Chapter 10 The news cycle
Morning came quietly, and a bit earlier than I expected. No alarms, Ethan's footsteps down the hall or Clara's loud laughter that seemed more like mockery than just mere laughter.
Just the light coming in through the curtains, and the slow sounds of the mansion coming alive around me.
I lay there for a moment, blinking at the ceiling remembering where I was.
Right, Dr. Lane’s, New Life.
I pressed my hand to my stomach, the same way I've been doing quite unconsciously in the last few days, and sat up slowly.
The tray from last night has been quietly replaced while I slept, with a cup of coffee, fruits, and a small card from the kitchen.
A smile broke out of my face.
To be thought about, clearly something I never really experienced.
Recalling my old phone was somewhere there, I reached out for my bag, and picked it up, not sure what I really wanted to do.
I hadn't touched it since I silenced the sim at the airport, I knew I wasn't ready to deal with it, but again I held it for a second, then powered it on.
It took three full minutes to finish loading, and those were the longest three minutes I've ever had to walk through.
The numbers climbed, messages, missed calls, social media alerts, emails from addresses I couldn't recognize. By the time they stopped loading, I had about five hundred plus notifications, and a battery at six percent.
I plugged it in and started scrolling, ignoring all the messages, because most of them were from people I hadn't spoken to in years, who suddenly found my number.
Apparently, they wanted to offer opinions I hadn't asked for.
Then the articles too, they were harder to ignore. Every gossip blog, entertainment page and social media account that made a living off other people's pain had something to say about Ethan D’Arden’s divorce.
And naturally, because the world has always been this way, the story wasn't about him.
It was about me.
‘Sources close to the couple confirm D'Arden initiated the split after years of incompatibility.’
Incompatibility?
‘The former Mrs. D’Arden who has kept a notably low profile throughout the marriage is said to be devastated.’
Devastated?
Like I was already defeated before I'd even started.
I kept scrolling, although each headline came with more pains than the previous, a part of me refused to just stop.
Someone had dug up a photo from the gala two weeks ago, the same night everything ended, I was caught mid turn with my gown clinging. The person who took the photo caught me off guard, and attached a stupid caption to it.
“UPGRADING TO BUSINESS CLASS”
Another photo of Clara at some event, glowing and polished, was set by the side. She looked like everything the comments section had decided I wasn't.
I read the comments, I know I shouldn't have, but I did anyway.
‘She was never his type anyway.’
Honestly I feel bad, but also… have you seen Clara?’
‘Some women just don't know how to keep a man.’
‘She let herself go. That's what happens.’
Amidst the weird heaviness in my chest, I still read all the comments, not because I was enjoying the pain, but because I needed to know the details of what I was dealing with, and where it was coming from.
You can't fight something you haven't properly understood.
I opened my notes app and started a new folder, titled it; Evidence.
I sent screenshots, articles, comments, photos. I was methodical about it, the way I used to be methodical about nothing, because I had spent five years convincing myself that the little things did not matter.
When in fact they mattered even more than the seemingly huge ones.
Every whisper mattered, because they were what people hid behind when they wanted to destroy you without soiling their hands.
I wasn't going to let any of this slide.
My grip tightened against my phone as I came across yet another headline.
Not because I wasn't expecting it, I knew it was definitely going to happen, I just didn't know how to deal with it.
The wedding invitation.
‘Ethan D'Arden and Clara Benson announce their union.’
I stared at the photo for a long time, then I screenshotted it and added it to the folder. I set the phone down, picked up the cup of tea, and took a sip from it.
Then I picked the phone back up, not to scroll this time, I was done scrolling.
I went to my Instagram first, fourteen thousand followers, five years of carefully curated photos; events, dinners, charity galas, always positioned slightly behind Ethan, always smiling in a way that didn't quite reach my eyes.
I looked at the last photo I'd posted, three weeks ago. Ethan and I at some function, his hand at the small of my back, my smile doing its job.
The comments underneath it now were something else entirely. I deleted the account without reading them.
Twitter next, then Facebook, then the email address everyone knew.
One by one, gone.
Not deactivated, permanently deleted.
I didn't want a waiting period, didn't want a grace window where someone could talk me out of it, I just wanted to disappear so completely that searching my name would return nothing current. Just old articles, old photos, old versions of a woman who no longer existed.
When everything was gone, I took a deep breath, and sat with the phone in my hand for a moment, then I opened the back, brought out the SIM card, and broke it.
The sound that was made was barely anything, but something about it felt enormous, like a door closing from the inside, that only I had the keys to open.
I got off the bed and walked to the window, throwing the pieces of the brush out the window.
Nobody would find me here, or send messages pretending to care, or even use my location to create another article.
I was gone, not mistakenly or forced away, but deliberately…