Exactly two years ago today, my ex-husband asked me for a divorce.

“Are you saying you want a divorce?”

The words I’d uttered hours before loomed over me.

“Yes.”

His words loomed too, their finality daunting me, daring me to allow it to sink in.

I sat curled in a ball on the floor of my ex-brother-in-law’s basement in the mountains of Leavenworth. Drunk. Immobile. Gaping.

Drool dripped from my mouth.

Or were they tears that had flooded my lips? Maybe snot? Or was it just the wine, and I was bleeding acid and rotten grapes?

I wasn’t sure.

My face felt like a flooded fountain. My jaw stretched wide open as if wanting to scream, but no sounds came out. Silent wails and gasps erupted from my chest, but I couldn’t inhale long enough to find the exhales my body needed to exert the fury and fear that waited almost a year to finally come.

I sat curled in a ball on the floor of my ex-brother in-law’s basement, drunk, frozen, and hysterical.

Two years ago today, my life — the life I was living — ended.

In a matter of minutes, the life I’d built, the future I’d imagined, and even the unsteady and painful present I was in, evaporated.