Chapter Five

Gone

I sat there in the bathtub after I got home, the water still warm but growing colder around me as I let the tears flow. The gentle trickle of the faucet did nothing to drown out the thoughts racing in my head. Everything felt suffocating. The world outside had moved on, and here I was, stuck in this moment of misery, trying to wash away the last remnants of a life I thought I knew.

I was so tired—so tired of feeling like I wasn’t enough, of trying to piece together a broken marriage. I had fought for it, believed in it. But now, as the water swirled around me, I realized how foolish I had been. This wasn’t love. Not anymore. Maybe it never had been. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping the pressure behind my eyelids would ease the ache in my chest, but it only made the pain worse.

Eventually, the water grew cold enough that I had to get out. I didn’t bother draining the tub, just let myself slip out, wrapping a towel around me. My skin felt raw, and my thoughts were still heavy with everything that had happened. I barely had the energy to get dressed. I slipped into a loose sweater and leggings, the fabric doing little to comfort me. My hair was still damp, but I didn’t care enough to fix it.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My reflection was blurry from the tears, but the red eyes and pale face were unmistakable. I didn’t recognize myself. This wasn’t who I was supposed to be. This was the woman whose husband had humiliated her. The woman who had been discarded so easily.

I wiped at my face, trying to steady myself, when I heard the front door open. My heart stopped for a beat.

It was him.

I didn’t want to go downstairs. I didn’t want to face him, not after everything. But something in me—something that I couldn’t quite control—compelled me to move. I wiped my eyes one more time, took a shaky breath, and slowly made my way toward the staircase.

I stood there at the top of the stairs, my feet frozen on the first step. I could hear their voices faintly, muffled from the hallway below. Quinn’s low, familiar voice followed by a laugh. That laugh. It was the same laugh he used to give me when we’d joke around, before everything had turned so wrong. And then, there was her voice—the voice that made my stomach twist.

I was too far to make out what they were saying, but I didn’t need to. I knew. I knew exactly what was happening. And for some strange reason, I didn’t feel anything. No anger, no hurt. Just a dull, aching numbness.

I slowly crept down the stairs, every step feeling heavier than the other. When I finally reached the bottom, my gaze fell on the two of them.

Quinn was standing there, laughing, holding the door open. And beside him was a woman—someone I’d never met before but someone who looked so much like me it was almost unreal. The same dark eyes, the same delicate features, the same full lips.

It was like looking into a mirror, but a mirror that didn’t reflect me. A mirror that reflected everything I had feared.

She was beautiful, in a way I could never be. And Quinn? He didn’t even glance at me. Not once. They were too caught up in each other, too absorbed in their little world.

The silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t awkward for them. It was like I wasn’t even there. It was the way they moved, the way they spoke—it all felt like a new life, one I wasn’t a part of anymore.

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching them. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. Time felt like it didn’t matter anymore. The numbness crept over me like a blanket, heavy and suffocating.

And then, without a word, Quinn stepped inside, followed by the woman—my replacement—who glanced back at me once but didn’t say a thing. No apology. No acknowledgment of the woman whose place she was so easily stepping into.

I felt the ground shift beneath my feet. What was I supposed to do? What was left for me to say?

Nothing. There was nothing left to say.

I turned around slowly, walking back upstairs with no real sense of direction, just a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. I didn’t even register the sounds of their footsteps as they moved through the house. I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want to think about them.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I went straight to the bedroom. It felt wrong being there. This wasn’t my space anymore. This room, this bed, was meant for someone else. I could feel the emptiness in the air, thick and suffocating, as if the room itself knew the truth.

I walked over to the desk, where the divorce papers had been sitting untouched since that awful morning. The papers that Quinn had given me—papers that had already decided my fate, that had already decided what kind of life I was supposed to have without him.

I picked them up, my hands trembling just a little as I unfolded the document. There was no emotion left to fight it. No fight left in me. He had made his choice, and in doing so, he had made mine. I signed the paper, not thinking about what it meant or what would come next. I didn’t need to. The decision had already been made for me.

The pen scratched against the paper, the finality settling in my chest like a stone. I put the pen down and just stared at it for a moment.

He wanted me gone, then so be it.