Chapter 22 – Shattered

For the first time ever that she could remember, Adeline wanted to throw her phone across the room and watch it shatter into a million pieces.

It had done nothing but ring in the two days since she had walked out of his apartment. Most of the calls were from Lance, of course; she had stopped counting after the tenth time he had called her. But the news had apparently spread and she was also getting calls from Joey, Joanna, and Jamie-Lynn now.

She refused to answer any of them. All they would try to do is convince her to go back and listen to him, and she knew she wouldn't do that. She had listened to all that she needed to the night that she had confronted him; she didn't need to hear whatever story he would concoct to lay blame on someone else other than him.

That's just like him, she thought as she shoved more clothes into a third suitcase. It can't be his own fault. The old Lance returns – or maybe he never left.

Her flight would leave in two hours, and even though she had grown to love New York and would miss it, she couldn't get on that plane soon enough.

Half an hour later, all four of her suitcases were neatly stacked upright by the door, her purse in her hand, her coat wrapped around her. She stood in front of her door with her sunglasses in hand and turned around to look at her apartment – the one that she had called home for the past three months. Even though she was leaving and planning on never coming back to stay, her apartment was far from empty. All her furniture stayed; most of her books, movies, and CDs remained in their shelves; she had considered packing her pictures, but she didn't have room in her suitcase once it was packed full of her clothes and necessities she couldn't leave behind.

She had no time this trip to arrange for all her stuff to be packed neatly in boxes and sent across the country to be waiting for her. Most of it was superficial anyway, as she had furniture and a stack of books and movies already in her LA home. Eventually, she would return to pack all of her stuff and have it moved back for her, arrange for her lease to be broken or at least find a sublet, and clean up her second life in New York, but she had no time or courage for that now.

She couldn't stay in this apartment – or New York – one more day.

She felt the sinking feeling again, that feeling she got before she started crying. When she felt the tears in her eyes, she situated her sunglasses over her eyes.

“Goodbye, New York,” she whispered into the silence. “Goodbye, Lance.”

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She was stuck in slowly-moving mid-afternoon traffic when her phone rang for the fifth time; Lance had called twice, Joanna had also called twice, and Joey had called once. She dreaded checking her voicemail, as she hadn't checked it since before the New Year's party, and she knew it had to be almost full by now with their messages.

She audibly and loudly groaned as she reached into the car's drink holder to grab her phone and look at the ID. She expected it to be Joey or Lance, but was surprised when the ID said Stephanie instead.

“Hello?” she answered, her first time answering her phone in two days.

“I've gotten a lot of strange calls from Lance over the years,” Stephanie started. “I've gotten mid-evening 'I'm bored' calls that usually started out with a 'what are you wearing' joke. I've gotten panicked calls when he's deadlocked in traffic and going to be late for an important meeting. I think once, he even sleep-dialed me. But by far the strangest call I've ever gotten from him is the one I got half an hour ago, in which he tells me that you have not only left him, but that you suddenly quit and he has no idea if he's going to remember what he has to do today.”

Adeline, feeling the stress of the day build, pinched the bridge of her nose.

“His incompetence is not my problem anymore,” she said. “I sent him an email with a list of everything I had scheduled for the next three months. He could try checking his own email for once.”

“Addy, you know that's not why I'm calling,” Stephanie said, her voice laced with sadness. “Less than a week ago you were calling me, oozing this disgusting happiness because you had told him you would marry him. Now my phone won't stop ringing from people telling me that everything's falling apart. What happened?”

“Maybe you should ask him,” Adeline said.

“I don't care what he says,” Stephanie responded. “I know what he told me, which wasn't much – and with Lance, I can never be sure if I'm getting the whole story. I want to hear it from you; I can trust that you'll tell me the whole story, and most of it will probably be the truth.”

Adeline moved slowly along with traffic and took a deep breath, preparing for the conversation she had dreaded and hoping she wouldn't cry too much.

“Mackenzie came back into the picture,” she said.

“That basically says it all,” Stephanie said, and Adeline thought she detected a sigh. “How bad is this?”

“He kissed her,” Adeline said. “And I saw it.”

Stephanie audibly sighed this time. “Damn you, Lance.”

Adeline breathed in deeply and moved the car a couple more feet.

“Adeline, why are you leaving?” Stephanie asked.

The question almost shocked Adeline.

“It's not obvious?” she asked.

“No, to be honest, it's not. I don't understand you anymore. Your husband has been doing far worse than this for a long time – my gut has always said he's been doing this your entire relationship. He does it without shame, right in front of cameras, and blatantly lies about it when the proof is there. You believe him every time. One might think that after years of enduring it, you're fed up and won't stand for Lance to make a mistake like this, and after talking with Joanna and Joey that's what they believe – but they're not me, and I don't.”

Adeline swallowed; there was a drawback to having a friendship that had lasted since childhood – they knew you better than everyone else.

“You were looking for a reason to get out,” Stephanie said. “You're so damaged. Marc's a piece of crap so he doesn't deserve better – but of course, Lance is better than that so he deserves better than you. At least that's what you think.”

“I don't want to talk about this Steph,” Adeline said, feeling herself start to break down already.

“In no world does Lance deserve anyone better than you,” Stephanie continued, ignoring her insistence. “You're a gorgeous, smart, capable woman. You have the most beautiful soul of anyone I've ever known. There's a reason you're my best friend. I wade through clients' shit all day and by the time I get home I want to curl up on the couch and question why I chose this career. All I have to do is call you – you cheer me up, you make me laugh, and you understand this job and why it's so hard. And there are times when you hate me because let's face it – I'm a smart ass. I'm hard to love.”

Adeline laughed through tears. “You are.”

“But no matter how much you hate me in the moment, you always tell me you love me,” Stephanie said. “And you mean it. There are reasons I knew you two would be perfect for each other – and one of them is because you are two of the best people I know. You deserve each other. You're worthy, Addy. Why do you not believe that?”

“He deserves so much more than I can give him,” she responded quietly.

“You're not an empty vessel, Adeline,” Stephanie said. “Just because there are parts of you that may not do what God intended them to do, doesn't mean you're broken.”

Adeline finally broke down into a sob. As usual, Stephanie had read her like an open book.

“I don't know how much longer I can go on feeling like a useless woman,” she said. “Not only has my daughter been stolen from me, but so has my self-worth. I can do so many things; but the one thing that is supposed to be a God-given female right – I can't do that. Everything else is worthless. I'm worthless.”

“You're worth the world to me,” Stephanie said.

Stephanie was silent while Adeline cried for several moments. She didn't know what to say to her friend; she couldn't imagine the pain she was going through, and that was part of the problem – nobody around her could.

“I love you, Addy,” she finally said. “And I know he does, too.”

“I have a flight to catch,” Adeline said. “I can't do this right now.”

“When will you? When you're alone as usual in your big house, your husband is away with another woman saying that he's working, and you're so full of self-loathing that you don't even care anymore? At least stay in New York.”

“There's nothing left for me in New York.”

“He's there,” Stephanie said. “Give yourself some time. You can get past this. If you don't at least give this a chance, I have a feeling you'll regret it.”

Adeline tried to collect herself as much as she could as traffic started to move more quickly.

“Do you remember what you told me before I uprooted my entire life to move here?” Adeline asked.

“I told you I thought you needed this.”

“And you were right, I think I did,” Adeline said. “But you also told me that you had a feeling I wouldn't regret it.”

Stephanie was silent on the other end of the phone.

“You were wrong,” Adeline whispered.

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She sighed as she laid her hand on the handle of the door. She was tired – it had been a long day full of tears and a long flight – but part of her also didn't want to walk inside the door. If she walked inside the door of this house in Los Angeles, that truly meant she had arrived and it was over; there would be no going back from this point.

She closed her eyes as she slowly turned the knob and opened the door, stepping inside without giving it a second thought. If she gave it a second thought, she would only hurt herself more.

She pulled each of her suitcases inside, stacking them by door. She threw her coat she was holding across her arm over the coat rack and threw her purse on top of her suitcases. She stretched her neck and felt the cool air of the air conditioner running in the house, immediately thinking it was odd that Marc would leave it to run while he went out of town for an extended period of time.

She turned on the floor lamp over a chair to bring some light into the room and once she could see where she was walking, she made her way over to the wall where the thermostat was to turn down the air. It would take her a few weeks to acclimate herself to California's warmer winters again. Pushing the button to turn it up to a reasonable 80 degrees, she closed the latch as she heard a soft thud coming from upstairs.

The house had been dead silent when she walked in. She looked up the stairs warily; Marc was overseas working. He would have canceled housecleaning services for the next few weeks, as well. Besides, it was nearing ten at night and none of their maids would come this late.

She quickly reached over to the table next to a chair and grabbed the first heavy object she could – a solid glass candle holder. Fearing someone had broken into the house, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and punched in 911 in case she was right and was caught off guard, before she started walking slowly upstairs.

The closer she got, the more small noises she could hear – repeated thuds, like footsteps on the hardwood floors. She thought she could hear voices, but after the day she'd had and as tired as she was, she couldn't be sure she wasn't hearing things that weren't there. She walked down the hall as the sounds continued, lowering the candle holder down a bit as she reached her bedroom door. As she turned the knob and heard a female talking, she knew already what she was going to walk into.

They were both taken by surprise when the door slammed against the wall, suddenly reaching for sheets and blankets to cover their naked bodies. The female's jaw dropped and she audibly gasped, while Marc froze in his place in the bed.

“Adeline,” he said, shocked.

“You bastard,” she said, surprised that her mouth formed words, because the rest of her was suspended.

“What are you doing home?” he asked.

“What are you doing home?” she yelled. “Paris, my ass!”

“Adeline--”

“No!” she yelled forcefully. “No! The whole time you've lied to me. I was stupid enough to believe it. Who's this one, Marc? President of your fan club?”

“My new assistant,” he said, quietly but confidently.

Adeline felt herself break into an angry smile, then an uncontrollable chuckle.

“Is that right?” she asked.

“That's right,” he said with a smile. “Two can play the game, Addy.”

The message he was sending was not lost on her – he knew.

She turned to the female, staring the red-head down wishing her eyes were daggers, and pointed the candle holder at her.

“You, get out.”

At first, the girl only stared, seemingly too panicked to move. After a few moments, she regained herself and started picking up clothes off the floor, in a rush to leave.

“Get out,” Adeline said once more, more forcefully.

As the girl gathered her things and tried to keep herself covered with the sheet, Adeline put herself in her place – if her relationship with Lance had been turned around and she had been the other woman, getting caught in this situation, she would have been horrified and humiliated like this woman surely was. At the brief thought of him, Adeline felt her anger boil again.

“Get out!” she finally yelled.

The girl grabbed the rest of her stuff and ran out of the room without muttering a single word. She turned to Marc, who had stood up out of the bed.

“You too,” she said, pointing the holder towards him this time.

“You're going to kick me out of my own house?”

“Hell yes I am,” she responded. “Get out.”

“This isn't over, Addy,” he said as he pulled on clothes quickly.

She twirled the candle holder in her hand, considering violence. “Get out.”

“I'll get the house, the cars...”

“Get out,” she said.

“You'll be left with nothing. Not a cent.”

“Get out.”

“And you don't even have him anymore to pick you up when you fall down.”

Adeline reached her breaking point. She threw the glass candle holder across the room, barely missing his head, and it crashed against the wall, splintering into a million pieces.

“Get out!” she yelled at him.

The heavy object flying past his head took him by surprise, but the shock didn't last long. He reached down to the floor to grab his shirt, and before she knew it, he had walked out of the room.

A few minutes later she heard the front door of the house slam and his car's engine turn over. She tried to catch her breath and compose herself, but all she wanted to do was throw something. It had felt good – releasing it from her hand, seeing it fly across the room, and hearing the glass shatter against the wall. It was a small comfort to how she felt, the shards of glass exploding like she was exploding inside.

She didn't even realize her feet were carrying her to his office until she reached the door and opened it. His office – his safe haven. He always kept it neat and tidy, because he worked better that way, like she did.

“A place for everything and everything in its place,” she said, repeating her grandmother's mantra as she picked up an antique blue glass vase off his desk.

It was the first thing to go. It flew across the room, hitting the door with a satisfactory crash, scattering large and small blue pieces all over the floor. The next thing to go was an even heavier glass paperweight. It didn't break against the wall, but it made such a loud noise when it hit that it only spurred her to try harder. She tossed tidy stacks of paper off his desk onto the floor, overturned a pencil holder, and smashed picture frames by hitting them across the edge of the desk. The destruction felt good; it made her feel alive again.

As she walked to different parts of the room to destroy more stuff, she didn't even care if she stepped on glass or slipped on stray papers across the hardwood floor – her heart was pumping, adrenaline flowing through her, and she felt amazing.

She walked to a series of cabinets and opened the doors one-by-one, pulling out small organized boxes stashed in them, letting them fall to the floor and scatter their contents across the floor. As she went along, each door opened and whatever was inside of it fell to the floor, a comparison to how she felt today – like her insides had been ripped out.

By the time she reached the desk, she was crying again. Hot tears fell down her cheeks as she pulled out drawers and dumped them as well. She stepped on pencils and almost fell a couple of times; she heard pieces of glass crack underneath her shoes. She reached the last drawer, a file folder sized drawer, and expecting to find manila-colored file folders to throw across the room, she was instead surprised to find a cardboard box placed inside.

Suddenly curious, she removed the box and placed it on top of the desk that she had efficiently cleared. When she took off the lid, she didn't know what she expected to find – more papers for her to throw across the room, she guessed. But the first thing she saw was a large yellow mailing envelope. She turned it over in her hand, opening the flap and reaching inside. When she pulled out the face-up pictures and caught a glance at them, she audibly gasped.

She recognized it immediately – Coney Island. She could see her own face, a side profile of Lance, while they were at the gun booth. Her old brunette hair flying in the light wind that day, smiling of course. It was a perfect photo of him as he aimed the gun at his target. His smile got to her for a moment, but she forced herself to flip to a new picture.

There were several pictures from Coney Island, far away and close-up, before she finally reached other pictures – pictures from the golf game they had played together, various trips to the coffee shop alone and together, even pictures from the parking lot the day his tires had been stolen. She found pictures from outside the club the night he had convinced her to go out, even if they were shoddy pictures using no flash – the things that had been captured, things she remembered perfectly, said everything.

She flipped through pictures more frantically – finding pictures from the Halloween party, the beach outside Coney Island, and finally, pictures from Joanna's wedding. Pictures of her and Lance that told the story as if it was a book – from beginning to end, the disdain for each other, through the first time they had kissed, until they were holding hands and embracing each other any time they had a moment.

She dropped the stack of pictures to the desk with a thud, and looking inside the box, she saw small items from Lance's apartment. A picture frame, including a picture of them, they hadn't noticed had gone missing; a book of Adeline's that she had left and thought she had lost; a bottle of her perfume that had disappeared. As she saw every new item, the shock value grew and the depth of her find sank in even more.

But when she reached the bottom of the box, she gasped again. She reached in and pulled out the soft, dark purple blob. Grasping a corner in each hand, she spread it apart in front of her.

It was her grandmother's shawl that had been missing since the wedding, in perfect condition. Not a bead or a stitch was out of place. It was as if she had carefully placed it in the box herself, like she would her drawer.

She looked at the pile of evidence on the desk. She never would have found this if her destructive nature hadn't taken over; in the following days, he would surely come back to the house to get his things, taking the box with him or destroying its contents. And the divorce – he wasn't stupid enough to not use the pictures to make her look bad, to gain an advantage. That was the kind of person he was.

She'd always had a feeling that somehow, he knew what was going on all along. She hadn't known how far he would go; how far he was capable of taking it.

She turned away from the desk and looked at the reach of her destructive breakdown. The magnitude of what he had done to her and how he had changed her as a person hit her. She stepped away from the desk, the glass pieces popping under her feet, and walked over the mess of papers and broken items towards the door.

She needed sleep. Maybe a glass of wine before that. She needed to forget this day.