Page 22 of Broken Vows

The house feels different now. I’ve rearranged the furniture, painted the walls, tried to erase the traces of ‘us’ and replace them with just ‘me.’ Some days it even works.

“You seem better,” she says over coffee one morning. “More like yourself.”

Am I? The person staring back at me in the mirror feels like a stranger; I don’t even recognize myself anymore. But I’m trying to find out.

I start small. Buy groceries just for me. Learn to cook meals for one. Take walks in the evening instead of sitting in an empty house. The world keeps turning, whether or not I’m ready.

Some nights are still hard. I lie awake, staring at his side of the bed–my side now, I’ve started sleeping in the middle–wondering if he lies awake too. Wondering if he misses me, misses us. Wondering if I’ll ever stop missing him.

But slowly, breath by breath, day by day, I’m learning how to exist in this new reality. Learning how to be Alexis instead of Jeremy-and-Alexis.

Chapter Thirteen

“Lilly,I love you, but you need to go home.” I lean against my kitchen counter, watching her arrange leftovers in my fridge for the third time this week. “I’ll be okay.”

She pauses, a container of pasta suspended midair. “Are you sure? Because I can?—”

“I’m sure.” I manage a small smile. “You have your own life to live. I need to figure out how to be alone.”

She closes the fridge, her face pinched with worry. “Promise you’ll call if you need anything?”

“Promise.”

After she leaves, the silence settles around me like a heavy blanket. My gaze drifts to my art room door, closed for weeks now. The thought of picking up a brush feels impossible, like trying to speak a language I’ve forgotten.

I wander through the house, touching things absently–the throw pillow Jeremy’s mom made us for Christmas, the coffee mug with a chip in the rim from when we dropped boxes moving in, the framed photo I still haven’t taken down from the hallway. Each object holds a memory, and each memory feels like a paper cut–small but stinging.

I grab my keys instead of dwelling on it all.

The cemetery gates are already radiating heat when I drive through, the metal shimmering in the August sun. Even at nine in the morning, the air feels thick. I park in my usual spot–under the big oak tree where mom’s favorite cardinals usually nest, though they’re quiet today, probably hiding from the heat.

The grass crunches under my feet, brown and brittle from weeks without rain. I make my way to her headstone, the path so familiar I could walk it blindfolded. Seven years, and it still feels like yesterday.

“Hi, Mom.” My voice cracks as I sink down beside her grave, the sun-warmed stone pressing against my back. “I really messed up.”

Beads of sweat form at my temples, but I don’t move to the shade. The heat feels appropriate somehow–uncomfortable, inescapable, like everything else these days.

“Remember how you always said I rushed into things? That I needed to be sure?” I trace the dates carved in stone with trembling fingers. “You were right. About the marriage, about everything.”

My chest feels tight, like I can’t get enough of the thick summer air. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Mom. I haven’t painted in weeks. Can’t even open the door to my art room. Everything just feels… empty.”

A butterfly lands on a nearby flower–one of the fresh ones someone must have left this morning. Mom loved butterflies. “They remind us that beautiful things can come from hard changes,” she used to say. The irony isn’t lost on me.

“Seven years,” I whisper. “Seven years you’ve been gone, and I still expect you to answer. To tell me what to do, how to fix this.” Tears blur my vision, evaporating almost as quickly as they fall in the August heat. “I need you so much right now.”

The air is completely still, heavy with humidity. Mom used to love summer mornings, though. “Everything’s more alive in thesummer,” she’d say, tending to her garden before the real heat set in.

“Jeremy’s brother came by yesterday to get the last of his things.” My voice sounds hollow, even to my own ears. “Found one of his old t-shirts under the bed. I… I couldn’t give it back. How pathetic is that?”

I rest my head against the warm stone, letting the tears come. No one here to see them anyway, just the butterflies and the cicadas and whatever part of Mom might still be listening.

“I keep thinking about our last conversation.” The memory rises unbidden–Mom in her hospital bed, her hand so fragile in mine, the heat making the room feel even more suffocating. “You made me promise to be happy, remember? To not let fear hold me back?” A bitter laugh escapes. “Well, I tried. I really did. And look where it got me.”

My stomach growls, reminding me I haven’t eaten since… yesterday? The days blur together lately. The thought of food makes me slightly queasy.

“I should go,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead. “Need to eat something. You’d be yelling at me right now for skipping meals.”

Standing makes my head spin a little. Probably from the heat, or the crying, or the lack of food. I press my hand against the headstone to steady myself.

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