Replacing my ex

Chapter 2

That was the moment the room spun. That was the moment I completely lost it.

A guttural, agonizing sound tore from my chest. More of a raw scream than a cry. I couldn’t stop.

I dropped to the bathroom floor, rocking back and forth, my heart completely shattered into a million pieces.

How could it be possible? How could the man I built a life with do this to me?

I couldn’t believe it.

Eventually, I picked myself up off the floor. Suddenly, I was intensely hungry. I realised I had barely eaten all day.

I left the hotel room, needing to escape the suffocating silence. I walked for about twenty minutes through the city streets until I stumbled upon a burger joint still open at that late hour.

I smelt the aroma before I even saw the neon sign. When had I last eaten a real burger? Ryan’s strict obsession with calorie counting and macro-tracking had completely ruled my life for the last few years.

Well, screw Ryan.

“I’ll take a double cheeseburger,” I told the server behind the counter.

My mouth was already watering at the thought.

While I waited for my order, I noticed the server giving me a deeply unsettled look.

God! Can everyone smell the pathetic sadness on me? Can they tell I just lost my entire world?

When my order was called, I went up to receive it. To put the server more at ease, I tried to smile politely. That’s when I caught my reflection in the mirrored wall behind the counter.

I looked deranged. I was still wearing my elegant dress, but my hair was a wild nest, makeup streaked down my cheeks, and the smile plastered on my face looked more like a feral baring of teeth than an expression of joy.

For some reason I found that hysterical. Bitter laughter escaped my mouth. Before I knew it, I was doubled over, cackling like an unhinged witch, fresh tears streaming down my face.

“Ma’m, are you okay?” the server asked kindly.

The concern in his voice snapped me out of the mania.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I grabbed the brown paper bag and walked out into the night.

I didn’t even wait to get back. Standing on the sidewalk, I began wolfing down the greasy burger, chasing it with a plastic cup of ice-cold Coke. I couldn’t get it down fast enough. It tasted like freedom.

By the time I walked down and reached the hotel lobby, the bag was empty. I threw the trash away and headed up to the honeymoon suite.

The second I opened the door, the rose petals and the chilled champagne brought the agony rushing back. My eyes landed on the ridiculous cake I had driven two hours away to get for him.

Furious, I smashed my bare hands directly into the centre of the cake, crushing it into paste. I wiped the frosting onto my dress, scooped up the ruined remains, and hurled them into the trash can.

Memories kept flooding my mind. Meeting Ryan at the diner. Our magical first date. The day we moved in together. The endless, exhausting nights we stayed up building his company from nothing. Our beautiful wedding day. We had been so happy.

And then the darker memories came. The ones I had spent years trying to suppress. The ones I told myself were just “misunderstandings”.

Standing in the bathroom numerous times staring at negative pregnancy tests, only for Ryan to let out a disappointed sigh and walk away.

Crying myself to sleep on a king-sized bed because I felt completely alone in my own marriage.

And, of course, his mother, Mabel Miller. Her incessant, cruel rants.

My mind flashed back to the very last Sunday dinner I had forced myself to attend at his parents’ house a year ago.

I had arrived hours before Ryan because Mabel expected me to cook the entire meal. I had spent years trying to please her, but the goalposts always moved.

“You’re late,” she snapped the second I stepped through the door.

Surprise surprise.

“I’m sorry,” I replied automatically, forcing a bright smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. Miller. How have you been?”

Mabel had never allowed me to call her anything other than Mrs. Miller. The one and only time I mistakenly called her “mom”, she looked like she was going to faint from disgust. To her, I was only ever referred to as “that girl”.

Cooking Sunday dinners was a tightrope walk. I had to ensure Ryan’s strict low-calorie, high-protein demands were met while also making the heavy, traditional food Mabel preferred. It doubled my workload and no one cared.

When we finally sat down to eat, Mabel took one bite of her food.

“This chicken is dry,” she hissed, slamming her fork down. “What good are you, honestly? You can’t cook to save your life. And just look at the plate you made my son! As if what you cooked him is not bad enough, you gave him a portion even a child wouldn’t be satisfied with.”

I looked at the generous portion on Ryan’s plate. She knew damn well her son had specifically requested that exact weight of grilled steak and steamed vegetables. As usual, Ryan didn’t say a word to defend his wife. He just kept chewing, staring blankly ahead like it wasn’t his problem.

“What’s your aim? Do you want to starve him?” she cried.

I kept my head down, eating in silence. My refusal to fight back only riled her up further.

“I’m talking to you!” she shouted, suddenly reaching over and violently snatching my plate away from me. “You’d comfortably eat us out of house and home! All you do is eat.”

Ryan actually had the audacity to snicker behind his palm.

Never mind that my portion was half the size of his. Never mind that I had slaved away in her kitchen all day while she sat on the couch barking useless instructions.

“Instead of stuffing your face, how about you get off your fat behind and give me a grandson? How long has it been? You only have one job and you can’t even manage that. Tell me, what use are you?”

When I didn’t answer, she stood up, walked over to the garbage, and scraped the contents of my plate directly into the trash.

Something inside me snapped that day. I stood up, grabbed my car keys, and walked out of that house for the last time. I could hear her screeching at my back all the way down my driveway.

I swore I would never return until something changed.

Back in the present, I blinked hard, shaking the memory from my head.

What good will crying over the past do now? I thought to myself.

I opened the champagne and took a swig directly from the bottle.

“Happy anniversary to me,” I said aloud, raising the bottle to an imaginary toast. I took another deep gulp.

With the bottle still in my hand, I walked back into the bathroom to retrieve my phone from the floor. No more messages thankfully.

I took off my beautiful dress, now sticky with the cake I smeared on it.

What a waste of a beautiful dress!

I got into bed, clutching my phone in one hand and the champagne bottle in the other. Then I started to go through the messages again, zooming in on the pictures and reading the screenshots obsessively, trying to put together a timeline.

Trying to think about anything I might have missed.

Trying to figure out how I could have been so blind.