Because the truth is, no matter what his name is, this life—life as a divorced woman at age thirty-two—is not the life I planned.
When I was twenty-two and wide-eyed, fresh from graduation, I thought marriage was the milestone that made you an adult. I thought forever was a thing you could will into existence with the right vows, the right person, the right dress. I thought I’d be one of those women who built a home around love, not fights and doctors and tension. Who celebrated anniversaries, not endings.
Skye is probably going to make me do that. Celebrate the divorce. She’ll want to have a party. Like a bachelorette thing, but adivorcette? Part of me wants to ask her what the word is, but my smarter self doesn’t want to accidentally inception an idea into her brain just in case it isn’t already there.
Now I’m thirty-two and staring at a door like a child afraid of the dark, about to walk into a cold, leather-clad office to pay a man with a briefcase to help me unravel the life I fought so hard to build.
My chest feels hollow. My bones feel like rickety scaffolding, two seconds away from collapse.
And that’s what really gets me—the collapse. Because at twenty-two, I walked down an aisle in a white dress, thinking I was walking toward solidity. Toward something permanent. People cried happy tears, toasted champagne, talked about our bright future like it was a fact. And here I am ten years later, staring at a different kind of threshold, going to talk to an attorney about how I can sign my name to an ending.
It’s not an ending. It’s a beginning.
If I say it to myself enough times, I may actually start to believe it.
“I. Am. Ready.” My voice cracks on the last word, like it already knows I’m lying.
The click of a door down the hall startles me. Skye’s voicefollows, steady and casual, like this is any other Tuesday. “Hold up. I’ll grab my bag.”
I frown and turn just as she steps out of her room, jean skirt, boots, leather jacket, keys twirling in her fingers like she’s heading to brunch. Her eyeliner is perfect, blue hair pulled back in two french braids that end in messy buns on each side of her head. She looks effortlessly beautiful, fun, and totally badass. If only I looked half as intimidating.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She raises a brow, like I’m the one being strange. “What do you mean? I’m coming with you.”
“Skye—”
She shakes her head before I can say another word. “There is no way in hell you’re walking into a divorce attorney’s office alone, Tori. Not happening.”
I blink at her. “I didn’t ask you to?—”
“Pfft,” she cuts me off. “You think I’m gonna let my best friend sit in some buttoned leather chair across from a stiff white man in a suit, talking about legal separation and marital assets, without backup? Not a fucking chance.”
Her tone is flippant, but her eyes are not. They’re sharp, steady, and full of the kind of loyalty that doesn’t ask permission. My God, I love her. I also hate that right now I’m dressed like I could be her mother. Whatever.
Something inside me cracks. Not enough to spill, but enough that I feel the fissure spread. I press my lips together, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
Because part of me is relieved. The bigger part is ashamed.
I should be able to do this on my own. I should be the kind of woman who walks into a law office with her head high, her voice clear, her resolve unshakable. Instead, I’m standing in the doorway of my borrowed apartment with sweaty palms and a heartbeat that feels too loud in my ears. I feel twelve years old. Like a child playing dress-up in divorce papers instead of tiaras.
“Skye…” My voice thins, tears welling in my eyes. “What if I can’t do this?”
She closes the distance in two strides, hands on my shoulders, grounding me. “You can. You already are. The hard part was leaving him. This is paperwork.”
I laugh, short and humorless. “Paperwork that will decide the rest of my life.”
She tilts her head, bangs falling over one eye. “Exactly.Yourlife. Not his. Not the one he controlled. Yours. And I’m gonna be there every step of the way.”
Her certainty is a hammer to the shaky scaffolding inside me. For a moment, I almost believe her.
Almost.
But as Skye reaches around me to open the door and we step out into the crisp Colorado morning, the air biting my cheeks, I can’t shake the gnawing voice in my head. The one that whispers how broken this looks. How this wasn’t supposed to be me. How my parents might act supportive to my face but will whisper behind their polite smiles. How the girl I used to be—the one who dreamed of love and babies and happily ever after—wouldn’t even recognize this version of herself.
I haven’t spoken to anyone in Moraine since I left. Not a text, not a call, not a single word. Just my mother’s cautious updates, lacking any real details about the goings on of neighbors and her friends at church. But I don’t need details from my mom to know the truth. Moraine is a small mountain town, the kind that thrives on tourists in the summer and gossip all year long. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows everything. And when they don’t? They invent the details until the story fits whatever narrative makes the best entertainment around the coffee shop tables and church steps.
So I can only imagine what they’re saying now. How my name rolls through town faster than a middle school game of telephone. How people lower their voices after church on Sundays, standing in little clusters outside the stone steps, whispering like they’repraying.She left him.Ten years and no kids—no wonder.She was always too ambitious, too focused on her career.She couldn’t make it work.Bless her heart.
