The diamond studs Dalton gave me on our first anniversary caught the vanity light as I turned them between my fingers. Three years. I lined my lips in a soft rose and thought about the corner table at Le Perrin, the one by the window where he'd knelt down and asked me to marry him. He'd made the reservation two weeks ago. He'd told me twice.

My phone buzzed against the glass top.

Unknown number. A single video file. No message.

I pressed play with the thumb of my left hand, the earring still pinched between my right.

The screen lit up my face.

It was our bedroom last week. I knew because I recognized the throw at the foot of the bed — the cream one I'd bought in Portland. I knew because the light coming through the blinds was the late-afternoon Seattle kind, the sort that only exists in October. And I knew because the man on top of the woman was my husband.

Her hair fanned out across our pillow. Dark, long, unmistakable. Kori.

She was laughing. Not moaning — laughing. Like she'd won something.

I didn't look away. I watched every second. Four minutes and eleven seconds. I watched the way his hand moved on her hip the way it used to move on mine. I watched him say her name.

When it ended, I set the phone face-down on the vanity. Very gently. Like it was made of eggshell.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face hadn't changed. That surprised me more than anything else. There was the same woman I'd painted twenty minutes ago — rose lip, soft eye, the pearl blouse he liked. Nothing in her eyes said she had just watched her marriage die.

I took out the left earring. Placed it in the velvet slot.

I took out the right earring. Placed it in the velvet slot.

I closed the lid.

Downstairs, the front door opened.

"Everly? Baby, you almost ready?"

His voice was warm. Practiced. He'd been using it on me for three years and I had never once heard the second layer underneath.

"Coming," I said.

I walked down the stairs in the pearl blouse and the black slacks. He was standing in the foyer with a manila envelope tucked under one arm and a bouquet of white peonies in the other. He kissed my cheek. He smelled like his cologne and, faintly, underneath it, like something floral that wasn't mine.

"I have a surprise," he said. He was grinning. He tapped the envelope. "Before dinner. Sit down for a second."

We sat on the couch. He put the envelope on the coffee table and slid it toward me with the flat of his hand, keeping the top half tucked under his palm.

"That vacation place we talked about," he said. "Up on Whidbey. I pulled the trigger. Sign here — right at the tab — and it's ours by Friday."

His thumb was covering the header. But not completely.

I saw the corner of it. Petition. Dissolution. King County.

My hand did not shake. That's the part I want to remember later, when I need to remember something. My hand did not shake.

"That's sweet," I said. I picked up the pen from the coffee table. "You didn't have to."

"I wanted to." He was watching my face. Not my hand — my face. Checking. "Three years, Ev. I wanted it to be big."

"It's very big."

I signed. Everly R. Mills. Clean. No hesitation. The letters looked the way they always looked. He let out a breath I don't think he knew he'd been holding.

"Great." He slid the envelope back and tucked it under his arm again, so smooth I might have missed it if I hadn't been watching for exactly that motion. "Reservation's at eight. Let's go."

Dinner was fine. I ate the sea bass. I laughed at the right places. He held my hand across the tablecloth and I looked at his knuckles and thought, ten days. The cooling-off period in this state was ten days. Ten days from the moment those papers were filed. He'd file tomorrow. He was too impatient not to.

Which meant I had ten days to leave on my own terms.

That night he fell asleep with his back to me, the way he had for the last six months and I had never quite let myself count. His breathing evened out inside of four minutes. It used to take him twenty.

I lay in the dark with my eyes open and let the memories come. Kori's name on his phone at Thanksgiving. The ski weekend in February he'd gone on alone. The night last spring he came home at three in the morning and told me the Uber driver got lost. Every small thing I had smoothed over with the same soft cloth: he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

I got out of bed at four in the morning. I sat at the kitchen island with my laptop and the blue light on my face and typed divorce attorney Seattle into the search bar. My finger hovered.

I hit enter.

The next morning Kori's car was in our guest space. She waved at me from the passenger seat like we were friends. I waved back.

I started packing that afternoon, one box at a time, only when he was out. Books first. Then the framed photograph of my mother's coastline painting.

I called my father that evening from the closet floor, sitting between two suitcases.

"Dad."

He heard it in the one word. He always did.

"Your room is ready," he said, "whenever you are."

I closed my eyes.

Nine days left.

The rooftop bar was strung with Edison bulbs and filled with people who smiled too much. I hadn't wanted to come. But staying home meant sitting in the house where Dalton slept like a man without a conscience, and I couldn't do that for one more night.

I wore the black dress. The one that made me look like I had my life together.

Kori was already there when I arrived. She was leaning against the railing in a red slip dress, her hair loose, one hand wrapped around a champagne flute. Dalton stood next to her. His hand wasn't touching her, but it was close. Close enough that everyone could see the space between them and fill it in themselves.

She saw me first. Her face lit up like I'd just made her whole evening.

"Everly!" She pushed off the railing and crossed the terrace with her arms out. "Oh my god, sweetie, I'm so glad you came."

She hugged me. In front of everyone. Her perfume was the floral smell I'd caught on Dalton's collar last week.

I stood very still and let her do it.

When she pulled back, she kept one hand on my arm. Her thumb rubbed a small circle on my wrist like we were close. Like we'd ever been close.

"How are you holding up?" Her voice dropped half an octave, all concern. "With the whole situation. I know it's been hard."

Behind her, Dalton was watching. Not stopping her. Just watching.

I looked at Kori's hand on my wrist. At the smile that didn't reach her eyes. At the way she tilted her head like she was the kind of woman who cared.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Are you sure?" She squeezed. "Because if you ever need to talk—"

I pulled my arm free.

She blinked. Her smile flickered.

I crossed the space between us and slapped her.

The sound cracked across the terrace. Conversations stopped. Heads turned. Kori's hand flew to her cheek, her mouth open, her eyes wide like she couldn't believe I'd just done that in front of people.

I turned to Dalton.

He was staring at me like I'd lost my mind.

I slapped him harder.

His head snapped to the side. Someone gasped. A glass hit the ground and shattered.

For three seconds, nobody moved.

Then Dalton's hand came up to his jaw. His eyes went dark. He stepped past me — stepped around me like I was a piece of furniture — and pulled Kori behind him. His back blocked her completely. His hand cupped her face, tilting it toward the light.

"Are you okay?" His voice was low. Gentle. The voice he used to use on me.

"I'm fine," Kori whispered. She wasn't fine. Her eyes were wet. She was playing it perfectly.

"Let me see."

He turned her face side to side, checking for damage. His thumb brushed her cheekbone. She leaned into it.

I stood three feet away and watched my husband comfort the woman he was fucking.

Nobody looked at me. A few people had their phones out. Someone was definitely filming. I didn't care.

I turned and walked toward the exit.

Behind me, Kori's voice rose just loud enough to carry. "I don't know what I did. I was just trying to be nice—"

I kept walking.

The terrace opened onto a parking area. I stepped off the curb and heard the engine too late.

The car wasn't going fast. Maybe fifteen miles an hour. But it was enough.

The bumper caught my hip and I went down hard. My palms hit asphalt. My knee cracked against concrete. The taste of copper flooded my mouth where I'd bitten my tongue.

The car stopped. The door opened. A man's voice, high and panicked. "Oh my god, I didn't see you, are you okay, I'm so sorry—"

I pushed myself up. My palms were scraped raw, gravel embedded in the skin. My ribs screamed. My knee was torn open, blood running down my shin into my shoe.

I looked back at the terrace.

Dalton was still standing with Kori. His back was still to me. He hadn't moved.

He hadn't even turned around.

A woman in a blue coat knelt beside me. Not someone I knew. Just a stranger who'd seen me fall.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

I nodded. She helped me up. My knee buckled and she caught me.

"I'm calling an ambulance," she said.

"No." My voice came out steady. "Just a cab."

She looked at me like I was insane. Maybe I was. But I wasn't going to bleed on a rooftop terrace while my husband held another woman's face.

The cab came. The woman helped me into the back seat. I didn't get her name.

At home, I stood over the bathroom sink and picked gravel out of my palms with tweezers. The water ran pink. My ribs were already bruising, a dark bloom spreading under my skin. My knee wouldn't stop bleeding.

I wrapped it in gauze. I took four ibuprofen. I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the tile.

Six days left.

The bathrobe arrived on the fourth day.

I found the box on the doorstep when I came back from physical therapy. My knee was still wrapped. My ribs still screamed when I breathed too deep. The package had no return address. Just my name in neat block letters.

I opened it in the kitchen.

Inside was my bathrobe. The white one with the embroidered collar. The one I'd left hanging in the master bathroom when I moved my things to the guest room.

It smelled like her perfume.

There was a note tucked in the pocket. Thanks for letting me borrow this! So soft. — K

I held it for a long time. Then I walked it to the trash can and dropped it in.

The flowers came the next morning.

Two dozen white roses in a crystal vase. The card said: For Mrs. Hawkins — the new one.

The delivery man waited while I signed. He smiled like he thought he was part of something romantic.

I set the vase on the kitchen island. I didn't throw them out. I wanted Dalton to see them when he got home.

He came in at seven. He saw the flowers. He picked up the card and read it. His face didn't change.

"Kori has a weird sense of humor," he said.

He put the card down and opened the fridge.

I stood at the counter and watched him pull out a beer. Twist the cap. Take a long drink.

"That's it?" I said.

"What do you want me to say?" He didn't look at me. "She's trying to get a rise out of you. Don't give her one."

"She sent my bathrobe back."

He paused. Just for a second. Then he took another drink.

"I'll talk to her."

He didn't.

That night I heard him on the phone in the bedroom. His voice was low. I couldn't make out the words. But I heard him laugh.

I sat on the guest bed with my laptop and scrolled through apartment listings in San Francisco. One bedroom. Hardwood floors. Close to my father's house.

Five days left.

On the sixth day, Dalton came home early.

I was in the kitchen making tea. My knee was better. I could walk without limping. The bruises on my ribs had started to fade from black to green.

He dropped his keys on the counter. The sound was too loud.

"We need to talk," he said.

I poured the hot water. Watched the tea bag bloom.

"Okay."

"This has to stop."

I looked at him. He was standing with his arms crossed. His jaw was tight. He looked like a man who'd been building to this conversation for days.

"What has to stop?" I asked.

"The scenes. The drama. Slapping Kori in front of half of Seattle." He shook his head. "It's embarrassing, Everly. For both of us."

I set the kettle down. Very carefully.

"Embarrassing," I repeated.

"Yes." He leaned against the counter. "I know this is hard. I know you're upset. But you need to accept reality and move on."

The tea bag floated in the mug. I watched it turn the water amber.

"Was she ever just a friend?" I asked.

His arms tightened across his chest.

"What?"

"Kori." I looked at him. "You told me for three years she was just a friend. One of the guys. Was that ever true?"

His jaw worked. He looked away. Looked at the flowers still sitting on the island. Looked back at me.

"That's a ridiculous question."

"Is it?"

"Yes." He pushed off the counter. Crossed to the coffee maker. Poured himself a cup even though it was six in the evening and he never drank coffee after three. "You're trying to rewrite history because you're hurt. I get it. But it doesn't change the facts."

"What are the facts?"

He took a drink. Didn't answer.

"Dalton."

"The fact is," he said, "we're getting divorced. The fact is, you need to let go. The fact is, making a scene every time you see me with someone else just makes you look—"

He stopped.

"Look what?" My voice was very quiet.

He set the mug down. Picked up his keys.

"I have a meeting," he said.

He walked out.

I stood in the kitchen and listened to the front door close. Listened to his car start. Listened to the sound fade down the street.

Then I picked up my phone and called my father.

"I need the movers," I said. "Four days from now."

"I'll have them there at eight," he said.

I hung up. I looked at the flowers on the island. At the card still sitting next to the vase.

I picked up the whole arrangement and walked it to the trash. The vase shattered when it hit the bottom.

Four days left.