She kept saying trial—no fear in her voice, no tremor, no hesitation.
Like she has nothing to lose.
Of course she doesn’t. No reputation to uphold. No career built on other people’s approval. No image to protect. No height for her to fall from. She has nothing. Sheisnothing. She has the luxury of being a vacuum, a black hole where a person should be. A woman who mops floors for strangers and lives in her friend’s spare bedroom.
I am the one with everything to lose.
A trial would have been a public flaying. It would’ve ruined me. Cheating. Emotional abuse. Controlling behavior. The words settle on me like a swarm of black flies. They are contaminating, oily words. They leave stains. Words that stick. Words people remember. Words that cling to you even after you deny them.
I can see the headlines now. Rumors. Gossip that travels through professional circles, reaches the ears of clients and colleagues, changes how people look at you, a fever that infects everything you want to keep together.
Did you hear about Julian? His wife accused him of abuse.
Emotional abuse, apparently. She filed for divorce.
There’s going to be a trial.
These words could follow me. No matter what the judge decided. No matter who “won.” The accusation alone could be enough.
Emotional abuse.
A scoff catches in the back of my throat, a dry rattle of a laugh. She has no idea what the word means. She’d spent her entire life being sheltered, carried from one cushioned room to another. First by her father, then by me.
My father-in-law was a good man. A strong man. A man who provided. I saw him with her. I saw his pride. His protection. His hand on her shoulder. His voice calling hersweetheart.
She’d lived a comfortable life. Protected. Provided for. Shielded from anything truly difficult.
I gave her a life that most people would kill for. I paid for everything. I made sure she never had to worry about money or taxes or bills. I never asked her to work. I never asked her to contribute. I just asked her to be my wife.
And she still walked away.
Outside the courthouse, the air feels too sharp, too bright. The sun is an aggressive, medicinal white, bleaching the life out of the sidewalk. It makes my eyes ache with a dull, throbbing heat. Everything is too loud and too dry. I stand on the courthouse steps and watch the town twitch—lawyers in cheap, shiny wool suits that smell of old coffee and armpit.
A clerk scurries past, clutching a stack of files against his chest. A fat woman pushes a stroller past me. The child inside is a pink lump. Its face is smeared with a sheer layer of snot and something orange and sticky that looks like mashed carrots. It stares at me with milky, uncomprehending eyes.
None of them know what just happened in that building. None of them care.
I want to go home, pull the curtains shut, and wait for the sun to die.
But I don’t.
Because my eyes find her.
Nora stands a few steps away, her lawyer already gone, Maeve beside her. They’re talking, heads bent together. Maeve says something, and Nora smiles. Soft. Genuine.
I freeze.
This isn’t the smile I know. The smile I know belonged to dinner parties and family gatherings, the one in photographs where she stood beside me with her shoulders curled inward, her chin tucked down, her eyes glassy, her mouth arranged into something polite and distant.
This smile is different. It reaches her eyes. It softens her whole face. It transforms her into a stranger, bright and glimmering like a star in the crowd.
I have never seen that smile.
Maeve pulls her into a hug, full and unhesitating, and Nora leans into it without holding back. I watch her arms rise. Her hands press flat against Maeve’s back. Her body softens into the embrace, shoulders dropping, head tilting to rest against Maeve’s cheap, pilled cardigan—head tilting to rest on a shoulder that isn’t mine.
A bitter, sharp twist goes through my chest.
Jealousy. That is what it is. Ugly and hot and undeniable. I am jealous of a woman. I am jealous of a hug. I am jealous of the ease between them, the trust, the simple, uncomplicated affection that Nora never gave me. My feet feel heavy in my polished oxfords. They feel like clammy lead weights.
