Chapter 4

On the last day of "Mrs. Holloway" for a Week, Grant told me to come back to the house.

He said the seven days were over. He would return my key, the bracelet, and my employment paperwork in person.

And it was time, he said, for us to deal with things properly.

Before I even opened the front door, I could see through the gap that the living room had been set up the way it was every year when he announced the game was over.

Champagne. A cake. Streamers.

But this year, the walls were covered in photos of me from the last three years, every one of them taken at the moment I fell apart.

Under each photo, someone had written a bet.

This year's bet was on how many minutes it would take me to give in once I saw the divorce agreement.

Summer was sitting on the couch, still in my pajamas. Grant stood right next to her.

One of his friends laughed.

"Come on, you two are obviously into each other. Nina's not here yet. You might as well have a heart-to-heart."

"Seriously. She makes a scene every year and then she caves. What are you two still pretending for?"

"I literally saw you both walk out of a hotel together on the sixteenth last month. Her neck was covered in hickeys. And you're still doing the 'we're just friends' thing?"

My fingers went stiff on the door handle.

The sixteenth of last month.

That day, my stomach hurt so badly I couldn't stand up straight. I called Grant three times.

He told me he was in a meeting and couldn't get away. He told me to take something for it, and if it didn't get better, to drive myself to the hospital.

He hadn't been busy.

He had been in a hotel room with Summer.

Inside, Summer looked up at Grant. When he didn't stop her, she reached up, hooked her fingers in his tie, and pulled him down to kiss her.

Grant didn't push her away.

Only after she let go did he frown, as if he had just remembered something. His voice dropped.

"Nina went too far this time."

"Let's not do this game anymore."

I stood outside the door and listened to him say it, and all I could think was how ridiculous it was.

He had slept with her.

And he still called it a game.

I took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and walked in.

The room had gone quiet. Nobody was laughing anymore. There was only the awkward silence of people who had been caught and hadn't had time to clean up after themselves.

In the middle of the coffee table, laid out neatly, was a divorce agreement.

When Grant looked at me, I saw a flicker of something uneasy in his face that he didn't hide in time. But mostly, he looked certain.

He was certain I would give in the way I had for three years.

One of his friends grinned at me.

"Nina, the year before last you signed a fake one and cried so hard you couldn't even finish writing your name."

"Try not to get the paper wet this time."

Summer spoke softly. "Don't take it seriously. Grant just really wants to know you still love him."

Grant leaned back against the couch.

"All you have to do is admit you were jealous, apologize to Summer, and put your ring back on."

"Then I'll shred this agreement right here."

I picked up the agreement and opened it.

The assets, the house, every detail of our marriage. All of it was real.

The lawyer's signature was right there on the last page.

To make me believe it, Grant had drawn up a divorce agreement that would actually hold up.

And he still didn't think I would sign it.

He had even told one of his friends to point a phone at my face, so they could record me falling apart for the fourth time.

Someone started a countdown. A few people started laughing again, and just like that, the room filled back up with the same cheerful, excited mood as every other year.

Before it ran out, I picked up the pen.

Grant's mouth was already curving into a smile.

He probably thought I would do what I did the year before last. Hold the pen and cry and ask him if he really didn't want me anymore.

I didn't argue. I didn't cry.

At the bottom of the last page, slowly and clearly, I signed my name.

The laughter in the room stopped.