Wrong Number: My Sweetest Goodbye

of my husband, Drake, with his young assoc

soup. Instead of taking me to the hospital, he left me strand

ight his negligence caused me to miscarry our c

n Kandace' s wrist, the same one Drake had over his h

his own chest in a bloody display of desperation.

was in a critical car accident, figh

oice perfectly clear. "Yo

pte

za

e ended with a single

iture. It was Drake, my husband, his arm slung casually around his young associate, Kandace Hill. They were in his gleaming

s head was tilted just so, leaning into his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the

the final twis

e late nights without my ama

stomach didn' t drop. There was no hot rush of anger or icy

reen, the sound of splintering glass a pale imitation of the chaos in her heart. She would

er eight long years of broken promises and casual cruelties. This p

e little heart icon. I double-tapped. The heart filled

had never existed. But the digital ghost of it lingered, seared onto the back of

creen, handsome and furious. In the background, I could see the blurred figures of his

, his voice too loud for the phone' s small

l, a flat, calm plain.

xactly what I' m talking about. Kandace is mortified

sing down a clumsy intern, not

o you not have a sense of humor a

nothing. The insults, disguised as jokes, had been his weapon of choice for years

hing. Don' t be so stupid," he s

ed to anticipate his needs, whenever I had an opinion tha

didn' t defend my

and watched the confu

iliation that would follow, reaffirming his irresistible power over me. My indiff

long time, I felt a sliver of peace. The war was over. Not because I had won

on that photo was an ac

ture on a deat