Three days. Three days since Chase packed his suitcase with the same methodical precision he used for everything else, folding his shirts into perfect squares while I sat on our bed watching my marriage disintegrate in real time. Three days since he'd looked at me with those cold, calculating eyes and said he needed "space to think."
I should have known the silence wouldn't last.
My phone buzzed against the kitchen counter where I'd been staring at a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold. The notification made my stomach clench—an unknown number, but somehow I knew exactly who it was before I even looked.
The first message was a photo. Paloma's manicured hand displaying my engagement ring—or rather, her identical engagement ring—against what looked like Chase's new apartment. I recognized the leather couch in the background, the one he'd insisted we couldn't afford but apparently could now.
"This is what happiness looks like when you're not crazy 😘" read the text beneath.
My hands shook as I stared at the screen. The ring caught the light in the photo, sparkling with the same brilliance mine once had before I'd thrown it at Chase during our final confrontation. She was wearing it. Actually wearing the ring he'd bought her while married to me.
Another message appeared. Then another.
"Chase says you used to be pretty before the crazy took over. Such a shame 💔"
"Don't worry, I'm taking REALLY good care of him. He's so much happier now that he doesn't have to pretend to love damaged goods."
Each word felt like a physical blow. I sank onto the kitchen stool, my chest tightening with the familiar sensation of walls closing in. This was how my episodes started—with this crushing weight, this inability to breathe properly. But I couldn't afford to break down. Not now.
I needed help. Real help.
Rebecca Torres' law office occupied the fifteenth floor of a gleaming downtown Seattle high-rise, all glass and steel that made me feel small and exposed. The elevator ride up felt endless, my reflection in the polished doors showing a woman I barely recognized—hollow-eyed, thin, wearing the same sweater I'd had on for two days.
"Mrs. Dixon," Rebecca said, extending a firm handshake. She was younger than I'd expected, maybe early thirties, with sharp eyes that seemed to take in everything at once. "Please, have a seat."
I tried to focus as she explained the divorce process, but her words kept blurring together. Community property. Irreconcilable differences. Spousal support. The legal terminology felt foreign, like she was speaking another language entirely.
"I need to warn you," Rebecca said, her tone shifting. "Your husband has already consulted with three different attorneys in the city."
The words took a moment to penetrate the fog in my brain. "What does that mean?"
"It means he's creating conflicts of interest. Those lawyers can't represent you now, which limits your options and makes this more expensive and complicated." Rebecca's expression was grim. "It's a common tactic when someone wants to make divorce proceedings as difficult as possible for their spouse."
Of course. Even in leaving me, Chase was still trying to control the narrative, still trying to make me suffer. The realization should have made me angry, but instead I felt that familiar numbness creeping in, the same protective shutdown that had gotten me through the worst of my trauma.
"Mrs. Dixon? Are you alright?"
I blinked, realizing I'd been staring at my hands for who knows how long. "I'm sorry. I have... I struggle with depression sometimes. This is all just..."
"Overwhelming," Rebecca finished gently. "That's completely normal. Divorce is traumatic even under the best circumstances."
But these weren't the best circumstances. These were the worst circumstances, and they were about to get even worse.
Dr. Sarah Mitchell's office had always been my safe space—soft lighting, comfortable chairs, the faint scent of lavender that somehow made everything feel manageable. I'd been seeing her for two years, working through my assault trauma and learning to manage my bipolar disorder. She knew everything about me, every dark corner of my mind, every trigger that could send me spiraling.
Which was why the message waiting on my phone when I arrived for our session felt like the final, devastating blow.
"Hope your therapy is going well! 😊" Paloma had written. "Chase told me all about your 'daddy issues' and how you blame everyone else for your problems. Maybe try taking some personal responsibility for once? Just a thought! 💭"
The words were bad enough, but it was the clinical language that made my blood run cold. Daddy issues. Personal responsibility. Those were phrases Dr. Mitchell used, therapeutic concepts we'd discussed in the privacy of this very room.
Chase had been sharing my therapy sessions with her. My most vulnerable moments, my deepest fears, my private healing process—he'd turned it all into pillow talk with his mistress.
"Sunny?" Dr. Mitchell's voice seemed to come from very far away. "What's wrong?"
I held up my phone with trembling fingers, unable to speak. She read the message, her professional composure cracking for just a moment before she set the phone aside and leaned forward.
"This is a severe violation of your privacy and trust," she said quietly. "I want you to know that nothing we discuss here should ever be shared without your explicit consent."
But it was too late for that, wasn't it? Everything was already contaminated. Every session, every breakthrough, every moment of progress—Chase had weaponized it all.
The breakdown came suddenly, like a dam bursting. Three days of holding myself together, of trying to be strong, of pretending I could handle this—it all collapsed at once. I doubled over in the chair, sobbing with a violence that scared me, my chest heaving as if I couldn't get enough air.
"I trusted him," I gasped between sobs. "I told him everything, and he used it all against me. How could he do that? How could he take the worst things that ever happened to me and turn them into jokes?"
Dr. Mitchell moved to the chair beside me, her presence steady and grounding. "Because he's cruel, Sunny. And because he never truly understood what love means."
The truth of it hit me like a physical blow. Chase had never loved me—not really. He'd loved the idea of being my savior, loved the power it gave him over me. But the moment that power became inconvenient, the moment I needed real support instead of rescue, he'd turned my vulnerabilities into weapons.
I was still crying when my phone buzzed again. Another message from Paloma, another twist of the knife she and Chase had been taking turns driving into my heart.
But this time, something inside me shifted. The grief was still there, the betrayal still burned, but underneath it all, a different emotion was taking root.
Rage.
