The blood came first.
It dripped from my nose onto the contract—seventy pages of non-disclosure agreements, liability waivers, and the kind of corporate legalese that makes most people's eyes glaze over. But not mine. I wrote every word of this. Drafted it at 2 AM on a Tuesday, revised it on a Thursday while Derek watched football, and finalized it this morning while my head pounded and my vision blurred.
I wiped my upper lip with the back of my hand. Crimson smeared across my knuckles.
You'd think after five years, I'd remember to eat.
But no. Derek needed this contract by five, and Derek's needs always came first. That was the unspoken rule of our marriage. The one I'd signed with my heart instead of a pen.
I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand, pressed it to my nose, and tilted my head back. The metallic taste coated my tongue. Our bedroom smelled like his cologne—something expensive and woodsy that he'd started wearing when Megan complimented it. I'd bought him the bottle for our third anniversary. He'd said it was "fine."
Fine.
That word had become the anthem of our life together.
I blotted the last of the blood, checked my reflection in the mirror above our dresser. Thirty-two years old, but I looked forty. Dark circles carved into the skin beneath my eyes. Hair pulled back in a clip so tight it gave me a headache. Lips chapped from stress. The girl who'd walked down the aisle in a white dress—confident, hopeful, stupidly in love—had been replaced by this ghost.
I barely recognized her anymore.
"Sloane!"
Derek's voice boomed from the living room. Not a call. A command.
I grabbed the contract, smoothed the pages where a drop of blood had landed near the signature line. It was dry now. A faint pink spot, like a watermark of my exhaustion.
"Coming," I said, though he couldn't hear me.
The hallway from our bedroom to the living room was lined with framed photos. Our wedding. Our first vacation. A picture of Derek shaking hands with his boss at a company gala—I'd taken that one, standing on my tiptoes behind the photographer. You couldn't see me in the frame. I was always behind the frame.
I stepped into the living room.
Derek stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, backlit by the city lights. He was handsome in that generic, toothpaste-commercial way. Six feet, sandy hair, a jawline that had probably gotten him out of speeding tickets. He wore a navy suit—the one I'd picked out for him last spring—and held a glass of whiskey in his left hand.
His right hand held a manila envelope.
"Is that the contract?" he asked, not looking at me.
"Finished. Every clause you asked for." I held it out. "The Wilson merger should go through without a hitch now."
He took it. Flipped through the pages without reading them. He never read anything I wrote. He just trusted that I'd done the work, the way you trust a dishwasher to clean your plates.
"Good," he said. Then he set the contract on the coffee table and handed me the envelope.
"What's this?"
"Open it."
I pulled the flap. Inside were three sheets of paper, stapled together. The heading read: Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
My hands started shaking.
"Derek—"
"Just sign them, Sloane."
His voice was flat. Not angry. Not sad. Just… bored. Like he was asking me to renew our car registration.
I stared at the papers. My name, typed neatly next to Petitioner. His name next to Respondent. No, wait—I was the respondent. He was the one filing.
He was leaving me.
"Is this a joke?" I whispered.
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
He finally turned from the window. His eyes were the same pale blue as the day we met, but the warmth had drained out of them years ago. I just hadn't wanted to see it.
"I don't understand," I said. "We just talked about having kids. You said next year. You said—"
"I said a lot of things." He took a sip of whiskey. "People change."
People change. Not I changed. Not I'm sorry. Just a passive, cowardly deflection.
"Who is she?" I asked.
His jaw tightened. Just a flicker. But I'd been married to him for five years. I knew his tells.
"It doesn't matter who."
"It matters to me."
"Why?" He set down his glass. "So you can cry about it? So you can play the victim? You've been coasting on my money for half a decade, Sloane. You should be thanking me for not leaving you with nothing."
Coasting.
I had built his entire career. I'd written the business plan for his start-up. I'd negotiated the deal that got him acquired. I'd worked seventy-hour weeks without a salary because he promised that "our money" was the same as "my money."
And now he was calling me a freeloader.
"Who is she?" I asked again.
He walked to the hallway closet, pulled out a suitcase. Not mine—his. He was packing for somewhere. For her.
"Megan Cross," he said, as casually as if he were telling me the weather. "You don't know her."
But I did know her. Megan Cross was the daughter of his manager. The one who'd been "mentoring" Derek at company events. The one who always wore red lipstick and laughed too loud at his jokes.
I'd seen the way she looked at him. I'd chosen to ignore it.
"How long?" My voice cracked.
"Long enough."
He zipped the suitcase. Walked past me toward the front door.
"Aren't you going to ask me to stay?" he said, pausing with his hand on the knob.
I thought about it. About begging. About crying. About throwing myself at his feet and reminding him of every good year, every promise, every time I'd bled for this marriage.
But I was so tired.
"No," I said.
Something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. Or disappointment that I wasn't giving him the drama he expected.
Then he walked out.
The door clicked shut. The lock turned. And I stood alone in the living room, holding divorce papers stained with my own blood.