Chapter 2: Shattered & Done

The words she heard still hit her like a knife to the gut.

“You’re not sexually attractive to me anymore.”

“You wasted time.”

Fedora remembered staring at Tyler, her breath catching in her throat. Of all the things he could have said, those were the ones that shattered her completely. Not the betrayal. Not even the cheating. It was the confirmation of what she had feared deep down—she had never been enough for him.

She had walked in on them. The scene was burned into her mind: Cynthia’s bare legs tangled in her sheets, the smirk on her lips as if she had already won. Tyler, standing there like it wasn’t a big deal, his shirt half-buttoned, arms crossed like she was the one being unreasonable.

“Fedora, come on,” he sighed, exasperated. “We weren’t working anyway.”

“We?” Her voice cracked. “You mean you.”

Tyler scoffed. “You’re just too much. Always overanalyzing, always trying to fix things. You don’t even—” He ran a hand through his hair, avoiding her eyes. “You don’t even turn me on anymore.”

The world blurred. The walls, the bed, the framed photo of them on the dresser—it all twisted together into an unrecognizable haze.

“Four years,” she whispered. “Four years, Tyler.”

He shrugged. “I settled.”

Something inside her snapped. She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream-though that was what she was so desirous to do at that moment-scream and scratch her way out. Instead, she turned, grabbed her bag, and walked out, leaving behind the life she had spent years building.

***

Fedora had spent her entire life proving she was worth choosing.

The death of her father shattered everything. Her mother, left alone to raise seven children, could not carry the weight of it all. Love wasn’t enough. Food had to be put on the table, and school fees had to be paid. One by one, Fedora and her siblings were sent out to serve other families, working as housekeepers, errand runners, anything that would help them survive and finish high school.

She grew up in houses that weren’t hers, watching other families have the kind of warmth and security she could only dream of. She was the extra. The outsider. The girl who learned to be useful, to be agreeable, to be indispensable—so she wouldn’t be discarded.

In high school, she had been the girl everyone liked but no one loved. Boys would talk to her for advice about the girls they wanted. She was the safe space, the friend, the one who got the late-night texts that started with, You’re so easy to talk to... but never ended with, I want to be with you.

College had been the same. Almost relationships. Almost love.

Then Tyler Morgan had come along, charming and full of promises. He had made her believe, just for a moment, that she was the one. That she was finally enough.

But she wasn’t.

And now she was done trying to be.

***

The days after the breakup were a blur of numbness.

Fedora moved through life on autopilot, going to work, paying bills, existing. Nights were worse. Sleep evaded her, and when it did come, it was filled with replayed memories and ghosts of what-ifs.

But the pain didn’t just stay at home. It seeped into her job. Fedora had always been good at what she did—a dependable employee, efficient, and precise. But now? She missed deadlines. She ruined projects. Simple tasks felt insurmountable.

Her direct supervisor, Ranee, pulled her aside multiple times. “Fedora, I need you to focus,” she said, her voice laced with concern. “This isn’t like you.”

Of course it wasn’t. Everyone at Rombosco Alliance Construction Company knew Fedora. She was the epitome of business excellence, the woman with the Midas touch when it came to handling projects from inception to completion. Colleagues admired her precision; executives trusted her instincts. She had been recognized multiple times for her ingenuity and sharp business acumen. The next promotion slot had her name practically etched in stone—Business Development Executive.

But something had shifted.

Emails went unanswered. Deadlines blurred. Meetings that once fueled her now felt suffocating. The spreadsheets, the proposals, the client negotiations—it all became noise, an exhausting symphony she could no longer orchestrate.

Ranee tried again. “Fedora, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Fedora wanted to explain, but how could she? How could she describe the weight pressing on her chest every morning? The way her mind drifted to the betrayal in the middle of strategy discussions and how the sight of wedding proposals on her desk sent her stomach into knots? She had built her life around control, and now, she was unraveling.

The company suggested therapy. She went.

Three months of sitting in a quiet room, peeling back memories she had buried deep. The therapist asked questions Fedora had no answers for. Why did she always feel the need to prove herself? Why did rejection feel like annihilation? She spoke about pain she had never dared name, about the father who died—leaving her mother with seven kids with no backup financial plan—the love she was never quite enough for, the years of being the woman people settled for but never fought for.

The therapy helped. But not enough. Besides, come to think of it, can words alone erase a pain engraved deep within her heart?

Then came the wedding invitation.

A neatly embossed envelope, hand-delivered to her desk. She recognized the handwriting before she even opened it.

Inside, the elegant card read: Tyler & Cynthia joyfully invite you to celebrate their union.

Fedora stared at the words—numb. If catching them cheating didn't break her, this invitation put the final nail in her already precarious state of mind, shattering her.

How?

How did she date Tyler for four years—four whole years—without a single sign of a proposal? No ring. No hints. No discussion of the future. She remembered how every time she brought up future plans, he always had one excuse or the other on why they should hold it off to a later time, when they are financially stable, he suggested. Yet, here he was, marrying Cynthia after just six months.

Six months!

What happened to the financial stability he was waiting for? Was he stable already, because the last time she checked, she was the one helping him pay off the mortgage on his house?

Her breath hitched. It was too much to take.

She barely remembered the rest of the day. The office walls felt like they were closing in. Her hands shook as she shoved the invitation into a drawer, as if hiding it would erase the reality.

By the time she left work that evening, something inside her had cracked beyond repair.

Her days were not just a blur, but she felt like a zombie—it was more than traumatic—it was like death itself.

The trauma ran too deep, grossly affecting her performance at work. In the end, Rombosco had to make a decision.

“Fedora, we value you,” Ranee had said, regret in her eyes. “But we need someone who can be fully present.”

It didn’t matter that she had given Rombosco years of dedication. It didn’t matter that she had built deals from scratch, turned proposals into million-dollar contracts, or earned the respect of every board member. In business, broken people were liabilities.

And so, the woman who had once been unstoppable now stood in an office she had made her second home, packing her things into a cardboard box.

For the second time in her life, she wasn’t being overlooked.

She was being replaced.

***

How she survived the first 3 months of joblessness and heartbreak is nothing short of a miracle.

She was certain a divine hand was upon her— that’s the only way to explain how she didn’t kill herself in the process of crying night after night, drinking alcohol upon alcohol on an empty stomach to the point of losing count. Lots of questions were on her mind: What could she do at this point in her life? What should she do from here? Start all over writing resumes and going for interviews that may not turn into a job offer? Start another relationship and build again—from the top? Life is seriously dealing her a high dose of lemons, and she was just 25!

Sitting in her near-empty apartment, drinking cheap wine straight from the bottle one evening, she made a decision.

No more almosts. No more waiting to be chosen.

She would rebuild. Reinvent. And this time, she wouldn’t let love—or the illusion of it—have any power over her.

She was done playing by the rules.

And the world had no idea what was coming.