Matty stood then, his arms uncrossing and flying wildly while he spewed his truth. “Fine! Idowant you to hurt, Wallace. That’s why I keep changing the terms of the divorce. I don’t understand how you can be so ready to let me go when nothing bad happened for all of this to be happening!”
“I’m not going to explain myself anymore.” I said with a sigh.
The truth was Matty was right. Nothing major had happened. There’d been no cheating, no unsightly affair, no major hiccups that needed to be dusted off the shelf of the life we’d built together. That was the problem. It was the little things that added up into a shitstorm of things I’d been unable to overlook anymore.
For starters, we’d always struggled with our sexual chemistry. We were heavily attracted to one another, that wasn’t the issue. For whatever reason, we’d always struggled in knowing what the other wanted or how to proceed when we were in the middle of having sex and something went slightly amiss. It was hard to describe, but things just felt askew way too often.
Another contributor to this was I missed topping. Matty was more comfortable topping, and while I enjoyed bottoming every once in a while, it wasn’t enjoyable for me in the long run.While I’d tried talking to this with my husband before, it had fallen on tuned out ears.
The hardest thing to deal with was how hard it was to communicate when we were angry or upset, which had been perfectly exemplified in this lawyer’s meeting room. I hated raised voices and read a lot into the way things were spoken. Matty was the antithesis. He preferred to get things out in the open as soon as possible while I was much more of a let-me-think-this-over-for-a-while-before-opening-my-mouth type of guy.
I also felt like I couldn’t do some of the things that brought me joy. Our entire relationship, I’d conceded to what he wanted. He wanted to watch movies and get drunk, I did it. He wanted to go to a club and dance the night away, consider me dressed. But I realized over the years that I’d put away my passions for him. God forbid I stepped away to play video games for a few hours. I was a serious gamer before I’d met him, and I wanted to get back to that. But that took time away from us, or so he’d said.
The truth was, I’d lost my sense of self while we’d been together, too preoccupied to make sure he was happy that I neglected to check in with myself to make sureIwas happy. And the truth was, I hadn’t been in a long time.
Having strained communication and strained intimacy didn’t bode well. Matty saw these things as minimal, things to be sorted out over brunch. To me, these things made a relationship, or at least the relationship I wanted to have. One morning, I’d just woken up and said this wasn’t working anymore and I wanted a divorce. Matty had played naive, wondering where this had been coming from, as if our entire relationship hadn’t been evidence enough of these things growing and growing without being properly addressed.
Which made me the bad guy. I didn’t care that I was the darkness to his light, at least by his account. I just wanted out.At thirty-four, I wasn’t getting any younger and I wanted to live my fucking life.
Matty sighed, sitting back down and recrossing his arms, his tactical armor fully intact. “You know what? Let’s just sign the papers.”
His lawyer looked horrified. “But what about the townhouse? We can still ask for it. You’re entitled to half of the property.”
“So let’s sell it like the current paperwork states and split the earnings.” Matty gave me a mournful gaze, reminding me of the husband I longed thought gone. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore by keeping our marriage over your head. We both deserve better than that.”
I nodded, relaxing into my chair. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Matty. Really, I am. But I just can’t be the man you want anymore.”
“I know.” The break in his voice almost made me leap out of my chair and comfort him, but I resisted.
Matty quickly wiped his eyes on the side of his arm and slid the papers in front of his lawyer over. He scrawled his name over the documents and slid them back to his lawyer with heavy eyes. He got up and brought them to Gary, who moved them to me just as fast. One flick of the pen and it was over.
Plucking the pen provided from Gary’s grasp, I scribbled my name underneath Matty’s. And just like that, Matthew Bryant Culbertson and Wallace Oliver Watson were no longer married.
My now ex-husband stood up, striding across the room, stopping only to look back at me from the ajar door as he pressed it open further.
“Goodbye, Wallace.”
I gave him a small smile. “Goodbye, Matty.”
He walked out of my life in simple steps, but my heart felt heavy all over again. It was over. It was finally over.
I was free.
Chapter 2
Baskingin the jubilant turn of events made me chipper in my soul but I exuded a somber mask as I rode the bus to the office. I was elated and overjoyed that the divorce was final, but that didn’t mean it felt good to hurt another person. Another person that you’d shared eight years of your life with.
I was single again. Granted, we’d been separated for long enough that I could’ve gotten back out there and started dating again, but I hadn’t felt the urge. I wanted to bask in being alone a little longer before I even thought about dating. One thing was for sure. If and when I did look for love again, I wouldn’t be shaping myself into what I thought the other person wanted. No more settling for what I thought I deserved. The man that had to live up to these ideals sure had a long list of checkmarks to collect. I didn’t envy him, if he existed at all. I wasn’t in a hurry to explore if he did or not. Not right now when I was about to launch the biggest move of my career.
Electric nerves squirmed beneath my skin by the time I strode into the little room that proceeded the giant boardroom. Maxim was sitting as his desk, giving me a smile as he stood upfrom behind his desk and picked up the cup of coffee next to his computer.
“Morning, boss.” He extended the coffee and I took it with a grateful sigh. “I figured you’d need it this morning, pulling double duty and all.”
“Thank you so much, Max.” And then I gulped down half the iced coffee in earnest.
Maxim had been on the receiving end of many a phone call from Matty’s lawyer squeaking about me needing to answer my phone as well as many musings from me directly about the divorce. He’d been my confidant when I’d had no one else. I didn’t really have any friends, not anymore. I had my work, something Matty had never let me hear the end of.
“So…is it good news this morning?”
