“If I was so bad, if you think I was forcing you to work around the house—in the house you also lived in—why didn’t you leave? If it was so hard, why didn’t you leave me before?”
“Because I had nowhere to go.”
He scoffs immediately. “Oh, come on, Nora. Stop lying.” He shakes his head, the angry tears are drying now. They have served their purpose. They have shown me his pain, his vulnerability. Now he is done with them. “You could have left anytime. Your father left you money and property when he died—”
“No,” I cut in. “He left it toyou. He put everything in your name. You were there when the lawyer read the will.”
I remember that day. The lawyer had read the document in a flat, professional voice, listing assets and properties and accounts. My father’s name, then Julian’s. My name nowhere.
Julian had looked at me then, surprised.I didn’t know he was going to do that. But he had not argued. He had not offered to share. He had simply accepted.
Julian waves a dismissive hand. “You could have asked for it back if you wanted it. He gave it to me because he knew I could manage it. You’ve never handled money in your life, Nora. But if you wanted it, you could have just asked. I would have given it to you. You can ask me for anything.”
“I’m asking you for a divorce now.”
His face hardens. “I’m not giving you that,” he says, his voice tight and trembling. “You’re only saying that to hurt me. I know it.”
He cannot imagine that I might want something for myself, something that has nothing to do with him. Every action, every word, every choice—in his mind, it is all about him.
My lawyer warned me about this.
He might fight it.
He might refuse to sign.
If he does, here’s what we’ll do…
So I say, calmly, “Okay. Then we fight.”
His entire face twists. “Stop,” he snaps. “Stop saying you want to divorce me. You don’t want that. You love me. You’re just hurt because I cheated and you want to hurt me back.”
“I’m not hurt. Your cheating never hurt me.” A bone-deep weariness settles over me, the exhaustion of saying the same words over and over to someone who would not, could not, hear them.
The more time I spent away from his roof, the clearer it became: he was never the safe man I mistook him for.
He wasn’t safe long before the cheating. He wasn’t safe long before the guilt.
The safety I thought I had found was an illusion. A story I told myself because I needed to believe that I had escaped, that I had found something better, that the roof over my head and the food on my table were worth the slow, quiet erosion of myself.
Julian’s face crumples. The tears are back, fresh and hot, cutting tracks through the dried salt of the earlier ones.
“Stop hurting me,” he sobs. “I love you. Just say you love me too.”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “And you don’t love me.”
His breath hitches.
“I never loved you,” I continue. “But I still didn’t cheat on you. I took care of you. I stood by you. I never tried to make you feel small. I never disrespected you.” I take a deep breath. “I never did any of those things to you. But you did. So stop lying. You don’t love me.”
He loved the meals I cooked. He loved the silence I kept. He loved the order I maintained. He loved what I did, not who I was.
Julian comes apart in front of me. His shoulders shake. His face crumples. The tears come faster, harder, streaming down his cheeks and dripping onto the table.
“I made a mistake!” he cries, the words ragged. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! Stop punishing me like this!”
Even now, he isn’t hearing me. Even now, he’s trapped in the story where he’s the wronged hero and I’m the broken thing he must fix. Even now, he doesn’t see me as someone to listen to, to believe, to respect.
Even now, I am not his equal.
