Mom exploded.
She lunged, grabbing Vivian's hair,
"You home-wrecking little slut?!"

"Steal another woman's man? Rot in hell! I'll scratch your eyes out!"
Screams, curses, Sarah trying to intervene – the noise was deafening.
I slipped away unnoticed from the suffocating hospital.
The cool night air felt good.
I couldn't figure out why Liam cheated or why he tried to end himself after getting caught.
Like Mom said, he was rich and handsome. Finding someone younger, prettier and more agreeable was easy for him.

After nine years together, he must have been bored with me.
These questions had haunted and disturbed me.
But when the breeze hit my face, it clicked all of a sudden.
The answers didn’t matter. The reason of all his doing was now irrelevant to me.

I should walk away and Let go.
I would just consider the nine years of love a life lesson.
Now I had finished it and "graduated". Liam would disappear from my world.
If I kept obsessing over who Vivian was, why Liam cheated, when it started...
It would only hurt more, which was pointless.
I just needed to remember the fact that Liam was rotten; accept the outcome that we were done.
Then, I would live a new life.
With that settled, I called a friend for dinner.
She tried bringing Liam up a few times,
When the Cioppino was served on table, she finally said,
"This is your favourite dish. You got a fish bone stuck on your first date with Liam. It ended up in the ER."
She tried to lighten the mood.
Seeing me stare blankly at the stew, she backtracked,
"Sophie, hearing you called off the wedding... I was stunned. You guys were college sweethearts. We were all a little jealous, honestly..."
"What I mean is... if you're hurting, you don't have to pretend. Vent. Cry. Don't worry about dumping on me."
"This calm act kind of scares me."