A year after the anniversary that started all of it, Marcus took me back to Ellory's.
The same restaurant. The same private room, this time empty of anyone else. The same table where I had pressed my hands against the glass and seen the shape of my marriage cracking. He had made the reservation three weeks in advance and told me only where we were going, not why.
I wore the blue dress. It did not fit exactly the way it had before Ava, and I did not care at all.
We sat across from each other with the city below and the candles that were finally on our table, and Marcus looked at me with the expression I had seen develop over the past year, the one that had replaced the managed confidence of the man I had married. Open. Present. Knowing what it had cost him and not flinching from that kno
