She hadn’t been as clear thinking as she’d thought. She had packed her toothbrush but hadn’t grabbed a tube of toothpaste. She had swept her cosmetics into a bag, but her facial cleanser had been sitting by her sink and she’d missed it.

She didn’t have the Xanax. She had packed a single shoe, not a pair, but at least she had the athletic sneakers she was wearing. And she had forgotten to grab any of her bras. She had her bathrobe, jeans and T-shirts, a light jacket, and a dove-gray two-piece suit to go with her single shoe.

At least she’d grabbed the most important things. She tossed the leather satchel full of the contents from the safe onto the table, unexamined. Then the fury that had propelled her forward ebbed, and her emotional landscape crashed.

A single comfort existed. It felt good to be somewhere Austin couldn’t find her, existing in the cool silence of a strange place. Temporary as it was, this was her space, and she finally felt like she could breathe again.

Calling the concierge desk, she requested an overnight bag of toiletries, then she called room service to order a dinner she didn’t think she could eat along with a bottle of wine that she had every intention of drinking.

After that, she wandered through the rooms, unable to sit or focus. She felt torn in two, as if the old Molly was starting to rip away from the person who now lived inside her skin, while bits and pieces of the scene at the party replayed in her head.

Jesus, she thought. The things we hurled at each other.

I am not a frigid bitch. I did not deserve any of this.

But Austin’s words had burrowed inside like poisonous worms, causing tissue damage in all her most vulnerable places, and as she looked out the window at the impenetrable night, the doubtful thoughts wouldn’t stop.

Did I really make him feel like he had to earn affection from me? she wondered. Did I really portion it out and make my love conditional, like my mom did with me? Or did he fire that salvo because he knew it was the one thing that would hurt the most?

Her breathing roughened, and tears burned at the back of her eyes until her attention snagged on the one anomaly from the whole debacle.

The vase. How had it broken? No one had been standing anywhere near it.

Why do I feel like… maybe I did that?

I’m not crazy. I’m not. Something came out of me. What was that indefinable, invisible thing?