The city rose up around her, a wall of noise. A tidal wave. Isobel stood there, waiting for that wave to crest, to crash down on her and wipe her out. Obliterate her entirely. But it never fell. It only held there. Mocking. Threatening. Like a bomb set to explode.

"Miss...?"

She blinked up and into the face of a security guard. The one who sat behind the concierge desk in the condominium lobby, watching her for the last ten minutes as she'd stood there like a freaking idiot who didn't know how to open a door.

"Yes." She brushed a stray lock of hair out her face. "I...I have a key."

He smiled, kindly. "I know, Miss. I've seen you here plenty of times."

Of course he had. She'd always made a point of smiling and saying hello or goodbye to whomever worked the desk. There were four of them in rotation. Only now did she realize she'd never bothered to ask for their names. Or stopped to find out. How unlike her!

When he opened the door and held it for her to enter ahead of him, Isobel's eyes lowered to the brass tag, shiny and unblemished, his name etched in even, black letters.

Jamal.

Finding her purpose in movement, she quietly thanked him then rushed to the elevator bank. Pressing the call button, she paced in wait, restless as a shark. Afraid if she stopped moving for even a moment she'd lose herself again in the stillness of shock.

Despite what everyone had told her, time didn't appear to move any slower—everything felt the same aside from the dense, heavy blanket of fog coating her skin, muting her senses. She rode up in silence and was outside his door in a matter of moments, her fingers fumbling in her purse for the set of keys she'd barely used.

Unlocking the door, Isobel pushed inside. The blinds were drawn—the cheap, white plastic variety that hung in vertical slates. For some ridiculous reason, her mind chose now to remind her about that argument they'd had in Pottery Barn over curtains. She couldn't understand why he'd want to spend a ton of money for the sake of a brand when she could easily buy from a local thrift store; he'd insisted it was about paying for quality.

They'd walked out empty-handed.

How stupid was it to remember a six-month old argument at a time like this, she wondered, crossing the room to toggle the chain until the slates shifted and narrow beams of light furrowed through the somber grey. Turning around, she took it all in.

White walls. Bare hardwood floors. Naked kitchen. Barren. Empty. Aside from a wall mounted monster-sized flat screen and black leather sectional that ate up most of the room. Dazed, Isobel shuffled across the living room and down the short hall to the bedroom and it was more of the same. Everywhere she looked she saw nothing connecting her to him. To this place.

She hated this place.

He'd insisted on buying a condo after graduating last year, even though she'd made it clear they'd have to move into her father's home after the wedding. She couldn't leave him to care for himself—he needed her, and yet Kyle insisted on proceeding with the investment, as he'd called it.

Only now did she see it for what it truly was—a way out. All the signs had been there for her to see. Right beneath her nose if she'd only pulled her gaze from the horizon to stare down at her feet. But Isobel was always looking ahead, that was her biggest problem.

She never gave too much thought to the present when the uncertainty of the future terrified her most. Worried that if she looked away for a moment something would change, would shift and fall out of place.

As it was right now.

Her delicate, papier-mâché world crushed in clumsy, thoughtless, selfish hands.

I should be crying, she thought, standing there in his room where nothing felt quite real. But it wasn't pride that stopped her as much as an aching hollow, emptiness. There was no grief or anger. Like she'd slipped out of her body, floating and detached from her skin. Stripped from her bones and sinew. Nothing but a dry husk.

The bullet of his betrayal had shot her clean through leaving her shell-shocked in its wake. Numb. Barren.

How badly she wanted to smash her hand, to break bones and tear flesh—if only so she could finally feel something again.

Isobel stopped at the foot of his bed. His body stretched out, tangled in sheets and face down she watched the rise and fall of his wide, muscled back. The cooper tone of his skin deepened from the Miami sun where he'd spent a week of peer bonding with his financial colleagues to welcome the new hires into the corporate fold.

It's just a work thing with a bunch of old guys, babe. I'm probably going to be bored out of my skull. Trust me.

Bored enough to snort coke off an escort's ass, apparently. She almost laughed.

As he lazily snored, Isobel took hold of his laptop from his satchel and set it atop the nightstand. Turning it on, with a few strokes of the keys and a flick of the cursor, she found the video, positioned the monitor just so, turned up the volume as loud as it would go, and hit PLAY.

His head snapped up as he jerked awake. She watched the spectacle of his face. The shock of confusion, the cold blast of terror, the final settling of shame.

Grey eyes lifted to hers. They'd joked around as kids that he must have got his eyes from his mother. Never having met her, there was no way to tell, but as his Jamaican father had dark brown ones it seemed a fair hypothesis. His father never spoke of her and had no pictures around for Kyle to ever know for sure.

Sometimes they'd sat together and stared at the other's face, and made up little stories about where each facial feature had come from. It had been a fun game that had connected them, fused them together. A couple of kids without moms.

But this face look up at her now, ashen with shame, wasn't one she recognized. Who are you? She wanted to scream.

Satisfied she'd made her point, Isobel closed the laptop and the room plunged into deafening silence.

His skin scraped over the sheets as he shifted, moved and swung his legs over the side. Hissing like a blade over a wet stone. "Tinker Bell..."

"I'm not here for apologies; I'm here for answers, to know why? And if you want a hope in hell of salvaging a modicum of my respect, you'll give me that much." A pained gasp hitched to the end of her words, escaping her throat, the emotion bubbling around inside her suddenly beyond her control to contain.

Kyle lowered to the side of the bed, his shoulder swaying inwards, making him small and pitiful beneath the shadow of her agony.

"We've been together eight years," he started, head down and eyes pinned to her knees. "Eight years and though I've never been with anyone else I already know you're the best thing that'll ever happen to me." Finally, his gaze travelled upwards and radiated complete atonement. "You're the only woman I can picture spending my life with and not because we've been together as long as we have but because of who you are. You're incredible. The problem is... I found the perfect woman at sixteen. You're all I know—all I'll ever know. It terrifies me that I'll wake up one day with regrets. I hate knowing I'll never have my chance. My chance to get crazy, to hang out with the guys and do all the kinds of sh!t guys do because I'm hitched. Does that make sense?" His head lolled to the side, as if suddenly too heavy to hold up.

Brown curls shorn close to his scalp had gone almost golden from his time in the sun. He'd let it grow out when they were younger, and she'd always loved the texture of his hair. The soft, springiness of it against her fingers. She'd been sad when he'd decided to cut it off.

Pain exploded behind her temples, invaded her chest, kicking her heart of rhythm—a violent surge that made her think she was having a heart attack and an aneurysm all at the same time. But Isobel held fast, stayed silent, forcing him to find the nerve to continue. To forge ahead.

"You hear all the wild stories in college but I always had to be careful, to think of you when there were so many damn times a part of me wanted to take that drunken chick up on her offer of a backseat blow job. Or to go back to her place with her and her hot friend." His gaze met hers again and this time the lift in his chin wasn't entirely apologetic. "I wanted to live a little before I can't."

Tears spilled out, each chasing the other down her cheeks, over her chin. The only outward sign of her shattered heart, and she wasn't ashamed to let them. "You selfish bastard."

"Come on, babe." Kyle jerked to his feet, took hold of her upper arms in his strong hands, dragging her closer. "I messed up this one time. Once. Haven't you had a moment of doubt? Just one?" His easy, brush off and justification pressed against the exposed cavity of her pain, cauterizing the wound in an attempt to staunch the hemorrhage of grief. Closing off the subject.

No. No, you don't get to do that. Not when her heart was about to explode right here in front of him.

"You were enough for me," she whispered, shucking his hands off her. "You were always enough for me."

Slipping his ring off her finger, Isobel tossed it on the messy bed, and walked away.

**Author's Note**

Ok, not going to lie - this one hurt to write. If you've had your heart broken before, I think you can understand why moments like these are brutal.

I was engaged once to a guy who cheated on me with a LOT of girls. He was a bouncer in a night club, I was 20 and far too trusting. He was 22 and far too full of himself. The 'Casanova' tattoos on his arms should've been a dead giveaway but I only saw the good in people, much like Isobel. So it made the discovery beyond the worst possible experience of my life (at that point).

I've never been so hurt aside from one other time -- again, compliments of a guy. My first two failed relationships. But I learned from them, grew from them. I did not let that pain break me.

Nor did I take it out on the next. I don't believe in punishing someone for the mistakes of another.

The popping of my bubble wasn't all that dissimilar from Isobel's. While it wasn't a video to shatter my illusions -- the end result was no less devastating. But I learned to stand up for my own self-worth and to value myself enough to know I deserved better.

How about you guys? Have you had your hearts broken? How did you get through it? What did the experience teach you? *passes out a carton of chocolate ice cream so we can all eat our feelings*