“Let me finish,” I said softly. I looked outside, my gaze scanning the London skyline. A panorama of new against old: trendy shopfront windows reflected the pearl-gray dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and red tour buses sputtered past long-standing landmarks. If there was anything that the last few days had taught me, it was the importance of shining new light on old truths hidden in dark places. This trip to London—and finding the light blue vial, the apothecary—had exposed them all.

I turned away from the window to face James. “I need to choose me. I need to prioritize me.” I paused, wringing my hands together. “Not your career, not our baby, not stability and not what everyone else wants of me.”

James stiffened. “I’m not following.”

I glanced at my bag, inside of which were the two articles about the apothecary. “At some point along the line, I lost a part of who I am. Ten years ago, I envisioned something much different for myself, and I’m afraid I’ve abandoned that vision altogether.”

“But people change, Caroline. You’ve grown up in the last ten years. You’ve prioritized the right things. It’s okay to change, and you—”

“It’s okay to change,” I interrupted, “but it’s not okay to hide, to bury parts of ourselves.” I didn’t feel the need to remind him that he’d hidden a few things about himself, too, but I refused to address the other woman at this exact moment. This conversation was about my dreams, not James’s mistakes.

“Okay, so you want to quit your job and wait for a baby.” James took a shaky breath. “So, what do you plan on doing?” I sensed he meant not only with my job, but also with our marriage. And though James’s tone wasn’t condescending, it was laced with skepticism—just like ten years ago, when he first asked me how I planned to land a job with my history degree.

I now stood at a crossroads, and I didn’t dare look back at the road behind me—the road littered with monotony, complacency and other people’s expectations.

“I’m going to stop hiding from the truth, which is that my life isn’t what I want it to be. And to do that—” I hesitated, knowing once I said my next words, I could never take them back. “To do that, I need to be alone. And I don’t mean for eight more days in London. I mean alone, for the foreseeable future. I intend to file for a separation.”

James’s face crumpled as he slowly pushed away his dinner tray.