Sitting in a crowded spot on the metro as she rode home from work, Evie felt her heart constrict while David’s words played in her head over and over again. Sadly, Evie couldn’t help but agree—despite how painful the truth was to her. You’ re mine. You’ re fucking mine. She clutched her purse to her chest, suddenly needing to hold on to something while she tried futilely to block his words out of her head. This past year, all she’d been focused on was surviving. Surviving and living— without him. She’d held on to that hate, that blissful hate, the only thing that had kept her heart beating for the past year. Hating him. Cursing him. Damning him. She took it one day at a time, one measly day at a time, never knowing for sure if she’d be able to get through each without bursting into tears or doing something worse. She felt like a crazy person—fine one moment and struck by a raging, blinding pain the next. Once, while she’d strolled down the streets of Manhattan with her friend Fiona, she’d caught sight of a lone red rose, like the one David had tied her engagement ring to, sticking out of a newspaper stand.
