“Those washed-up old hags? Who'd want them?”
“Want them? I wouldn't even waste a second glance.”
She looked me up and down as she said it.
I was wearing a gray utility jacket that day, my hair pulled back in a careless ponytail, not a trace of makeup on my face.
It had rained that morning, and there was still mud on my shoes.
“Sweetie, don't take this the wrong way.”
“You're not that old, right? Early thirties?”
“But look at you. The outfit, the whole look. It's so... plain.”
“You're not even wearing lipstick. Your brows aren't shaped. Your skin is so dry it's flaking.”
“Like this? You've got zero appeal to any man.”
“And don't get mad at me for asking, but does your husband even still touch you?”
There was an innocent kind of cruelty on her face when she said it.
Like she was simply stating a fact.
I tugged the corner of my mouth but didn't answer.
But her words were a needle, pressing into the one place I didn't want touched.
The first three years of our marriage, Robert couldn't keep his hands off me.
Back then we rented a tiny apartment in the old part of town, barely four hundred square feet, with paper-thin walls.
You could hear the neighbor's kid crying and the street vendors shouting below, every word, every note.
But he never cared about any of that. Sometimes I'd step out of the shower with my hair still dripping wet, and he'd wrap his arms around me from behind.
His chin resting on my shoulder, murmuring my name, low and close.
Life was hard back then, but we were pressed together.
Bone against bone. Sinew tangled with sinew.
By the fourth year, he transferred to a new position. Business trips started piling up.
Some weeks he only came home once or twice, and when he did, he collapsed into bed the second he walked through the door.
When I reached for him, he'd say he was too tired, or roll over and pretend to be asleep.
I told myself it was work stress. I was understanding about it.
Then the gap kept stretching. Once a week became once every two weeks. Once every two weeks became once a month.
This year, all told, it had happened twice.
And both times were quick, mechanical, like he was checking something off a list.
When it was over, he'd turn his back to me and scroll through his phone without a single word.
I was thirty-one, not eighty.
Late at night, lying in the dark, I felt the emptiness too. The wanting.
But I'd never said any of this to anyone. Not even my mother.
Marriage was just something you got through.
But now Robert's girlfriend was standing right in front of me.
Dressed in brands I'd never seen, wearing the gold bracelet that should have been mine, telling me men preferred them young and pretty.
Telling me I looked the way I did, so I deserved to be untouched.
Valerie took my silence as confirmation that she'd hit a nerve, and added：
“Don't be sad, sweetie. I know a few decent guys. Want me to set you up sometime?”
“No need.” I gripped the bracelet in my palm, knuckles white. “I'm keeping the bracelet. I'll go see your boyfriend tomorrow.”
“There you go.”
Valerie nodded, satisfied, and pulled the car door open.
“Make sure you actually go. Offer like this won't come around twice.”
The Porsche's engine turned over, and she pulled away.
I stood on the curb, watching the taillights dissolve into traffic, the business card clenched in my hand.
Robert Gilbert.
CEO, Grandview Group.
Two phone numbers were listed below. I only recognized one of them.
I flipped the card over. The back was stamped with Grandview Group's logo, an ornate “G” enclosed in a circle.
The printing was immaculate, the lettering raised beneath my fingertips. It didn't feel fake.
