Chapter 2

2.

“We’re done, Dorian.”

After sending that text, I blocked his number.

I had chased Dorian for two years and been with him for five. For seven whole years, during the prime of my twenties, my entire world had revolved around him.

He once casually mentioned he liked professional, go-getter women, so I chopped off the long hair I’d had for years and got a sharp, shoulder-length bob.

He said he didn’t like it when women were overweight, so I became obsessed with SoulCycle and Pilates. My diet was nothing but salads and grilled chicken. I wouldn't even touch a Krispy Kreme donut when my blood sugar was crashing.

He said he admired independent women, so when I was hospitalized for an appendectomy, I never called him once, terrified he would think I was being clingy.

I loved him so desperately, so humbly, carefully trimming myself into the shape I thought he desired. I believed if I was just perfect enough, he would finally, truly see me.

But then I saw Sloane. And I realized I was just trying to be a cheap copy of someone else.

It didn't matter when, if Sloane called him―even at three in the morning―Dorian would drop everything and run to her. He would always say, “Anna, you’re so strong, you can handle things on your own. But Sloane is different―she’s fragile. She needs me.”

My strength had become his excuse to abandon me for her, again and again.

A week after I blocked Dorian, I held a small funeral for my mother at a private cemetery in Westchester.

The plot was owned by Dorian's family. When my mother first got sick, he promised he would let her be buried here, telling me how peaceful and quiet it was. Even though we had broken up, the groundskeeper informed me that Dorian had already paid for everything and left instructions that the plot was to be reserved for my mother, no matter what.

I knelt on the cold, damp grass, wiping the new headstone with a handkerchief.