The Anniversary Toast Chapter 10
Spring arrived like a promise.
The trees along my street erupted in blossoms, and the city shook off winter with an energy that felt contagious. I’d been in my apartment for three months now, and it finally looked like a home – bookshelves filled, art on the walls, a kitchen that smelled like fresh herbs and possibility.
Work was thriving. I’d thrown myself into a project I’d been postponing for years – a writing portfolio I’d always dreamed of building but never prioritized because Grant’s needs somehow always came first. Now, with no one else’s schedule to accommodate, I wrote every evening until my eyes burned. It felt like oxygen.
Nora noticed the change first.
“You’re glowing,” she said over brunch one Saturday. “And I don’t mean that in a patronizing way. You literally look different. Lighter.”
“I feel lighter. Turns out, carrying a cheating husband and a backstabbing sister was physically exhausting.”
She snorted into her mimosa. “Who knew?”
I hadn’t spoken to Audrey since the dinner. She’d attempted contact several times – texts, emails, even a handwritten letter that I returned unopened. My mother kept me updated in broad strokes: Audrey had moved to another city, was seeing a therapist, and had reportedly “hit rock bottom.”
I felt nothing when I heard this. Not satisfaction, not pity, not anger. Just… nothing. And that nothing felt like the healthiest thing I’d experienced in years.
Grant had stopped trying to reach me after the divorce was finalized. Through mutual friends, I learned he’d moved to a smaller apartment, was working at a different firm, and had grown visibly thinner. One friend described him as “a shadow of himself.”
I didn’t take pleasure in his suffering. But I didn’t lose sleep over it either.
One evening in April, I was walking home from the bookstore when my phone buzzed. An unknown number.
I almost didn’t answer. But something made me swipe.
“Elise?”
My blood went cold. It was Audrey.
“Before you hang up,” she said quickly, her voice thin and trembling, “I just need sixty seconds. Please.”
Every instinct told me to end the call. But my thumb didn’t move.
“Sixty seconds,” I said.
She exhaled shakily. “I’m not calling to make excuses. I’m not calling to ask for forgiveness. I know I don’t deserve it, and I may never deserve it.”
I said nothing.
“I’m calling because my therapist says I need to take accountability – real accountability – not for your benefit, but for mine. And she’s right. So here it is.”
A long pause. I could hear her breathing – ragged, unsteady.
“What I did to you was the worst thing I’ve ever done. Not because I got caught. Not because of the consequences. Because I looked at the person who loved me most in the world and I chose to destroy that love for something selfish and meaningless.”
Her voice broke. “Grant didn’t manipulate me. I wasn’t confused. I knew exactly what I was doing, every single time, and I did it anyway. Because I was jealous. Of your marriage, your confidence, your life. And instead of dealing with that like an adult, I tried to take what was yours.”
Silence stretched between us.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me, Elise. I’m telling you that I know what I am. And I have to live with that.”
I stood on the sidewalk, the evening air cool against my face, and felt something shift inside me. Not forgiveness – I wasn’t ready for that, and maybe never would be. But something looser. Something like the first thread of a knot beginning to unravel.
“Thank you for telling me that,” I said quietly.
“Elise—”
“Your sixty seconds are up, Audrey.”
I hung up.
And then I kept walking.