Chapter 16 - I saw Valerie.
It was an accident. A Tuesday afternoon at a grocery store three miles from my apartment.
I was pushing Clara in the cart, deciding between apples, when I looked up.
She was standing at the end of the aisle.
She looked the same. Perfect hair. Expensive coat. That same fragile, desperate posture she used to bend Alex to her will.
She saw me. Her eyes widened, darting down to Clara in the cart.
For a second, the aisle was completely silent.
A year ago, seeing her would have destroyed me. I would have felt the rage, the injustice, the burning humiliation of knowing my husband had chosen her panic over my life.
But standing there, under the fluorescent lights of the produce section, I felt nothing.
No anger. No hatred.
Just pity.
She was a woman who had to manufacture crises to feel loved. She had destroyed a marriage, ruined a career, and gained absolutely nothing, because Alex had walked away from her the moment he realized the cost of her games.
I didn't turn my cart around.
I pushed it forward. Straight toward her.
She shrank back, pressing herself against the shelves as I passed.
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I didn't look at her. I didn't say a word. I just kept walking.
She was a ghost. And I was alive.
