The Last Red Date
The day my husband abandoned me on my thirtieth birthday started like a scene from the kind of life I thought we were finally building together. I woke up before Jerome, heart buzzing with that mix of excitement and nerves kids get before a school trip. The morning light came in soft and golden, making everything feel cleaner, more possible.
He lay there with one arm flung out wildly, and for a second I let myself believe he’d been reaching for me.
We had a plan. A big one.
My thirtieth birthday—the milestone I’d been talking about for months. He’d promised the whole day would be mine.
Breakfast at home, wandering downtown, then dinner at the new steakhouse I’d been stalking on Instagram for weeks.
He’d made the reservation himself. “Eight o’clock, baby. I put it in my phone and everything.
You deserve a real birthday this time.”
I believed him.
We’d been rocky, sure, but lately he’d been trying. Or so I thought.
He’d taken the day off. He’d booked the restaurant.
He’d listened when I said this birthday mattered to me.
For once, I wanted to be the priority. I slid out of bed and padded to the kitchen, the tile shocking my feet awake. I wanted to make breakfast special—something more than our usual toast-grabbed-on-the-way-out.
I pulled out eggs and bacon, the good coffee I’d been saving, the pancake mix he liked even though he pretended he didn’t care about the brand.
My dress for the evening—a soft, deep blue thing that made me feel like the best version of myself—hung on the closet door like a promise. While the coffee brewed, I heard the shower start.
I smiled to myself, imagining him coming out to a breakfast spread, me pretending it was no big deal, him pretending not to be impressed and failing. I’d tied birthday balloons to the dining chairs the night before.
The morning felt, for the first time in a long time, like something worth protecting.
I was cracking the second egg when his phone buzzed on the counter. The screen lit up. The name flashed like a slap.
Natalie.
That name had a way of stealing all the oxygen from the room. Natalie, the ex-wife.
Natalie, the one his mother adored. Natalie, the one who somehow still cast a shadow over our marriage five years after their divorce, despite the fact that they didn’t share kids or a business or anything that required ongoing contact.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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