Chapter 2 - The Shattered Glass
I turned my phone off and slipped it calmly back into my purse. I looked at Amber, who was standing paralyzed next to the kitchen island.
“He stood on my porch for forty-five minutes telling me exactly how meaningless you are, Amber,” I said, my voice smooth and perfectly level. “He cried. He begged. He told me that you were just a pathetic mid-life crisis that he deeply regretted. So, before you offer me any more careful, sympathetic smiles about how I’m ‘not over it yet,’ I highly suggest you ask the man standing next to you exactly who he isn't over.”
Amber’s chest heaved. The humiliation radiating from her was so palpable it was almost suffocating. She had walked into this house believing she was the victor, the upgraded replacement warmly welcomed by his family. In less than two minutes, she had been brutally exposed as nothing more than a disposable placeholder.
She turned to Ryan. He reached a shaking hand out toward her. “Amber, please, I was just... I was emotional—”
Amber didn't let him finish the sentence. She didn't scream or slap him. Instead, with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust, she upended her glass of white wine directly over the front of his expensive sweater.
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Ryan gasped as the cold wine soaked through his clothes.
“You pathetic coward,” Amber hissed, her voice trembling with fury. She dropped the empty wine glass onto the granite counter with a sharp crack. She didn't look at my mother. She didn't look at me. She turned on her heel, grabbed her coat from the hallway closet, and marched out the front door, slamming it so hard the windows rattled in their frames.
