they first put me in this chair, I couldn’t see past the next hour, let alone the next day. But you keep going. One step, then another.” He reached out and squeezed my hand. “You’ll rebuild, June. And I’ll help you.” — The nonprofit where I’d worked before my marriage to Sean was housed in a converted Victorian in Capitol Hill. I’d spent three happy years there before leaving to support Sean’s career move to New York. Now, back in Seattle with nothing but desperation, I hoped they might remember me fondly. “June Parker!” Maria Sanchez exclaimed when I walked into her office. “Or is it Harrington now?” “Parker,” I said firmly. “It’s Parker again.” Maria’s warm brown eyes softened with understanding. She’d been my supervisor years ago, and time had added silver to her dark hair but hadn’t diminished her kind smile. “Well, Ms. Parker, your timing is impeccable. We just got funding for a new community outreach position. The pay isn’t spectacular, but—” “I’ll take it,” I interrupted, then flushed. “I mean, I’d like to apply. If that’s possible.” She laughed. “Let’s start with an interview, at least. How’s tomorrow?” I left feeling lighter than I had in weeks. The next day, I wore my only remaining professional outfit—a navy skirt suit I’d managed to grab before the movers came—and answered Maria’s questions with growing confidence. By the end, her smile told me everything I needed to know. “We’ll be in touch very soon,” she promised, walking me to the door. Three days later, a terse email arrived: *Dear Ms. Parker,* *Thank you for your interest in our Community Outreach Coordinator position. After careful consideration, we have decided to pursue other candidates whose qualifications better align with our current needs.* *We wish you the best in your future endeavors.* I stared at my phone in disbelief. The interview had gone perfectly. Maria had all but offered me the job on the spot. Before I could stop myself, I was dialing her number. “June,” Maria answered, her voice tight. “I was hoping you’d call.” “What happened?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice steady. A long pause. Then: “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but… Natalie Benson called our executive director yesterday. Sean’s firm is our biggest donor, and she made it clear that if we hired you, they would withdraw their support.” The phone nearly slipped from my suddenly numb fingers. “She did what?” “I’m so sorry, June. We can’t lose that funding—we’d have to close our doors.” After we hung up, I sat on Chris’s fire escape, watching the sun sink behind the Seattle skyline. The metal was cold through my thin pants, but I barely noticed. First my marriage, then my home, my financial security, and now even the chance to work—all systematically stripped away. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I turned to find young Sean sitting beside me, his legs dangling over the edge of the fire escape. In the fading light, he looked almost solid. “Do you remember our first date?” he asked, his eyes reflecting the deepening twilight. “The coffee shop near campus,” I whispered. “You spilled your latte all over my economics textbook.” He smiled, and suddenly I wasn’t on the fire escape anymore but sitting in that crowded university café, watching eighteen-year-old Sean frantically blot at my ruined book with napkins, his face flushed with embarrassment. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he was promising, his eyes—so warm then, so full of life—meeting mine across the table. The memory shifted, and we were dancing in the spring rain on the empty quad, my sundress plastered to my skin, his laughter echoing across the deserted campus. Then we were lying on a blanket in the darkness outside Madison, watching the Perseid meteor shower streak across the summer sky. “Someday,” he whispered, taking my hand, “I’m going to give you the world, June Parker.” The memories faded, leaving me alone on the cold fire escape, tears streaming down my face. The contrast between those cherished moments and my current reality was almost too painful to bear. “Why are you showing me this?” I asked the empty air where young Sean had been. But there was no answer, only the distant sound of traffic and the hollow ache of everything I’d lost.
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