第4章

I lay curled up on the cold floor for three hours.

The cramping in my abdomen grew worse with each wave, and my body shook beyond my control. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass, and cold sweat soon soaked through the back of my shirt.

I banged on the door. I called Niklas.

At first, I could still hear the guests talking.

Then music started, glasses clinked, and all the sounds blurred together. No one paid attention to the locked door.

I didn't know when I passed out.

When I came to, the living room had gone quiet, and the lock had been undone.

I braced myself against the wall and, driven by some survival instinct, inched out to find painkillers.

The living room was a wreck.

Half-finished drinks, used plates, and promotional materials were scattered everywhere. My mother's glass plate had shattered completely into more than a dozen pieces, swept carelessly into a cardboard box in the corner and piled together with crumpled napkins and broken flower stems.

Meanwhile, Niklas was sitting on the sofa, carefully dabbing Aila's wrist with an antiseptic pad.

There was nothing but a faint pink mark there. Not even a trace of blood.

"Does it still hurt?" His voice was gentle, almost tentative. "Let me put a bandage on it. Don't get it wet for a couple of days, and take a break from the silver work so you don't irritate it."

"I'm fine." Aila shook her head obediently, but the moment she spotted me braced against the wall in the doorway, she shifted closer to Niklas. "She's out. She doesn't still blame me, does she?"

Niklas turned.

The tenderness in his eyes vanished the instant they landed on me. His gaze went cold.

"What are you doing out here?"

I pressed my hand to my abdomen, where the dragging weight of pain wouldn't stop. Cold sweat covered my forehead, and my voice was so weak it barely held together. "Niklas, I'm in so much pain. Take me to the hospital."

"Keep it up. Keep pretending."

He shot to his feet, crossed the room in a few strides, and stood over me, his eyes full of contempt.

"You didn't cause enough of a scene at the reception? Now you see me taking care of Aila's scratch and suddenly feel slighted, is that it? All you know how to do is play the victim. Pain, sickness, suffering. Anything to force me to pay attention to you."

The pain was too much to stand. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, my vision going black in pulses. "I'm not pretending..."

"Aila's hands were shaking because of you." He pointed at the woman on the sofa, his voice rising. "Do you have any idea how important her hands are? She's one of the most talented young silversmiths in the north. Museums and foundations are waiting on her new work. If you'd hurt her hands today, you wouldn't just be destroying my project. You'd be destroying her career. Can you pay for that?"

I looked up at him.

For six years, I had looked after Helena for him, proofread his papers, organized his interviews, and handled all the bills, repairs, and household chores he called "not worth wasting time on."

Every time he came back from the north, I unpacked his bags, washed his clothes, double-checked his reports, and scheduled Helena's follow-up appointments.

Yet in his version of things, I was nothing but a woman who sat around at home, using illness to compete for his attention.

The pain peaked and then, gradually, went numb.

I looked at the face I had loved for six years. It suddenly seemed so foreign it was almost absurd.

I didn't cry or explain the way I always had. I didn't beg him to save me.

I just gripped the door frame and pulled myself to my feet, slowly, steadily.

"Niklas, we're done."

My voice was quiet, but there was not a trace of hesitation in it.

He blinked, then let out a cold laugh, as if he'd heard the most ridiculous joke. "This again? Irene, every time things don't go your way, you pull the breakup card. You really think I'll keep coddling you forever?"

"If you can't handle Aila being around, then leave. Right now."

He pointed at the front door, his face dark. "But think carefully. Once you walk out that door, don't expect me to come crawling after you."

Aila sat on the sofa, her lips parting slightly as though she wanted to say something, but in the end she stayed silent.

She just lowered her head and pressed lightly on the bandage on her wrist. The one she didn't need.

I ignored them both.

I went back to the guest room and picked up the suitcase and laptop bag I had already packed.

When I passed the corner, I crouched down and picked up the shards of my mother's glass, one by one.

One piece had a sharp edge. It cut my finger.

A drop of blood fell onto the blue-violet glass, like a belated red star.

I didn't stop. I wrapped every shard I could find in soft cloth and placed them in the top layer of my suitcase.

Then I walked to the entryway.

I slid the engagement ring off my finger, the one I had worn for three years, and set it on the marble countertop beside the flat key.

"Just as you wanted."

When Niklas saw the ring, the coldness on his face faltered for a moment.

But he pressed his lips together, waiting for me to turn around, waiting for me to do what I'd always done, to reach the door and then come back in tears, asking if he really didn't want me anymore.

I didn't.

I pushed the door open and dragged my suitcase out into the cold autumn rain of London.

By the time the lift doors closed, he still hadn't come after me.

I called an ambulance from the lobby.

After examining me, the doctor fell silent for a long time, then said only that my recovery wasn't going well and I needed to be admitted for two days of observation.

I lay in the hospital bed, watching the city lights blur behind the rain on the window, and deleted all of Niklas's contact information.

The next day, three messages from him appeared on my phone.

The first asked when I was coming back to bring Helena her clothes.

The second said Aila had been so upset she couldn't sleep, and that I needed to apologize to her when I got back.

The third was a single line: "Don't take this too far."

I didn't reply to any of them.

Four days later, I boarded a flight to Helsinki.

As the plane broke through the heavy clouds, for the first time, I didn't imagine the look on Niklas's face when he realized I was gone.

I just pressed my forehead against the window and watched the sea of clouds slowly fill with light.

In that moment, I knew I had finally walked out of a house with no exits.