His voice grows louder with each word, frustration and hurt ricocheting off the walls, filling the room. And I feel it too… each sound crashing against the fragile barrier I built just to keep myself standing.
“We’ve already had this conversation, Colin. I asked you to leave so the kids and I wouldn’t have to. For weeks, we’ve coordinated your visits, just like we agreed, and waited for our lawyers to handle the rest. I told you all of this. You just didn’t want to listen.”
He drags both hands through his hair and pulls off the tie that’s already hanging loose.
“I thought... I thought you just needed time,” he says, his voice fraying at the edges. “I did everything you asked, Ceci. Even when all I wanted was to see you, I stayed away. I gave you the space you wanted. I've been waiting for you.”
It hurts. God, it hurts to hear him say all this and feel the guilt crawling back under my skin, whispering that maybeI’mthe one to blame. Like the reason I can’t sleep, can barely eat, and have to smile for our children while my world is falling apart… is becauseI’mthe one who gave up on us.
“You don’t need to keep waiting, Colin. You just need to sign the papers. Don’t contest it, don’t drag this out. Please, don’t bring more pain into what’s left of our family.”
He takes a step closer, slow and careful, like one wrong move could make me break for good. “Ceci... Ceci, I’mbeggingyou. Let me fix this.”
I can’t speak. All I can do is breathe. Shallow, trembling breaths, trying to stay upright, trying not to let the last pieces of myself crumble at his feet.
“I can fix it,” he says, his voice cracking as the words leave him. “I love you. Only you. I’ll do anything.Anyfucking thing to keep you.”
“It's too lat—"
“Don’t say that!” he cuts me off, voice rising, almost frantic. “It’s never too late. Not when I love you, and you love me too.” He reaches for my hands, gripping them so tightly it almost hurts, desperation bleeding from his eyes. “You still love me, don’t you?”
“I do,” I whisper.
He exhales, the sound shaky and uneven, and presses his lips to my fingers. Instinct takes over, I pull my hands back before he can touch me again.
“It would be a hundred—no, a thousand times easier if I didn’t love you anymore,” my voice breaks into a whisper despite my effort to keep it steady. I draw in a breath that burns on the way down. “It wouldn’t hurt like this. It wouldn’t take every ounce of strength just to breathe, wishing I could no longer exist some days, if it weren’t for our kids.”
“No, Ceci. Don’t say that!”
I step back before he can reach me, circling behind the couch. I need something,anything, between us.
“Yes, Colin. That’s what you did to me. That’s what your choices did.” The words come out calm. “Because it wasn’t one mistake, or two, or three. They were deliberate. Repeated. Daily choices.”
I meet his eyes, holding them there, wanting the truth to burn deep enough that he'll never escape it.
“For almost five months, you stopped choosing me. You stopped choosing our children. You stopped choosingus.”
I press a hand to my chest, feeling the tremor beneath my palm. “And now it’s my turn… I’m choosing myself, for the first time in longer than I can remember. I’m choosing my family. And no matter how impossible it feels right now, I know I’ll find happiness again. I’ll build a life for us from what’s left.”
“I’m your family too!” he growls, his composure finally snapping.
“Not anymore.” My voice cracks, but I force the words out anyway. “You’ll always be the father of my children. That will never change. But that’s all we’ll ever be from now on.” I swallow hard, the finality settling deep as I say it. “Just parents. To Ethan and Alicia.”
His mouth opens and closes twice, searching for words that simply aren’t there.
“ ‘I, Colin, take you, Cecily—my Ceci—to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others, until death do us part.’ ”
I draw in a shaky breath, fighting the tremor in my voice and the tears threatening to spill.
“In the vows you wrote yourself, you also promised to make me your priority. To make me smile on cloudy days. To fight through impossible battles. And to never let go of my hand.”
My voice cracks. “It’s been raining, Colin. Pouring. And you left me to drown all by myself. You dropped my hand without a second thought and left me struggling to keep my head above the storm you unleashed.”
I swallow hard, blinking through the blur of tears.
“You looked into my father’s eyes when he gave me to you at the altar, and you promised him you’d always take care of his little girl.”
By then, I’m crying. Openly. Helplessly. I don’t even try to hide it.
