Elena moved out on Tuesday. She did it quietly, while the twins were at their tech offices downtown. No note or explanation. She hired movers, packed her boxes in three hours, and vanished like she’d never existed.
The new apartment was smaller, uglier, across town where she wouldn’t accidentally run into them at the grocery store or gym.
Mrs. Chen had been sympathetic, refunding her deposit plus next month’s rent. “The Ashford boys asked about you,” the landlady mentioned. “I told them you left, and they didn’t look happy.”
Elena didn’t care. She was done with happiness, done with hope, done with the delusion that she could mean something to men who collected women like trophies.
The first night, she lay in her new bed, narrow and hers alone — and touched herself to the memory of the
