Chapter 34 Crossroads

• I gazed out the window at the blur of city lights as cars whizzed by. My mind wandered back to the first time I met Ethan, to how he drew me in with his charisma and to how I fell into his world of lavishness and passion so easily. An exciting, yet maybe dangerous, reprieve from the dissolution of my very mundane reality indeed had degraded into something rather unrecognizable-a convoluted web of jealousy, secrets, and one-upmanship. Every touch now felt like a reminder of how far we'd gone astray, of how much we'd lost.
• I sipped my wine. It was bitter on my tongue, and nothing like the tempest that brewed inside me. One thing was quite clear: things could not stay this way. Ethan was no longer just mine, if he ever had been. The presence of Mia became that perennial thorn in my side, drawing upon my insecurities and pushing me near a breaking point. Guessing games, silent rivalries, and an expanding gulf between what I wanted and what I actually had finally did me in.
• My phone buzzed on the table, lighting up with a message from an unknown number. I opened it hesitantly.