All Chapters of Step Aside, dear ex: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The following morning was different. It was still the gray and weary city, yet the sounds outside my window could not be heard as sharp. Perhaps the reporters were tired, or perhaps I had lost the hearing. Anyhow, all was quietness, and it was like breathing space, the first in weeks. Before noon Mark Leland told him that he would be here. I half-expected him not to. People had made promises previously, people who had more to lose and less to care. But just before eleven I heard a knock--two quick strokes, and then one more, quiet and unmistakably certain. On opening the door, he was standing in a maintenance uniform, hat in his hands, nervous, yet firm. Late forties perhaps, the type of man you would run by every day and never pay any attention to yet there was something kind about his eyes, the kind that looked directly at you rather than to the side. “Ms. Greenwood,” he said, nodding. “Mark Leland. From Vexler. I, uh, called last night.” “I remember.” I stepped aside. “Co

Thora’s POV The noise began even earlier than I was awake. Not the common reporters screaming in the street--this was more to the point. My cell-phone continued buzzing on the nightstand until it dropped on the ground. The screen was illuminated with the name of Cara: CALL ME NOW. My stomach sank. I sat up, and my heart already racing, and the heavy ache of dread crawling under my skin. Her voice was quick and monotonic, as lawyers have when they are attempting never to panic. Please do not open your email, do not check the social media. Just—listen.” “What happened?” “There’s a leak. Photos of you at an out-patient clinic last month. The story is already all around. “What narrative?” The reason you were there was a breakdown. There are stores which are claiming that it is substance based. One’s hinting self-harm.” I went silent. The image of that occasion came back, the little clinic, the 30-minute visit, the check-up of the pregnancy. I had come early so I could get

Thora’s POVMonday morning felt too bright.It was the kind of brightness meant for peaceful breakfasts, for sunshine falling softly across a balcony—not for an emergency hearing and lawyers handing you paper bags to breathe into.I woke up before my alarm. Not because I had gotten enough rest....I hadn’t, but because my body had forgotten how to sleep days ago.The envelope from yesterday still sat on the counter, the black emblem pressing against my chest like a weight:FAMILY COURT — Emergency Hearing Notice.I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to. The words were carved into my mind.Avis sat at the table kicking her legs, humming between bites of toast overloaded with jam. She looked soft, unbothered, the way a child should be. Seeing her like that sent a cold line down my spine.I wasn’t losing her.Not to headlines.Not to lawyers.Not to Quentin.Cara entered without waiting for an invitation, clutching a folder to her chest, her expression already telling me the day was burning.“

Thora’s POVI did not remember the way I got to the car.I could not recall how my hand was held by Cara and she led me into the doors of the courthouse. I had no recollection of the stair, or the crowds to whom I must have been as familiar as your own name, or of the guards screaming at me to move aside.Everything but the headline had been swallowed down my mind.It was like someone had held a hot iron on my eyes.“UNSTABLE.”That was the word they chose.The lie he fed them.The knife he twisted slowly.We had not even passed the first crossroad and Cara was already on the telephone, talking in top gear, sharp and clipped.--issue immediately the provisional statement. Drafted or not, it goes out now. And to the judge of injunction appeal. This amounts to violation of medical privacy. Yes. Yes, Thora is with me. No, no, she has not answered anything. And she won’t.”I stared out the window.People pass by as though the world was normal. A woman pushing a stroller. A boy laughing in

Thora’s POVLuke made no response when he shut the door. And he only stood, as though he dared the wrong word would wipe me out of existence.My silence with him was so terrible that I could have shouted more.You need not have come, I said at length.“I know,” he replied. “But I did.”That answer in itself was everything and nothing simultaneously.I went to the kitchen, where I needed space, movement. My legs were stiff as they did not believe the ground. Luke was at my heels, but paused a few feet back, to avoid coming too near me, as though he were going up to something delicate, and sharp.I filled my glass of water, and the hands shook masterfully enough to vex.You may sit, I said, without turning round.“I’m fine.”Of course he was. Luke has always been okay until he was not.I was standing on the counter and looking at the wall. The note was folded next to my phone, and it was a loaded weapon that neither of us had yet owned.Did you think I was going to fail to come? he ques