The Ex Who Stranded Me

Everyone told me how lucky I was to have Landon. In a world full of men who strayed in the shadows, Landon was hailed as the gold standard of devotion. Whenever he crossed paths with another woman, he made a point of calling me immediately, insisting I join them. He wanted no secrets. He wanted me by his side. The catch was me. I was born without an internal compass. To me, a grid of city streets was an unsolvable riddle, a labyrinth where every left turn felt identical to a right. When he "accidentally" ran into my former best friend, Tara, at the pier carnival, Landon sent his best buddy to drive me over. But following the directions Landon texted me, we ended up miles away, lost in an industrial park. When they bumped into each other at an upscale omakase place downtown, Landon hand-drew a map and sent it to my phone, telling my younger brother, Toby, to escort me. Once again, following the landmarks Landon sketched, we walked into the wrong district entirely. Every single time, Landon would pull me into his arms, sighing with patient, tragic tenderness: "It’s not your fault, honey. The city planning here is just a nightmare." Until today. Landon texted me to meet him and Tara at the private athletic club’s indoor pool. This time, I didn't ask Toby to drive me. I didn't ask Landon’s friends for help. I took a cab, punched in the address from the club's official website, and walked through the glass atrium alone. Just outside the locker room corridor, near the frosted glass doors of the pool, I stopped dead. Landon’s buddy, Brett, was leaning against the tiled wall, laughing so hard his shoulders shook. "Man, the dropped pin you gave Eden this time is on the complete opposite side of town," Brett wheezed. "She’s probably stranded near the harbor right now. She’s definitely not making it." "Bro, we’re basically the private security guards of your guys’ romance," Brett added, nudging Landon with an elbow. And then I heard my brother’s voice. Toby, the boy I had raised with my own bare hands, chuckled in that easy, conspiratorial tone men use when they share a dirty secret. "When you two finally tie the knot, you better write Brett and me a massive check," Toby teased. "We’ve done the heavy lifting keeping her out of your hair." I stood on the polished concrete floor, the smell of chlorine suddenly turning sour and toxic in my throat. A cold chill crept up from the soles of my feet, freezing the marrow in my bones. The roads had never been too confusing. He had simply never given me the real destination. And if that was the game they were playing, I was done walking his path. ... Landon pushed open the heavy glass door just as I turned to leave. When his eyes landed on me, he froze. A flicker of something raw and startled crossed his face before he smoothed it into his usual practiced smile. "Eden? How on earth did you get here?" I lifted the corner of my mouth into a mirthless smile, raising my phone. "Standard GPS." His pupils contracted sharply, then relaxed. He reached out, his long fingers moving habitually to ruffle my hair, the patronizing gesture he always reserved for when I managed to perform a basic adult function. "Look at you. Good girl." I took a sharp step back. His hand hung suspended in the empty air. A faint crease formed between his brows, his jaw tightening. "Why didn't you use the smartwatch I gave you?" I looked down at the matte-black digital tracker strapped around my wrist. I remembered the evening Landon had fastened it on me, his eyes brimming with what looked like pure adoration. "Whenever you want to find me, just hit navigate. No matter where you are in the world, it will guide you straight to me." I had treasured it like a lifeline. I had worn it every single day, terrified of losing my way without him. Today, its battery had died on my nightstand. And for the first time in five years, I had arrived at the exact right place. Without his guidance, I was never actually lost. I unclasped the band, peeling the cold metal from my skin, and held it out to him. Landon looked down at the watch in my palm, and the warmth vanished from his features. His expression turned dark, irritable. "What are you throwing a fit about now, Eden?" he muttered, lowering his voice. "Tara’s inside. You know her voice. Every time we bump into each other, I call you immediately to report it. What more do you want from me?" "Okay," I said quietly. He let out a sharp exhale, visibly relieved, assuming I was folding as usual. "That's better," he said, reaching for my wrist to pull me toward the locker rooms. "You misjudge me and Tara every single time. Come inside, apologize to her, and let's get lunch." I pulled my hand back with deliberate force. "I heard everything," I said. "All of it." Landon’s throat moved as he swallowed hard. His face darkened, caught between defensiveness and anger. "We were joking, Eden. For God's sake, your own brother is right in there. Toby can vouch for me. Why are you always so damn hypersensitive? Everything we do is for your own good." "For your own good." That was the phrase Landon and Tara always used when they subjected me to their twisted "exposure therapy." Two years ago, I took the state licensing exam for lead architects. I scored in the ninety-ninth percentile on the written exam, leagues ahead of the competition. My portfolio interview was practically a formality. I thought my career was finally secured. The morning of the interview, I woke up in the back of a rideshare in an abandoned industrial park thirty miles outside the city limits, having followed a digital schedule Landon had programmed into my phone to "optimize my commute." I missed the interview. The position went to someone else. I swallowed the burning bile in my throat. I was done letting them destroy me under the guise of benevolence. "Whatever you say, Landon," I murmured, turning on my heel toward the exit. "If you walk out that door," Landon called after me, his tone dropping into something icy and vicious, "don't expect me to chase after you. And don't forget—your father’s structural design patent is up for final approval this month. If you leave right now, I’ll instruct the board to file the primary applicant under Tara’s name." My boots seized against the tile. My breath stopped. That structural patent was my father’s final work before cancer took him. On his deathbed, his frail hands had gripped mine, begging me to let Landon’s family firm handle the commercial registration because I lacked the corporate clout to push it through alone. Landon walked up behind me, reaching around to cup my jaw, tapping my cheek twice with a condescending familiarity. "Stop throwing tantrums, Eden. You've made your point." "Landon, are you picking on Eden again?!" Tara came jogging out from the hallway, her wet hair slicked back, wrapped in a plush white towel. Her eyes darted between us, calculating, before she threw an arm around my shoulders. "Are you even a man?" Tara scolded him, flashing an exaggerated scowl. "Eden belongs to me. You bully her, and I swear I’ll make you regret it." Landon’s tense posture softened the second Tara touched me. He looked at her with an indulgence he never offered me. Tara glanced down, noticing the smartwatch dangling loosely in my fingers. "Why’d you take it off, honey? Landon spent a fortune customizing that navigation chip for you." Looking at Tara’s flawless, smiling face, my stomach churned with a violent nausea. I was eleven when I pulled Tara out from the locked basement where her abusive stepfather had trapped her. For years after that, she had carried herself like a street fighter, fiercely guarding Toby and me. When Toby was nearly grabbed by a predator in a grocery store parking lot years ago, Tara had fought the man tooth and nail, biting his arm until the police arrived. Toby had worshipped her ever since. When Landon and I started dating, Tara had cornered him with tears in her eyes, warning him: "If you ever break Eden’s heart, I will ruin you." And now, the two people who claimed to be my armor were holding the daggers at my back. I had invited the wolves directly into my living room. I drew in a long, shuddering breath. Without a word, I stepped toward the mezzanine railing and hurled the smartwatch over the edge. It cut through the humid air and hit the deep end of the Olympic pool with a hollow "smack", sinking like a lead weight toward the blue tiles. Landon’s eyes flared instantly bloodshot. "Eden! Have you lost your goddamn mind?!" he snarled. "I told you it was a joke!" Before the echo died, Toby stepped out in swim trunks, drying his shoulders with a towel, an expression of sheer disgust on his face. "Eden, aren't you exhausted being this crazy?" Toby sneered, looking at me as if I were a stranger. "You can't even find your way out of a parking garage without an escort, and now your brain is completely fried? If Landon dumps you, who the hell else is ever going to want you?" He turned to Tara, his expression instantly shifting into a contrite, sheepish grin. "Tara, don't pay attention to her. Everyone knows you and Landon treat her better than anyone on earth. She’s just fundamentally ungrateful." Tara sniffled delicately, looking down. "It's fine, Toby. I promised your mom before she passed that I'd protect her for life." Landon turned on me, his jaw clenched tight. "Did you hear that? Everything Tara does is to make you independent. You need to grow up. Nobody can hold your hand through life forever." I had heard those words before. Years ago, sitting by my father’s hospice bed, Landon had held my trembling fingers and looked an old dying man in the eye. "Her lack of direction doesn't matter, sir. I will be Eden’s lighthouse for the rest of our lives. Whenever she needs a beacon, I will guide her home." The lighthouse hadn't burned out. It had turned into an ambush. Brett walked up behind them, chiming in with a smirk: "Seriously, Eden, take a page out of Tara's book. If you have to lean on Landon for every step you take, you're just an anchor dragging him down." An anchor. A burden. If that was what they truly thought of me, I would grant them their wish. I didn't utter a single syllable. I gripped my leather shoulder bag, turned my back on the four of them, and walked out into the biting wind. ... When Landon finally returned to the penthouse that night, I was silently taping up moving boxes in the spare room. He walked in, smelling faintly of citrus cologne and chlorine, holding a small boutique bakery box. "Still sulking?" he asked, his tone laced with exasperated indulgence. "Look, I brought your favorite. Mango-glazed sweet rice cakes." I didn't lift my eyes from the cardboard seam. "I hate mango," I said, my voice dead and flat. "Tara is the one who puts mango on everything." Landon’s hand jerked. The paper box crinkled in his grip. A sudden, ugly fatigue washed over his features. "Eden, can we please just stop this? I am exhausted." He threw the box onto the kitchen counter and collapsed heavily onto the grey sectional, tearing at the knot of his silk tie. As the fabric loosened, the harsh overhead light caught the inner edge of his starched collar. There, smeared against the crisp white cotton, was a faint, dusty-rose smudge. Tara’s signature matte lipstick. I didn't shout. I didn't cry. I simply stood up, picked up my tape gun, and walked into the primary bedroom, closing the door behind me. "Eden—" His phone chimed sharply from the coffee table. A frantic, tear-soaked voice spilled through the speaker, so loud it echoed down the hall. "Landon... I think someone is outside my apartment door jiggling the deadbolt... I'm so scared, can you please..." "Don't move. Lock the bedroom door. I'm coming right now." Landon didn't even grab his coat. The heavy thud of his dress shoes sprinted across the entryway. "I’m going to check on her! Go to sleep, don't wait up for me!" The front door slammed shut with a deafening "bang". Silence descended like lead. I walked over to the desk, opened my laptop, and pulled up an email buried in my inbox. It was an official offer letter from the prestigious Sumner Architecture Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. "Please confirm your acceptance within one week. On-site reporting required within three business days of confirmation." I checked the timestamp on my phone. Today was the final day. Without a second of hesitation, I hit reply. "Confirmed. I will see you in Zurich." ... Landon didn't come home that night. The next morning, as I was swallowing down black coffee at the island counter, my phone lit up with his name. "The firm's annual mountain retreat allows plus-ones today," his voice came through, brisk and unapologetic. "Pack an overnight bag. I’m pulling up downstairs to grab you." I locked the screen without answering and took another sip of coffee. At nine-fifteen, an impatient double-honk sounded from the curb below. When I walked down the lobby steps, Tara was already reclined comfortably in the front passenger seat of Landon’s SUV. She turned toward me, offering a weak, apologetic wince. "I’m so sorry, Eden," she murmured, clutching a cashmere scarf around her neck. "I woke up with this awful vertigo. If I sit in the back, I’ll get violently carsick." Landon didn't wait for me to speak. He gripped my elbow, opening the rear door and shoving me inside. The entire back row was practically buried beneath Tara’s designer luggage, garment bags, and hiking gear. I had to wedge my knees against the back of Landon's seat, twisting sideways just to fit. The retreat was located at a private alpine resort fifty miles north of the city. An hour into the drive, as the highway began to curve through desolate pine ridges, Tara let out a sharp, breathless moan. "Landon... can we turn around? Please, take me to a clinic... my stomach hurts so bad..." The words had barely left her mouth when Landon yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, cutting across the rumble strip into an unauthorized median turnaround. The violent lateral force threw me across the seat. My temple slammed into the reinforced glass window with a sickening crack. I gasped, a sharp spike of pain exploding behind my eyes. Landon didn't even look in the rearview mirror until I let out a low groan. He braked hard onto the gravel shoulder of the mountain highway, his face pale with frantic panic—all directed at Tara. "Tara, get in the back and lie down flat," he commanded, unbuckling his seatbelt. "We’ll move the bags to the front." Then he turned around, his eyes locking onto mine, cold and impatient. "Eden, get out." I stared at him, my vision still swimming from the impact against the glass. "Get out," he repeated. "Wait here on the shoulder. It’s an emergency. I’ll drop Tara off at the nearest regional hospital and come back for you within the hour." I didn't move. Landon ripped open my door from the outside, his patience completely fracturing. "Eden, a human being’s life is on the line, and you’re still sitting there playing the victim?!" He caught my wrist in a vice-like grip and dragged me violently out of the SUV. The gravel bit through the thin soles of my loafers. "Wait right here. I’ll call Toby to drive out and pick you up!" Before I could draw breath, the door slammed. The tires kicked up a violent spray of dust and loose stone, stinging against my bare ankles as the vehicle accelerated, rapidly shrinking into a black speck against the grey horizon. The wind off the ridge was freezing. My phone vibrated in my coat pocket. It was Toby. "Eden, Tara had an acute flare-up, they're rushing her to the emergency room," his voice was hurried, completely devoid of warmth. "I’m heading over to meet Landon right now. You’re a grown woman. Figure out how to call a ride back yourself." A second later, a text popped up from Landon: "Call an Uber back to the city. Send me the receipt, I’ll expense it." I stared at the screen. The battery icon flashed red. Two percent. One percent. Black. The highway stretched out before me, empty, bordered by miles of dense, unforgiving pine forest. There was no cell service out here anyway. I took off my broken loafers, gripped them in my numb fingers, and began walking in the direction Landon had gone. Five hours. Over twelve miles of asphalt and gravel. By late afternoon, the sun had dropped behind the mountain ridges, plunging the road into deep, violet shadows. My blistered feet were bleeding. A battered pickup truck slowed to a crawl behind me, tapping its horn. A man with unwashed, bleached-blond hair rolled down the passenger window, leaning across the bench seat. "Hey, pretty thing. Heading into town?" "No," I whispered, clutching my bag tighter, quickening my pace. "Come on, don't be like that. Get in. I’ll give you a real nice ride." The truck door swung open. Panic hijacked my limbs. I broke into a dead run, my torn feet screaming in agony. I didn't get twenty yards before heavy footsteps tore up the gravel behind me. Rough hands caught my collar, yanking me backward. I fought wildly, scratching, kicking, screaming into the empty forest. The man cursed, grabbed the back of my hair, and slammed my forehead violently down onto the asphalt. The world shattered into white light, then darkness. ... When my eyes fluttered open, the harsh fluorescent tubes of a county sheriff’s station blurred above me. A female deputy was sitting on the edge of a metal desk, holding out a paper cup of lukewarm water. She placed a gentle, steadying hand on my bruised shoulder. "Breathe. You're safe. A state trooper saw his truck parked on the shoulder and caught him over you. He’s locked in a holding cell right now." I looked at her, trembling so violently the water sloshed over the rim of the cup. The tears that I had held back for days finally burst through, hot and uncontrollable, washing over the dried blood on my cheeks. The deputy softened her voice, setting my fully charged phone into my lap. "Call your family, honey. You need someone to take you home." I looked down at the glowing screen. There were zero missed calls. Zero texts. I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, handed the phone back to the deputy, and shook my head. "I don't have anyone," I whispered. I signed the victim release forms alone, wrapped my torn coat around my bruised ribs, and took a two-hour bus ride back into the city. ... It was past two in the morning when the lock on the penthouse front door clicked. I was submerged in a tub of scalding water, trying and failing to scrub the phantom touch of that predator off my skin. My face was swollen, my collarbone mottled with deep purple contusions, my knees raw. Landon’s heavy footsteps stormed down the hallway, ripping the bathroom door open. "Eden! You’ve been home this whole time?!" he yelled, his chest heaving with rage. "You didn't answer your damn phone! Do you have any idea how many miles I drove looking for you along that highway?!" He stalked toward the tub, his face flushed. "I am talking to you—" The words died in his throat. His eyes locked onto the black-and-purple bruising covering my shoulders, the jagged laceration across my forehead, the dark scrapes down my arms. "Eden..." His voice dropped to a choked whisper. "What... what happened to you?" I kept my eyes closed, leaning my head against the cold porcelain, refusing to grant him a single breath of explanation. On the vanity counter beside the sink lay the carbon-copy police report and hospital triage paperwork. Landon lunged for it. As his eyes scanned the words—"Attempted aggravated assault... blunt force head trauma... rescued by highway patrol"—his hands began to shake uncontrollably. A raw, genuine panic finally breached his arrogance. He dropped to his knees on the bathmat, his fingers trembling as he reached into the water to grasp my limp hand. "Eden... God, Eden, I’m so sorry. I didn't know. I swear to God I didn't know that would happen." His voice cracked, tears welling in his eyes. "I swear to you, on my life, nothing like this will ever happen again. Look at me, please. The wedding—we can do whatever you want for the wedding—" I opened my eyes, looking at him with a detachment so complete it terrified him. "Landon," I said softly. "The wedding is—" His phone screamed from his pocket. He hesitated, his face contorting, before pulling it out. Tara’s voice floated through the small tiled space, trembling and childlike. "Landon... the doctors discharged me, but I’m having nightmares... I’m so scared to be alone in my place. Can I please come stay at yours tonight?" Landon glanced at me, his instinct to comfort her overriding every shred of remorse he had possessed three seconds prior. "Okay," he whispered into the receiver. "I’ll come get you right now." He hung up, standing up from the floor, wiping his damp palms against his slacks. "Eden, I’m going to bring Tara over. She can stay in the guest room. She can help me take care of you tonight." I didn't answer. He grabbed his car keys and hurried out the door. "Landon," I whispered into the steam of the empty bathroom. "The wedding is off." The heavy front door slammed shut. He didn't hear a word. ... At one in the morning, I was sitting on the edge of the living room sofa, my suitcase tucked behind the foyer partition. The front door unlocked. Soft, giggling footsteps echoed in the hallway. I heard Tara let out a hushed, breathless squeal. "The structural design patent was approved today?! Landon, you are incredible! I love you so much!" My heart plunged straight into my stomach. I stood up, gripping the edge of the console table. A three-second silence fell over the hallway. "Will Eden be upset if my name is listed as the primary inventor?" Tara’s voice was dripping with faux-innocence. "I mean... it was her dad’s life's work." Landon paused, then spoke with absolute, unwavering certainty. "She won't mind. I’ll compensate her financially in other ways. Besides, you saved Toby’s life when he was a kid. She owes you her family's debt. She’ll understand." Every drop of blood in my body surged straight to my skull. A blinding roar consumed my ears. I rounded the corner, my eyes blazing, staring at them like a woman possessed. "Landon! That was my father’s final legacy before he died! What right do you have to put her name on it?!" My voice tore through the apartment, vibrating with a rage so profound my entire frame shook. Landon froze, caught off guard. Tara, standing behind him in an oversized hoodie, tilted her head and offered a cool, pitying smile. "Eden, be realistic. You can't even navigate a straight road. A technical patent under your name is completely useless—it’d sit in a drawer gathering dust. Isn't it better off under my name, where it can actually launch a commercial line?" "Smack." The sound was like a gunshot. I put everything I had left into the palm of my hand, striking her across the face with savage, unbridled fury. "Ah!" Tara shrieked, stumbling back into the wall. Three raised, bleeding welts from my fingernails immediately bloomed across her porcelain cheek. "Eden, you psycho!" Landon roared, stepping forward and shoving me back with both hands. I had no balance left. My bruised body was thrown violently backward, my lower back and hip smashing directly into the sharp, solid-oak corner of the heavy dining table. A sickening, tearing pain ripped through the center of my lower abdomen. It was unlike any pain I had ever known—a blinding, white-hot knife twisting inside my pelvis. Cold sweat drenched my hairline within seconds. Landon didn't even glance down at me. He scooped Tara up into his arms, his eyes burning with pure hatred as he glared at me over his shoulder. "How did you become so damn vicious, Eden?!" he spat, rushing toward the elevator. "Using cheap, back-alley tricks to claw at her face like an animal!" The heavy door slammed shut behind them. I collapsed onto the cold hardwood floor, curling into a tight fetal ball. Beneath my silk pajama bottoms, a warm, thick rush of liquid began to soak through the fabric, pooling onto the pale oak planks. Dark, crimson blood. My vision tunneled into grey static. ... The pungent reek of medical disinfectant tore me back from the void. "Patient is suffering an acute ruptured ectopic pregnancy with massive intra-abdominal hemorrhage! Prep OR three immediately!" "Where the hell is her family?! She’s in hypovolemic shock—she’s slipping!" A nurse with sweat plastering her surgical cap was frantically redialing the emergency contact listed on my phone. The line rang ten times before clicking open. Landon’s voice came through the speaker, ice-cold and laced with utter disgust. "Eden, you’ve crossed the line this time. I am not playing your games anymore. Lie there and reflect on what you did." The nurse shouted into the mic: "Sir! This is Mercy General Emergency! Your partner has a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and is bleeding to death internally—" "Tell Eden that if her stomach hurts, she can take an Advil," Landon cut in, his tone sharp and ruthless. "I’m not an OB-GYN." In the background, Tara’s faint, whimpering voice drifted through the line: "Landon... my head is spinning so bad... Toby, call the doctor..." "Click." The call severed. The nurse was shaking with pure, unadulterated fury. "Bastard!" She rapidly punched in the secondary contact: "Brother." "Eden, how dare you keep calling?!" Toby’s voice snapped through the speaker. "Because of your psychotic stunt, Tara is in tears having an anxiety attack! Don't call back!" "Click." I lay on the gurney, staring up at the blinding white fluorescent squares passing overhead. The pain in my abdomen had faded into a dull, terrifying numbness. "Landon," I thought, as the darkness swallowed the edges of my sight. "This time, I am truly letting you go."