Chapter 57 New beginnings
Vivienne's POV
There was a pause on the other end. I could hear traffic in the background, the sound of the city moving around her. She was probably walking to work or grabbing breakfast somewhere.
"What's wrong?" she asked, and her voice changed, became more focused, more concerned. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"
And finally, finally, the tears came.
They broke through that frozen wall inside me and started pouring out, hot and fast and unstoppable. Three years of pretending. Three years of playing the perfect wife. Three years of loving someone who was just using me. It all came crashing down at once.
"He wants a divorce," I choked out between sobs. "Rapheal wants a divorce and he fired me and I don't know what to do. I don't have anywhere to go. I don't have anything anymore. Sarah, I don't know what to do."
I was crying so hard I could barely breathe. Sitting in that expensive car in that expensive parking lot, completely falling apart.
"Where are you right now?" Sarah asked immediately, her voice firm and steady. "Tell me where you are and I'm coming to get you."
"The company's parking lot," I managed to say.
"Stay there. Don't move. I'm calling an Uber right now and I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Do you hear me, Viv? Fifteen minutes. Just hold on."
"Okay," I whispered.
"And Vivienne?" Her voice softened. "I'm here. You're not alone. Whatever happened, whatever you're going through, you're not alone anymore. I promise."
The call ended and I sat there crying in the driver's seat, watching people walk in and out of the building where I used to work. Where I used to belong. Where I used to matter.
But at least I wasn't completely alone. At least I had one person left who still cared. One friend who didn't abandon me even after I had abandoned her.
It wasn't much. But right now, it was everything.
I don't know if he's happy with his decision but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of him seeing me cry.
Sarah arrived in exactly fourteen minutes.
I saw her before she saw me. She stepped out of the Uber looking exactly the same as I remembered her. Same wild curly hair that she never could tame. Same bright red sneakers she wore everywhere. Same oversized jacket that was two sizes too big for her small frame.
But her face was different. More mature. More serious. The kind of face that comes from living real life without any shortcuts or safety nets, or help.
She spotted my car and walked toward me quickly, her eyes scanning me through the windshield before I even opened the door. When I finally stepped out, she didn't say anything. She just opened her arms and pulled me into a hug so tight I could barely breathe.
And I cried harder.
I cried into her shoulder like a child. Like the little girl who used to cry to her dad after a bad day at school. Like someone who had been holding everything together for so long that the moment someone offered them a safe place to fall apart, they completely collapsed.
Sarah held me the whole time. Rubbing my back in slow circles. Not saying anything. Not trying to fix it. Just holding me.
When the crying finally slowed down and turned into quiet sniffles, she pulled back and looked at my face. She brushed the hair out of my eyes and clicked her tongue softly.
"You look terrible," she said.
I laughed. A broken, wet, exhausted laugh. But it was still a laugh.
"I know," I said.
"Come on," she said, linking her arm through mine and pulling me gently toward the street. "My apartment is twenty minutes from here. We're going there, you're going to eat something, and then you're going to tell me everything."
I looked back at the building one last time as Sarah collected my car keys and volunteered to drive. The glass exterior gleaming in the morning sun. All those floors and offices and conference rooms where I had poured three years of my life. Where I had sat beside Marcus during board meetings and spoken confidently about quarterly projections and expansion strategies.
All of it is gone now.
I turned away and got into the car.
Sarah's apartment was small and warm and messy in a comfortable way. Books stacked on every surface. Plants crowding the windowsill. A half finished painting sitting on an easel in the corner of the living room. It smelled like coffee and vanilla candles.
It felt more like home than the penthouse ever did.
She made scrambled eggs and toast while I sat at her kitchen table wrapped in a blanket she had thrown over my shoulders without asking. I watched her move around the small kitchen, cracking eggs, buttering toast, humming quietly to herself.
"You never stopped painting," I said, nodding toward the easel I could see through the doorway.
"Never," she said simply. "It keeps me sane."
She set a plate in front of me and sat down across the table with her own coffee. She watched me take a few bites before she said anything.
"Start from the beginning," she said.
So I did.
I told her everything. From last night in our bedroom, to his calm voice, to the lawyer's message, to my terminated access card, to the HR email. I talked for almost an hour, barely stopping, letting everything pour out of me like I was emptying a bucket that had been too full for too long.
Sarah listened without interrupting. Her face moved through different expressions as I talked. Shock. Anger. Sadness. More anger. By the time I got to the part about standing in the hallway while Rebecca looked at me with pity in her eyes, Sarah's jaw was tight and her fingers were wrapped around her coffee mug so hard her knuckles were pale.
"He fired you the same day?" she said when I finally stopped talking. Her voice was low and controlled.
"HR sent the email while I was still standing outside my office," I confirmed.
"That's not accidental," Sarah said firmly, shaking her head. "Nobody fires someone the same morning they ask for a divorce by accident. That was planned. He planned all of this carefully."
I had been trying not to think about that. About how much planning must have gone into dismantling my entire life so efficiently. You don't coordinate with lawyers and HR departments overnight. This had been in motion for weeks. Maybe longer.
"How long do you think he's been planning it?" I asked, even though part of me didn't want to know the answer.
Sarah looked at me carefully, like she was deciding how honest to be. Then she took a breath.
"I don't know, Viv. But based on what you're describing, at least a few weeks. Maybe more."
A few weeks. Maybe more.