Life in my new apartment slowly became something steady and quiet. I painted one wall a deep navy color that Scott once called too dramatic. I bought a smaller dining table that fit my real life instead of a crowd I rarely hosted. My work as an interior designer filled most of my days, and strangely the divorce sharpened my instincts.
Clients began seeking me out because they had heard about my work helping people rebuild homes after breakups or loss. One afternoon a client named Diane Foster sat across from me and said, “You don’t just decorate rooms. You protect people.”
I smiled at the comment because it felt unexpectedly accurate.
About a month later Kelsey tried to contact me on social media with a pastel themed account that described her life as a healing era.
“Rebecca,” she wrote. “We should talk. There was a lot of misunderstanding.”
I deleted the message.
Soon after that she posted vague comments online about women who tried to buy love with furniture. I ignored the post and asked my lawyer to send a polite warning about harassment. The comments stopped immediately.
Scott made a few more attempts to reach me through relatives and mutual acquaintances, but I changed my number and moved on.
Six months later I bought myself a simple gold ring with one word engraved inside. Mine.
Around that time my business grew quickly. I hired an assistant named Grace Miller and a junior designer named Jordan Patel. We worked from a small studio office near the Chicago River where sunlight spilled through tall windows.
One evening I attended an art gallery opening in the River North district and met a landscape architect named Ethan Walker. He was calm and thoughtful and listened when people spoke.
During our conversation he said, “Design is planning beauty so people can live inside it.”
I liked that sentence.
Our first few dates were simple. One night he cooked pasta in his apartment and said casually, “If you would rather go out instead, that is totally fine.”
The presence of choice surprised me in a way I had not expected.
Months later I ran into Scott at a hardware store in Oak Park while comparing pendant lights for a client kitchen.
“Rebecca,” he said awkwardly.
“Hello Scott.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “You look good.”
“Thank you.”
He stared at the shelves of lighting. “The house feels empty now.”
“You told me to take my belongings,” I said.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”