My phone started vibrating during the cab ride back to Hadley's apartment. I glanced at the screen. Kieran. I set it face-down on the leather seat and watched the city slide past the window.
By the time we reached Hadley's building, there were seventeen missed calls.
Hadley poured wine while I sat at her kitchen island, my phone buzzing against the marble countertop like an angry insect. She didn't tell me to answer it. She just pushed the glass toward me and opened her laptop.
"Plaza contract first," she said.
I nodded.
My phone lit up again. This time a text appeared on the screen: *Sky, please. Let me explain. This isn't what you think.*
I took a sip of wine. It tasted like nothing.
Another text: *I love you. I've always loved you. Nola was a mistake. Please call me.*
Hadley glanced at the screen, then at me. "He's going to show up here."
"I know."
"Want me to call building security?"
I shook my head. "Let him come."
We worked in silence for the next hour, reviewing the Plaza's cancellation terms line by line. Hadley's finger traced down the page until she found it — Section 12.4, the clause that allowed full deposit recovery if the bride provided written notice of irreconcilable personal circumstances at least fourteen days prior to the event. The wedding was in nine days.
"You're within the window," Hadley said. "Barely. But you're in."
I signed the form with a pen Hadley handed me. My signature looked exactly the way it always did — neat, controlled, legible. Nothing about it suggested the woman holding the pen had just watched her entire future collapse on a laptop screen.
"I'll courier this tonight," Hadley said. "And I'll include the confidentiality addendum. No one at the Plaza talks."
"Good."
My phone buzzed again. Then again. Then the intercom by Hadley's door crackled to life.
"Ms. Greene, there's a Kieran Mitchell in the lobby requesting access."
Hadley looked at me. I stood and walked to the iPad mounted on her kitchen wall, the one connected to the building's security cameras. I tapped the screen and Kieran's face filled the frame.
He looked wrecked. His hair was wet from the rain I hadn't noticed starting. His tie was loosened. His eyes were red.
"Sky," his voice came through the intercom speaker, distorted and tinny. "I know you're up there. Please. Just five minutes. Let me explain."
I watched him on the screen. He ran a hand through his wet hair. He looked up at the camera, directly at me, though he couldn't see me watching.
"I made a mistake," he said. "A terrible mistake. But it's over. Nola means nothing. You're the one I want to marry. You're the one I love."
I felt Hadley move beside me, her hand hovering near the intercom button, waiting for my signal.
Kieran pressed the buzzer again. "Sky, please. Don't do this. We can fix this. We've been together ten years. Ten years. That has to mean something."
I looked at the timer on the iPad screen. One minute. Two. Five.
Kieran's shoulders sagged. He leaned his forehead against the glass door, his breath fogging the surface. Then he straightened, looked up at the camera one more time, and walked back out into the rain.
Eleven minutes total.
I returned to the kitchen island and picked up my wine glass.
"You okay?" Hadley asked.
I nodded. I wasn't. But I would be.
The next morning, I walked across Columbia's campus to Professor Voss's office. The air smelled like rain and wet leaves. Students hurried past me with coffee cups and backpacks, their faces bright with the kind of uncomplicated stress that comes from midterm exams and overdue papers. I envied them.
Eleanor's office was on the third floor of Hamilton Hall, a narrow room lined floor to ceiling with books. She sat behind her desk, reading glasses perched on her nose, a manuscript open in front of her. She looked up when I knocked.
"Skylar. Come in."
I closed the door behind me and sat in the chair across from her desk. For a moment, I didn't know how to begin.
"My personal circumstances have changed," I said finally. "I may need to leave New York. Soon."
Eleanor removed her glasses and set them on the manuscript. She studied me with the same careful attention she brought to analyzing a complex text.
"How soon?"
"Within the month."
She nodded slowly. Then she picked up her desk phone and dialed a number from memory.
"Richard," she said when someone answered. "Eleanor Voss at Columbia. I have a candidate for your visiting fellowship program. Brilliant scholar. Comparative literature. She needs placement immediately."
She listened for a moment.
"Yes, I'm certain. I'll send her CV this afternoon. Expect her application by end of week."
She hung up and looked at me.
"London School of Economics. One-year visiting fellowship, renewable for a second year if desired. Full salary, housing stipend, research budget. They'll expedite the paperwork."
I felt something crack inside my chest, but my face remained still.
"Thank you," I said.
Eleanor leaned back in her chair. "The best revenge, Skylar, is a life so full they become a footnote."
I stood, smoothing my skirt. "I'll have the application ready by Friday."
"Good."
I turned to leave, then paused at the door. "Did you ever like him? Kieran?"
Eleanor picked up her glasses and returned to her manuscript. "I thought you could do better."
I walked back to Hadley's apartment through the rain, my phone silent in my pocket. When I arrived, she had the London fellowship acceptance letter already printed and waiting on her kitchen counter.
I signed it with the same pen I'd used to cancel my wedding.
Then I locked it in a drawer and began planning the rest.
