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Just what I freaking needed…running into him again when I’m on a mission to get home and break up with my boyfriend.

I draw in some deep breaths like I showed Harper in my office earlier today.

My heart thunders as I drive toward home. This isn’t going to be easy, but in my heart, I know it’s right.

I don’t know what the next step is, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. One step at a time, and all those other cliches.

For now, I have a mission and I need to complete it.

The closer I get, the harder my heart thumps. My hands are sweaty, my mouth is dry, and I sort of feel like I’m going to throw up.

But I’ve got this. The old me that was strong and resilient is still somewhere inside…I just have to find her.

I pull into the garage and cut the engine, and I stare out the windshield at the wall in front of me. It’s a plain wall that lacks any sort of imagination. My dad created an entire fandom of Astros items in his garage since he grew up in Houston and he’s a diehard baseball fan—and my mom won’t let him put any of it in the house since she loves her Rangers after being born and raised in the Dallas area. Her favorite pastime is to either hide or replace various Astros memorabilia with something from the Rangers and see how long it'll take him to notice.

But aside from the Aces, Owen really isn’t much of a sports guy. He’s not a video game guy. He doesn’t love his job. He doesn’t really like animals. He’s not a diehard anything kind of guy, and I never noticed his general lack of interest before. I guess love, or even just the thought of love and the possibility of that future we’ve always wanted, puts blinders on us that allows us to accept things we don’t really want.

And that’s where I’ve been living for the last six months—blissful ignorance when the truth is this relationship has been over a long time. I just wasn’t ready to see that.

I walk in through the laundry room and into the kitchen, and the house is quiet. I head toward Owen’s office, where I hear him talking.

He’s on a phone call. I peer into the doorway, and he glances up at me. He shoos me off by flicking his hand in my direction—he hates it when I interrupt him while he’s working.

I don’t run off because of the hand flick. It’s rude to hand flick someone.

Instead, I stand in his office door, and I wait.

He gives me an exasperated look, but I don’t care. Instead of backing down, I kick it up a notch. I walk into his office and sit in the recliner chair he keeps in the corner of the room. I fold my arms across my chest and wait.

“Roger, I’m going to have to call you back.” He cuts the call and rips off his headset, tossing it down on the desk in front of him. “What?” he snaps at me.

“What a lovely welcome home from a long day at work,” I say sweetly.

He rolls his eyes a little but refocuses. “Hello, darling, welcome home from work. Now why, may I ask, did you think it was necessary to interrupt a work call the moment you walked in the door?”

I blow out a breath, and then I rip off the bandage. “It’s over, Owen.”

“What’s over? Was your interview today?”

“Oh my God,” I mutter in total exasperation, and then I stand. “I don’t even have an interview scheduled yet. Do you listen to a damn word I say?” My voice is rising and I can’t seem to make it quieter. Maybe because I don’t want to.

“I listen to every word you say,” he says defensively, his own volume rising a bit, too, as he moves to a stand. He leans over his desk in a defensive stance, and I cross my arms over my chest.

“Bullshit. It’s all about you all the time, and just a few days ago you said you’d change. You said you’d work on it. You said a lot of things, made a lot of promises, but it’s the same thing every day, and I can’t take another minute of this toxic relationship. It’s over, Owen,” I repeat. “I’m done. We are done. Over. Finished.” And then, just to make sure I’m crystal clear and there’s no question left on the table, I say, “I’m breaking up with you.”

His brows knit together, and he pulls back as his butt finds the chair again. “You’re what?” he asks, clearly shocked by my words.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m not happy, and I haven’t been for a long time. I’ve tried to work on it, tried to talk to you, tried everything, but you won’t listen.”

He still looks confused, and I think that’s the whole point here, isn’t it? He’s stunned that I’m ending things. He had no idea I was unhappy even though I’ve told him. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, and yet it has.

“This is all Mandy, isn’t it?” he snarls. “What the hell does she have against me?”

“It’s not Mandy. This is all me, and I can’t do this anymore.”

“Come on, Vicky. Think about what you’re doing. Don’t just throw three years away. I know what you want, and I can give it to you.” He stands and walks around the desk toward me. He rubs my biceps for a beat, but my arms are still crossed over my chest and I duck away out of his reach. “Let’s get married.”

My jaw drops, and something clicks in my mind. He knows what I want out of my future, and he’s trying to save this by dangling that future in my face. But I don’t want that future if it’s with him. “You think this is because you haven’t proposed to me yet?”

“Babe, you just said you’re not happy and I’m not listening. I know it’s what you want,” he says. “See? I listen.”

I sigh. “I don’t want it with you.”

He looks hurt by my words, and his lips flatten into a tight line as the truth finally plows into him that this is really over. This is really the end.

“Fine.” He nods as he sets his jaw angrily. “Get the fuck out, then.”

I open my mouth to say something more, to try to smooth things over. I don’t want to end this on a fight. We had a good run for most of the years we were together.

I don’t have enemies in my life. I’m generally a nice person who sometimes becomes a doormat because I want to avoid conflict.

And he knows that, so he’s playing on it. He’s acting like an asshole so I’ll crawl back to him, so I’ll give him another chance.

Because if I avoid conflict as a coping mechanism, he avoids change as one.

But I’m not going to change my mind. We’re done, and so I take his words to heart.

I turn out of his office, and I hear his door slam behind me before I’ve barely even cleared the doorway. I run up to the bedroom, throw what immediate items I need into a suitcase figuring I’ll come back when he’s not here to pack up the rest, and head down to my car before he can try to get me to change my mind again.

And then I head straight for my mom and dad’s house.