“Are you going to use it?”

“No. I just want it to be over. I don’t want to use that. I don’t want to…to use the other person like that. It stopped being about that anyway.”

“It did?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Massey regarded her. “What was it about after that, then?”

“It felt good.” Cora’s voice cracked, and she looked away, anywhere but at the eyes watching her. “It felt good, and I felt like myself… And I didn’t want that to end.”

Cora had used Frazer. That really wasn’t something she was proud of. But at the same time, Cora had enjoyed Frazer’s company. And Frazer had enjoyed hers. She just wanted them to be friends again.

“Maybe,” Doctor Massey said, “you need to learn to feel that way without relying on another person.”

Damn her.

* * *

Exhaustion settled over Cora after her session with Doctor Massey.

She was packing two large suitcases on her bed. There was a message on her phone from Frazer, asking if she wanted to grab a coffee and Cora had just ignored it, not wanting to explain her weird walk-off the night before.

It was easier right now to ignore these things.

Most of her clothes fit in the two suitcases. She stepped back into her walk-in wardrobe with a sigh. It was almost completely gutted. The hangers still moved slightly, as if waiting for her to still them and put everything right. It would be easy to stuff it all back inside and close the door, to turn away from it and pretend she hadn’t packed to begin with.

Instead, she closed the door to the empty wardrobe and turned her back on it.

Cora’s stomach was roiling. Her pulse was hammering. Everything felt surreal, as if she were watching herself from above, collecting her cosmetics and shampoo from the bathroom. Imagining that, she could pretend it wasn’t her stuffing them on top of her clothes and zipping the cases shut. Someone else was lugging them down the stairs and hefting them into her car.

None of it was her, and that was easier.

It was all too bizarre. Her marriage was actually ending.

Back inside, her fingers ran along the wall as she walked through to the kitchen, the evenness soothing against her skin. Alec was due home in five minutes.

It felt cruel what she was about to do, dumping bad news then abandoning him. But was there a kind way to do this?

The appointment with her lawyer tomorrow afternoon couldn’t come soon enough, although, really, she looked most forward to meeting Jack at a café afterward and talking about what he wanted to do with his future. She’d collected TAFE admission forms and pension scheme forms to assist with the payments.

Perhaps it would give him something to get excited about.