SALT IN THE WOUND

But Nicole doesn’t lie. Of course she doesn’t. She’s never liked lying. I’m the one who forced her into doing it, until like an animal in a trap she had to gnaw off her foot to escape.

She just sits there, avoiding eye contact.

Her breath is uneven.

She’s about to cry, I realize.

I need to finish this fast, for both of us. We deserve the mercy of a swift kill.

“There is no us,” I say. I reach for a lighter, and our napkin contract.

Nicole watches, wide-eyed, as I set it on fire and drop it into my wastebasket.

“Leave.” I say. “And don’t come back.”

She stands so fast that her chair tips backward, clattering to the ground. “Fuck you, Nathan. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But you, Nathan, you were the worst.”

She pulls off her engagement ring and flings it on my desk. Then storms out of my office.

I dump the ring in my desk drawer, hating the sight of it.

I go back to preparing for my board meeting. Like Nicole never existed in my life at all.

That afternoon the board members gather in t