On my wedding day, my husband shoved my face into our wedding cake.

She did not, however, avoid the civil suit Rosalyn filed on my behalf, which resulted in a judgment requiring her to repay the retirement fund she’d been mentally spending in emails for months, plus damages.

I never spoke to either of them again.

I heard secondhand from a mutual acquaintance who felt compelled to update me even though I hadn’t asked.

That Nolan’s father left Beverly roughly a year later and that Nolan himself moved to a different state to, in the acquaintance’s words, start over where nobody knows the story.

I found I didn’t feel much of anything reading that update.

I’d expected at some point during the 18 months I was with him that if this ever ended, I’d feel triumphant.

What I actually felt was something quieter and less cinematic.

A kind of low, steady relief.

The way your shoulders drop after you realize you’ve been holding them near your ears for so long you’d forgotten it wasn’t the normal position.

Dr. Marsh, the therapist I’d stopped seeing after two sessions during the relationship, was the first call I made once the anulment was finalized.

I’ve been seeing her weekly for the last 3 months.

She told me something in our second session back that I think about more than almost anything else from the entire ordeal.

“You didn’t do anything wrong by staying as long as you did. You did something remarkable by leaving with a plan instead of leaving in a moment of panic. Both are valid ways to survive something like this. But the plan is why you’re sitting here intact instead of picking up pieces.”

Priya, my old business partner, sent me a message the week after the anulment was finalized that I’ve kept saved in my phone.

“We built a company that made hospitals run better for people who couldn’t advocate for themselves in the moment. Feels right that you built your own exit plan the same way. Quietly for months before anyone else even knew you needed one.”

I still have the pearl button.

Tessa gave it back to me after the recorder inside it had been entered into evidence and later returned once the case resolved.

A small unremarkable thing.

The kind of button you’d never look at twice on a dress rack.

I keep it in a drawer in my kitchen, not displayed anywhere.

Not made into jewelry or anything sentimental like that.

Just kept.

The way you keep a spare key to a door you hope you’ll never need to unlock again, but you’re glad in a specific and unscentimental way that you had it made in the first.

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