I was supposed to be boarding a flight to New York. A trip my husband insisted I take—a “break,” he called it, a chance to “reset.” And like the trusting, predictable wife I’d been for eight years, I packed my suitcase, rushed through Heathrow, and believed him.
Then my phone rang.
Ava. My sister-in-law. The one person in that family who never wasted words and never, ever lied. Her voice didn’t match the chaos of the airport—it was steady, too steady, like someone delivering news they’d rehearsed but dreaded saying.
“Emily, are you really that naive?”
I stood frozen in the middle of Terminal 5, my boarding pass in one hand and my phone pressed to my ear with the other. People rushed past me in waves, rolling suitcases, dragging children, shouting into phones. The departure board flickered overhead with destinations that suddenly felt impossibly far away. Everything around me continued moving while I stood completely still.
“What are you talking about?” I whispered.
Another pause. A surgical one. Like she was peeling away something rotten, layer by layer.
“Did Michael book that ticket for you himself?”
“Yes. Last week. Why?”
Her tone sharpened, slow and deliberate, every word chosen like it might detonate something: “Cancel it and go home. Right now. Your life is about to change in a very big way.”
A cold shiver ran from the base of my spine to my throat. Ava wasn’t dramatic. Ava didn’t stir the pot. Ava didn’t speak in riddles. If she was saying this, if she was warning me like this, something in my life had already snapped—I just hadn’t seen it yet.
“Ava, please, tell me what’s happening.”
Her answer came soft and devastating: “Not over the phone. Just trust me. Go home.”
My hand lowered. My boarding pass trembled. For the first time since I’d married Michael Carter, I felt real fear bloom in my chest.
I looked at the departure gate where my flight to JFK was already boarding. Final call for passengers. The gate agent’s voice crackled through the speakers, professional and indifferent to the small earthquake happening in my chest. I’d checked my bag—a small rolling suitcase with enough clothes for a week in New York. Michael had been so insistent about the trip, so enthusiastic.
“You need this, Em,” he’d said just three days ago, pulling me close in our kitchen in Chelsea, his hands warm on my shoulders. “You’ve been working yourself to death at the gallery. A week in New York, seeing shows, visiting museums, just being you again—it’ll be good for us.”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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