Abandoning Regretful Ex After Released

The prison gates closed behind me with a sound like a book slamming shut.

I waited.

One minute. Five. Twenty.

The road stayed empty. No black car. No driver in white gloves. Not even a cab idling at the curb.

I tightened my grip on the cardboard box that held everything I owned now: a toothbrush worn down to the plastic, a comb missing teeth, and the gray sweater they gave me on my first day. My fingers had gone numb around the edges.

A bus came eventually. The driver didn't look up when I dropped my coins in the slot.

"Where to?"

"Smith Estate. Hillcrest Drive."

He let out a short laugh, the kind that wasn't really a laugh. "Long way for the local, miss."

I sat in the back. My reflection in the window looked like a stranger �� cheekbones too sharp, eyes too still. Three years ago I'd have called that face ugly. Now I just called it mine.

The mansion came into view through the iron gates. White stone. Black shutters. The hedges were trimmed exactly the way my mother used to like them.

I walked up the drive with my box pressed against my ribs.

The front door wasn't locked.

Inside, the foyer smelled like lemon polish and old roses. The same chandelier I used to count the crystals on as a kid threw a soft yellow over the marble. For a second I thought I might cry. Then I heard it.

A woman's voice, upstairs. Low. Breathy. Familiar.

Then a man's, answering her.

Sam.

I stood very still in the middle of the foyer with my cardboard box of toothbrushes. The sound was muffled by walls and a closed door, but I knew the rhythm of that bed frame the way you know the sound of your own name.

My fianc��. My sister. The east wing bedroom. My bedroom.

Something cold slid down the back of my throat. My hands started to shake first, then my knees. The cardboard box dipped. The toothbrush slipped out and clicked against the marble, a small bright sound in a very large silence.

I didn't pick it up.

I couldn't feel the floor under me. I could feel the buzz of the chandelier in my back teeth. I could feel the wallpaper on the far wall like it was pressed against my eyes. The air had a weight I hadn't felt in three years, the weight of money and old wood and her perfume �� Barbara's perfume, the gardenia one, drifting down the stairs.

I don't know how long I stood there. Long enough for the sounds upstairs to stop. Long enough for my legs to start aching.

A throat cleared behind me.

"Miss Kate."

The housekeeper. Mrs. Lorne. She was wearing the same black dress she'd worn the day I left in handcuffs. Her hands were folded in front of her like she was holding a small dead bird.

"You're back," she said.

"I'm back."

"Shall I