Page 17 of Say When
It’s not a client or Jake, it’s Mark, my ex-husband. My stomach plummets. I open the message before common sense can stop me.
A screenshot fills the chat bubble. Jake and I at the bonfire. Someone must have posted it online, our arms wrapped around each other, firelight gilding our faces, both of us laughing like the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Mark: Didn’t take you long to turn into a cougar. He’s what, twenty? You’re past your prime, Grace. Thought you had more self-respect than parading around with a boy toy. Embarrassing.
My hand shakes. The phone slips from my fingers and clatters onto the hardwood floor. I stare at the screen until it goes dark, then pick it up again with numb fingers, reread thewords like maybe they’ll rearrange themselves into something less cruel if I look hard enough.
They don’t.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, towel pooling around my hips. The room suddenly feels colder and smaller, and the air too thin to breathe properly.
Past your prime.
The same phrase he used during the last six months of our marriage, whispered during arguments, hissed when he thought I couldn’t hear, typed in emails when he was feeling particularly vicious. I thought I’d left those words three states behind when I packed my car and drove east. Apparently, they followed me anyway.
I open my social media and scroll to the bonfire picture. Jake’s arm is strong around my waist. My head was resting on his shoulder. Both of us smiling openly, unguarded, happy. We look good together.
The age gap isn’t enormous, eleven years, but in the harsh, flattened light of a screenshot, with Mark’s venom typed beneath it, the difference feels glaring. Obscene. I zoom in on my face, and there are fine lines starting to form at the corners of my eyes. Then I look at Jake’s smooth skin, bright eyes, and the easy vitality of someone who hasn’t yet carried a decade of disappointment.
I close the app, block Mark’s number like I should have done months ago.
The doubt is inside me now, curling around my ribs like smoke, sinking claws into soft places I thought had at least partially healed.
I dress mechanically in my most comfortable clothes and twist my hair into a damp knot. I walk out to the beach, sit on the sand until my skin feels tight from salt and sun, and walk back.
After I return from the beach, I sit on the couch with my phone in my lap, thumb hovering over Jake’s name.
Me: Hi
Jake: You okay? Haven’t heard from you today.
I stare at the message for five full minutes, thumb trembling.
Me: Sorry, I’ve been busy. Talk tomorrow?
His reply is immediate.
Jake: Sure. Whenever you’re ready. Miss you.
The words twist the knife deeper. I set the phone face down on the coffee table and pull my knees to my chest.
I wake with a headache and a hollow chest. I avoid my phone for the first hour, make coffee, stare out the window at the ocean, and try to convince myself that the silence is kindness rather than cowardice.
It doesn’t work.
By noon, I’m pacing the small living room, phone clutched like a live wire.
I text him.
Me: Can we talk?
Jake: Name the time and place.
Me: Tomorrow, a picnic on the beach?
Jake: I’ll be there. Noon.
I waste the day trying to stay busy. I don’t sleep, and morning comes too soon.
