Fuck and fuck it all. I closed the door on Jax, feeling like I’d ripped out my own heart. I hated sending him away, hated not touching him and rushing into his arms. It would feel so good. I could close my eyes and he’d soothe the hurt away, or at least replace it with something much, much more pleasurable.

But there was a loud voice inside me shouting “no.” For one, I didn’t want him to get hurt. I was sure Jax knew how to handle himself around guys like my husband. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Jax’s toughness. It was that being around Mike was like juggling with a loaded gun. You had no idea when it would go off, so you just held your breath, knowing at some point it would. Jax didn’t deserve to be dragged into the mess that I’d created.

And I still felt like the best thing to do was end my marriage before I started anything with anyone else. As much as I felt giddy over the connection with Jax, I also felt confused and guilty all the time. I’d deleted all of his texts, feeling like I needed a fresh start.

It wasn’t that I was striving for a moral high ground, though. I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Back when I’d been seven or eight my mom had gone through a brief religious phase, sending me to Sunday school to learn the Ten Commandments. It had made perfect sense to me back then. The world had been black and white, with good guys and bad guys. Marriage and loyalty = good. Adultery = bad.

In real life, I was experiencing a lot more gray area. When a marriage was bad, what did that make leaving it? How about leaving it for someone else? I’d bet money Mike was involved with someone else. He didn’t even offer excuses anymore when he stayed out all night. No work, even the kind of criminal activity he did to make money, required that many all-nighters.

I so desperately wanted to throw myself into Jax’s arms and let him solve all my problems. He could whisk me away and together we’d never have another care in the world. But I’d done enough sticking my head in the sand. Romantic, escapist thinking was how I’d gotten myself into the mess in the first place. I’d married a man with the nickname “Griller.” What, did I think he made great hamburgers?

I’d tried to escape from reality by running away from my hometown with Mike. Tempting as it was to run off again, hiding from Mike and pretending Jax could fix all my problems, I knew it was stupid. Life didn’t work out like it did in a rom-com movie.

But it was tempting to think about it working out that way, in Jax’s arms as the sun set behind us. Even in my sorry state, I couldn’t help but notice how he looked sexy as hell. So dark and brooding and big, the man looked like such a badass but he wanted to take care of me. I could see how much he wanted to hold me, the way he had to stop himself from reaching out. I felt the same way.

But I’d had enough of fantasy. I needed to ground myself firmly in reality. It was time for me to figure my shit out.

After a sleepless, lonely night, I headed off to my new job. Mike had found a position for me as a home healthcare aide working for the grandmother of one of the Skulls.

When he’d found my birth control pills, he’d hit DEFCON five. I’d never seen him so furious. He’d trashed the apartment and hurt me worse than he ever had before. Shaking and crying, I’d shut down to the point where I honestly couldn’t remember all of what had happened. After he’d finally stormed out, I’d sat up on the kitchen floor, possessions strewn around me and realized I was fighting for my life around that maniac.

Then he’d tightened the noose, telling me the next day I needed to quit my job. He’d found me a better one and that I needed to start ASAP. I’d protested. I loved working at Cavallo Canyon. I’d grown attached to the people I worked with, enjoyed the daily bustle and activity.

But he’d pulled a trump card. He’d accused me of cheating on him. According to him, that had to be why I was on the pill. He figured I’d met someone at work and warned me that he wouldn’t stop until he found out who it was.

The thought of Mike storming around on a witch hunt, grilling people like he was so famous for doing until he found out exactly whom I’d met at work? That couldn’t happen. So, reluctantly, hating to do it, I’d quit. It seemed like my only option. Because the truth wasn’t exactly what Mike thought it was, but there was some truth to his suspicions. I had met Jax at work. I did live for those afternoons when I got to see him, those stolen moments giving me the joy I lived on for all the days in-between. I had to quit, so Jax wouldn’t get dragged into my mess.

So now I spent my days with 82-year-old Myra, cleaning, cooking, keeping her company and, occasionally, getting her outside for fresh air. She needed round-the-clock care, but she refused to move into a care facility. She also didn’t like ever leaving her house. She was a hoarder, her entire place filled to the rafters with papers and miscellaneous junk. I did what I could, essentially clearing pathways through it all, occasionally getting a bag together that her son would secretly take away to throw out. Most days, she glued herself to the television, paying me no attention at all.

It was depressing as hell. I desperately missed my job at Cavallo Canyon. But there was one good thing about my new job: it gave me some time to get my escape plan in gear. When I’d first seen Myra’s kitchen, I’d nearly retched over the filth. I’d set in immediately, spending hours on even small sections, taking everything out, wiping it all down, scouring surfaces. She fought me some, but she loved my cooking. As long as I didn’t touch the rest of the house and I made her meals, she let me clean the kitchen top to bottom.

Somewhere in the midst of all the scrubbing, an idea took hold. I could bake there. Once the kitchen gleamed, spic and span, I could have my way with it, bring in all my baking supplies and turn out pies all day long.

Without that, honestly, I might have died of despair. I hated how isolated I felt, my nights alone, my days with a cranky recluse who didn’t seem to like me much. I hated that Mike had such control over my life. But I made it through each day, reminding myself that it was temporary. Each day I suffered would make my freedom all that much more secure.

Pies kept me going. I started baking all day long. By the end of the first month working there, I was selling pies at four different stores, the diner plus two bakeries and a gourmet grocery store. Mike only knew about the first one. All of the rest of the profit I made, I put directly into my getaway fund.

Cavallo wasn’t exactly a metropolis. But it wasn’t a podunk small town either. So it surprised the hell out of me when in the span of one week I randomly saw both Jax and Mike. They weren’t together. That would have been even stranger, so strange I might have keeled over with a heart attack. But there was a striking similarity to what I saw both of them doing, even if my reaction to each was the complete opposite.

First, while I was driving through downtown I saw Jax. Myra didn’t live on a bus route, so Mike let me use the car to-and-from my job. Dark already at six o’clock, I couldn’t believe how many shops already had holiday lights in their windows. On the radio, they were already starting to play Christmas carols even though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. I hated it when all the holiday celebrations got started too early. There should be a law against it, barring everything until December first so it would feel more special. I also had to admit, that season I wasn’t exactly feeling all that festive.

After thinking about Jax incessantly for months, it almost seemed surreal to look out the car window and see him walking along the sidewalk. Every big guy with cropped hair or a shaved head reminded me of him. I’d almost tired myself out the way my heart leapt every time I thought I saw Jax. But this time, it was really him.

He looked so good, larger than life, wearing the black leather jacket I recognized and faded jeans. He had the broadest, strongest shoulders and I could remember how they felt when he’d wrapped his arms around me. How hard and warm his body was, how good his fingers had made me feel.

But he wasn’t alone. He had a gorgeous blond woman on his arm, her body pressed all close up against his. She was smiling and laughing, her hair cascading down in effortless waves the way mine never did. My stomach dropped so fast it about fell out of the car onto the pavement. My heart tumbled right after it as I saw what a beautiful couple they made, how perfect they looked together.

Gripping the wheel, I forced my attention back on the road. No accidents. I could just imagine getting into a fender-bender right in front of Jax and his Barbie girlfriend. I’d step out of the car wearing old leggings and a sweatshirt, my hair smucked up into a thoughtless ponytail. Barbie would probably be super nice, asking if I was all right, if she could do anything to help me, while I desperately wished the crash had been fatal.

So that was what Jax was up to. Day after day I toiled away, isolated and increasingly depressed, my world turning a dull shade of gray. I missed Jax so bad it was like I’d lost a limb. I ached for him, remembering his gaze, his voice, his touch. Thoughts of him kept me warm at night when I felt so cold. The memory of how I’d come alive when I was with him was like a tree branch I clung to while the icy water around me rushed and rose, threatening to suck me down into its dark depths.

Meanwhile, Jax was out taking a stroll and enjoying the holiday lights with his dream girl, not a care in the world. I guessed in all fairness, I’d told him to do exactly that. I’d pushed him away, asked him to leave me alone. Looked like he’d gone and done it.

I still seethed in jealousy. What I wouldn’t give to be in her shoes, walking along on his arm, so carefree and happy by his side. I wondered if I’d ever been as happy as she looked in that moment, like she was in an ad for sunshine or youth.

As I struggled with the fact that Jax had a girlfriend, a few days later I saw proof that my husband did as well. Mike had been staying away nearly every night. I liked it that way. When he was around, he got really mean.

“I own you,” he’d hissed at me one night last week. “You try to leave me, you see what happens. You know who would miss you? No one.”

To be honest, I felt numb. I barely reacted any more, and that seemed to really piss him off. Every little thing I did or didn’t do made him enraged.

When I saw my husband downtown, not too far from where I’d seen Jax, I knew right away it was him. That was because I didn’t try to see Mike. I didn’t look for him in crowds, or fantasize about running into him. When I saw him walking along the street I simply thought, “there’s that motherfucker.”

He was with a woman, too. She had black hair and high, high heels, the kind I never wore. Her breasts were way bigger than mine and she wore a shirt so low-cut I could see about four inches of cleavage. Holding my breath, as if Mike could see me, I pulled over and double-parked. There in the car, I peered at them, watching as his hand drifted down to her ass and gave it a squeeze.

As I watched them, I did not burn with jealousy the way I had when I’d seen Jax. Instead, I simmered with indignant rage. No wonder Mike had accused me of cheating. He was doing it himself. They headed up some stairs. She turned her key in the lock and led him inside. So domestic. I wondered if he could get it up with her. He hadn’t gotten it up with me in months.

Later that week, I turned 25. I promised myself, by my next birthday I’d be in a better place. I hated the person I’d become, fearful, angry and isolated, watching others live their lives through my car window. I’d never wanted my life to turn out like that. I’d never believed it could get so bad until there I was, in the middle of it.

Next year, I vowed, when I turned 26 I’d have turned things around. Because a life like the one I’d been living couldn’t go on much longer. Something had to give.