“Fine.” The word came out automatically. “You?”
“Yeah, fine.”
They both knew the lies for what they were.
Astoria stared at the city below and felt the weight of everything she wanted to say pressing against her ribs.I miss you. I can't sleep. I reach for my phone to text you and then remember. You were right to leave and I hate you for it and I love you and please, please come back.
She said none of it.
“I should—” Miller gestured vaguely toward the table.
“Yes.”
Miller walked away, and Astoria stayed at the window another moment, breathing through the ache in her chest,forcing her expression back into neutrality before she turned around.
The break ended, and everyone took their seat. Gerald made a final offer—generous, reasonable, designed to end this before trial.
Valerie, of course, rejected it immediately. “That’s not acceptable.” She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on Astoria with an intensity that bordered on feral. “I want a public acknowledgment. A statement admitting that the failure of this marriage was due to Astoria's emotional unavailability and neglect.”
The room went quiet.
“You want me to say I was a bad wife.” Astoria’s voice was flat.
“I want the truth.” Valerie's smile was sharp and satisfied. “I want everyone to know what it was like being married to someone incapable of love.”
Astoria felt something bloom behind her sternum—rage, grief, the desperate urge to defend herself—before she crushed it immediately.
“No,” she said.
“Then we'll let a judge decide.” Valerie sat back, arms crossed, triumph radiating from every line of her body. “I'm sure the court will be very interested in hearing about your emotional deficiencies.”
Gerald gathered his papers. “I think we’re done here.”
“The trial is set for August nineteenth.” Rachel's voice was professional, but there was something tired in it. “We'll see you then.”
Everyone stood. Papers shuffled, briefcases closed, and polite professional murmurs filled the space. Valerie shot Astoria a look of pure venom before sweeping toward the door, Rachel following with a resigned expression.
Miller hung back, organizing her files.
Astoria walked toward the exit, and the path took her past Miller's chair. There was no way around it, no route that wouldn't bring her within arm's reach of the woman she'd spent four weeks trying not to think about.
For a moment, they were side by side, close enough to touch, close enough that Astoria caught the faint lavender scent of her shampoo. Everything in her screamed to stop, to turn, to say something, anything, to reach out and bridge the impossible distance between them.
She kept walking.
Out the door, down the hallway, into the elevator where she jabbed the button for the lobby and watched the doors slide closed. The moment she was alone, the mask slipped.
It came rushing up all at once—the grief, the longing, the bone-deep exhaustion of pretending to be fine when nothing had been fine since Miller walked out of her house and didn't look back. She pressed her spine against the elevator wall and stared at the ceiling and breathed through the pressure building behind her eyes.
She wouldn’t cry. Not here, not anywhere.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Astoria straightened her spine, smoothed the tension from her face, and walked through the lobby like a woman who had everything under control.
The August heat hit her the moment she stepped outside, thick and oppressive, the sun still brutal even at five o’clock. She walked to her car, unlocked it, and slid in the driver’s seat. The leather was hot and sticky against her back, but she didn’t turn on the air conditioning yet. She just sat there, feeling shattered on the inside.
God, she was tired of just surviving.
Astoria started the car and drove home through Phoenix Ridge in silence. Her home would be empty by time she arrived, and the ocean would be a murky gray in the evening light. She would pour a glass of wine she wouldn’t drink and stand on the deck and feel nothing because feeling nothing was easier than feeling this.
