“Well they’re going to notice pretty soon,” Simon says.
“I’m not going back, so it’s no bother for me,” I tell him and turn around to walk out.
What? It’s true.
Ethan basically fired me. From his company. And I’m pretty sure from his life.
Have you ever been in a crowd of people but felt utterly and completely alone?
Well, hun, welcome to me right about now.
I mean, that overcast sky might as well just open up and start raining right about now as I walk down 7th Avenue because that’s my mood.
As if deciding to play a cruel joke on me, I hear something that seems like light rumbling as I approach 52nd Street and 7th Avenue, and the first bits o
f water start to fall on my head.
Great, now even Mother Nature is deciding to hate me.
The bits of rain quickly turn into a downpour as people scramble around me. The skies darken even farther as I approach Columbus Circle, the horses whinnying along Central Park South.
I’ll tell you one thing though, hun. It’s a good thing it's raining. Because the tears kind of get washed away when I see the giant billboard next to the Trump International Hotel & Tower advertising Illicit Escape.
Right there, holding the futuristic glasses, is my smiling face. The tag line, “Revolutionizing Pleasure” written in a sexy font.
I’m glad you can’t see my tears.
It's in these moments that the biggest city in the world becomes the loneliest place on earth.
But it’s nothing that I don’t deserve after everything I’ve just done.
***
The next week is basically like that day. Cold, sad, depressing, and rainy.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been like this. I mean, I had a chance to be happy. I had a chance to settle down with a man that truly, really loved me.
I know what you’re going to say, though. I had an impossible choice. It was either protect myself from Robert or run again.
And why exactly did I sell Ethan out?
Because I didn’t want to run. Because I wanted to stay in New York City and make a home for the baby that I’m carrying. Hoping that Ethan would understand.
I mean, I did go and tell him—at the end. I confessed to lying to him, trying to steal from him, and taking his heart under false pretense.
And what did he do?
He gave me everything I wanted.
He gave me the computer coding for the software that runs the Illicit Escape. He let me keep my home.
He gave me everything I asked for.
But it turns out, while I was on my knees pleading to him to show me mercy, I never once asked him to forgive me and hold me.
To take me back.
But isn’t that the story of my life?