The door swings open and Damien steps inside, still wearing his gray coat from the café, his face drawn and exhausted like he's aged years in the past few hours.
His eyes find me immediately, take in the packed bags on the bed, the empty closet, the jewelry box sitting open with my wedding ring glinting accusingly in the afternoon light.
"You're really doing this," he says, and his voice is so quiet I almost don't hear him.
"Yes."
"Zahra, please—"
"My name," I say, cutting him off as I reach for my purse, "is haram for you now. Remember the divorce letters?"
Something flickers across his face, hurt maybe, or recognition of what that means, but I don't care anymore. I don't care about his feelings or his pain or the way his shoulders slump like I've just delivered a killing blow.
I grab the handle of my suitcase and start walking toward the door, but his voice stops me.
"If you leave now," he says, and there's something in his tone that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, "you'll never see me again."
I turn around slowly, and the look on his face making my blood freeze.
All this time, I believed he loved me. Even if not as deep and true as I loved me, I believed he loved me, in his own sick way.
Now though, that misconception is gone, erased.
The look on his face makes me realize I never meant anything more than a weekend sport to him.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I put on my sunglasses and walk away with my suitcase, leaving two words behind.
"Goodbye, Damien."
Five years later
The alarm goes off at exactly 5:30 AM, the same time it's gone off every morning for the past four years, eight months, and twelve days since I started working at Stone Company.
I know the exact count because counting has become my way of staying sane, of proving to myself that time is actually passing even when some days feel like they stretch on forever, trapped in amber, never moving forward or backward, just existing in this strange space between who I was and who I'm trying to become.
Layla Winters—that's who I am now, legally and completely, with documents and a social security number and a credit history that says I've never been anyone else—sits up in bed and reaches for the glass of water on the nightstand, the same ritual every morning because routines keep the nightmares at bay, keep the memories from bleeding through the careful walls I've built around my new life.
The apartment is small but clean, furnished with pieces I bought myself from discount stores and secondhand shops, nothing fancy or expensive or beautiful enough to remind me of silk sheets and diamond earrings and promises that turned to ash in my mouth. The walls are white, neutral, safe, with no photographs or personal touches that might give away too much about the woman who lives here, because the woman who lives here is supposed to be nobody special, just another secretary in another office building in another city far enough away from my old life that sometimes I can almost pretend it never happened.
Almost.
The shower water runs cold for the first few minutes the way it always does, and I stand under the spray letting it wake me up completely, washing away the remnants of last night's dreams that weren't really dreams at all but memories disguised as nightmares, memories of wedding nights and coffee shops and boys throwing stones while calling me names I can never quite forget no matter how hard I try.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror looks back at me with eyes that belong to a stranger, someone older and thinner and more careful than the woman who used to believe in fairy tales and happy endings. My hair is shorter now, cut in a practical bob that frames my face in a way that makes me look professional and forgettable, exactly what I need to be. The dark circles under my eyes are lighter today than they were yesterday, which means I slept for almost four hours without waking up screaming, a personal record for this week.
The pills Dr. Martinez prescribed help sometimes, the little white ones that make everything feel muffled and distant like I'm watching my life happen to someone else, but they also make me feel empty inside, hollow, like all the parts of me that used to feel joy or hope or excitement have been scooped out and replaced with cotton batting.
I stopped taking them three months ago because feeling nothing was almost worse than feeling everything.
The coffee maker gurgles to life while I get dressed, the same black skirt and white blouse combination I wear every day because thinking about clothes and colors and what looks good makes my chest tight with anxiety, reminds me too much of the woman who used to care about such things, who used to dress up for a man who was never really hers to begin with.
Layla Winters wears neutral colors and sensible shoes and keeps her opinions to herself.
Layla Winters is reliable and efficient and completely unremarkable.
Layla Winters has never been married, has never had her heart broken by a man who collected wives like some people collect stamps, has never stood in a café and signed divorce papers that weren't even legally binding because the marriage itself was built on lies.
Sometimes I almost believe she's real.
The bus ride to work takes exactly twenty-three minutes, and I spend them staring out the window at the city that's become my home even though it still feels foreign after all this time, watching people rush to their jobs and their lives and their perfectly normal problems that don't involve running away from everything they've ever known just to escape the weight of their own mistakes.
Stone Company occupies the top fifteen floors of a glass building downtown, all clean lines and modern architecture that should appeal to the part of me that used to design buildings for a living, but instead just makes me feel small and insignificant, which is exactly what I need to feel to get through each day without falling apart completely.
Adrian Stone's office is on the fortieth floor, corner suite with windows that look out over the entire city like he owns all of it, which maybe he does because men like him seem to own everything they look at, seem to take up more space in the world than the rest of us are allowed to claim.
I've been his secretary for almost four years now, and in all that time he's never asked me personal questions, never pushed for details about my life before I showed up at his company with perfect references and a resume that showed exactly the right amount of experience and education to make me useful but not threatening.
He pays me well, better than I probably deserve for filing papers and answering phones and keeping his calendar organized, and in return I show up on time every day and do my job without complaint and never, ever let him see the cracks in the facade I've built around myself.
It's a fair trade, professional and clean and safe.
"Good morning, Mr. Stone," I say when I knock on his office door at exactly 8:00 AM, the same greeting I've given him every morning for years, polite and distant and completely neutral.
"Layla," he says without looking up from the papers spread across his desk, and something about the way he says my name makes me pause, makes the coffee cup in my hand shake just slightly because there's something different in his voice today, something that sounds almost like recognition.
"Your coffee," I say, setting the cup down on his desk in the exact spot where he likes it, two sugars and cream, the way he's taken it every morning since I started working here.
"Thank you." He looks up then, and his eyes—dark brown and sharp and too intelligent for my comfort—seem to study my face like he's looking for something specific, something he expects to find there.
"Will there be anything else, sir?"
"Actually, yes." He leans back in his chair, and I can feel him watching me even though I keep my eyes focused on the coffee cup, on the way the steam rises from the surface in delicate spirals that dissipate as soon as they form. "I need you to cancel my afternoon meetings and clear my schedule for tomorrow morning."
"Of course. May I ask why?"
"Personal business," he says, and there's something in his tone that makes my stomach clench with a familiar dread, the same feeling I used to get when Damien would come home late with lies on his lips and guilt in his eyes.
Was it the familiar words, or the way he said them that has me feeling skittish? I don't know. I do know, however, that I want to be out of here.
Now.
I nod and start to turn away, but his voice stops me.
"Layla?"
"Yes, sir?"
"How long have you worked for me?"
The question is unexpected and sharp and dangerous because it's the kind of question that leads to other questions, personal questions. The kind I've spent five years learning to avoid.
"Four years, eight months, and thirteen days," I say without thinking, because the numbers are always there in my head, counting down or counting up, I'm never quite sure which.
He raises an eyebrow at the precision of my answer, and I realize too late that normal people don't keep track of time like that, don't measure their lives in exact increments like they're serving a prison sentence.
"That's very... specific."
"I keep good records," I shrug, trying to sound casual, professional, like there's nothing strange about knowing exactly how long I've been hiding in plain sight.
"I'm sure you do." He's still watching me with those dark eyes, and I have the uncomfortable feeling that he can see right through the careful mask I wear to work every day, can see all the broken pieces I keep glued together with willpower and prescription medication and sheer stubborn determination not to let my past destroy what little future I've managed to build.
"Will there be anything else, Mr. Stone?"
"No," he says after a long moment that stretches between us like a held breath. "That will be all."
I make it halfway to the door before he speaks again.
"Layla?"
I turn back reluctantly, my hand already on the door handle, ready to escape to the safety of my desk and my filing and my carefully controlled routine.
"You know you can trust me, don't you? If you ever need anything, if you're ever in any kind of trouble, you can come to me."