Chapter 9 #2
"Yes, I don't want to. Hear me? I don't want to.
I'm not ready. I can't right now calmly say: 'Go, Niki, good luck, split the kids on weekends, build a new life, and I'll watch from a distance and clap.
' I'm an idiot—I made a dirty, stupid, cowardly mistake, and I understand you have every right to hate me.
But I'm afraid of losing you. Not control. You."
The last word came out lower. Rougher. As if he'd pulled it not from his head but from a place where he usually didn't keep words.
"Too late," I said, but my voice wavered.
He came around the table. I stepped back.
"Don't touch me."
"I'll come closer. Not to press. So that at least once you'll look at me while I'm saying this."
"I've been looking at you for eight years. I've seen plenty."
"No. You've been looking at the man who was used to being obeyed. The one who decided that providing a home gave him the right not to see what he was doing to the woman inside it. Look now."
He came close. Too close. I pressed my back against the edge of the counter. My heart was beating so hard I felt sick.
"Don't touch me."
He raised his hands slowly, so I could see the movement. And still took my face in his palms. Not roughly. But firmly. So I couldn't hide, couldn't turn away, couldn't pretend he was talking to a wall.
"Let go."
"In a second."
"Damien."
"I'm an idiot," he whispered. Angrily, tightly, almost spitting it in his own face.
"I'm an idiot for doing this. I'm an idiot for thinking I could close this filth behind a door and come back to you as if nothing happened.
I'm an idiot for hitting you with words while I was the weakest person in this house.
But I'm not ready to let you go. Do you understand?
Not ready. Not because you're my property.
Because I think I've finally understood that I could come home and you wouldn't be there.
And that thought leaves me unable to breathe. "
Tears rose instantly. I hated them. Hated myself for the fact that his fear could still reach me through the anger, like a hand through a crack in the door.
"Take your hands off me," I said.
He let go immediately.
I rubbed my cheeks as if they bore burns.
"You have no right to say this as if it fixes something."
"I don't think it fixes anything."
"Then why?"
"Because it's the truth."
"I needed truth before Lara."
"I know."
"Don't say 'I know' when I say I hate you. It sounds like you've already forgiven me my reaction."
"Then tell me the right way."
"There isn't one. Just be quiet. But not that silence you used to punish me with. Just be quiet and hear."
He went quiet.
She walked past him, not touching. And the air between them was harder than any door.
That afternoon I met with the lawyer in a small office with gray walls and a woman named Anna Hartley, who spoke calmly and didn't try to rescue me.
That turned out to be a rare mercy. She reviewed the documents, asked questions, made notes, didn't gasp at the name Grayson, and only once raised her eyes—when I said "sister. "
"I understand," she said.
"No, you don't."
"You're right. I don't. But I can help you see your options."
And that was honest.
The options turned out to be no fairy tale.
Not "take half and walk away beautifully.
" The house was complicated. The money was complicated.
The assets were complicated. A marriage, it turned out, could also be structured so that the love inside it was simple but the exit wasn't. Yet the possibility existed.
Not tomorrow, not without pain, not without a fight—but it was there.
I listened, asked questions, took notes, and with every answer something strange solidified inside me.
Not joy. Not victory. Just a floor beneath my feet. Thin, creaky, but mine.
"The most important thing," Anna Hartley said at the end, "is not to make decisions from shock. You can prepare documents, understand your rights, establish the facts. But the final decision is best made with a cool head."
I almost smiled.
"You sound just like my husband right now."
"Then on this specific point your husband isn't wrong. On the rest, I'll reserve judgment."
"He won't agree to a divorce."
"He can choose not to want one. That's not the same thing."
That sentence stayed with me for the rest of the day.
"He can choose not to want one. That's not the same thing.
" I repeated it while picking up Marta from daycare, while listening to her explain that the bunny had received a passport made from a sticker, while driving to Tim's practice.
Damien stood at the entrance to the sports complex, as promised.
Black coat, phone in hand, face composed.
He saw us and put the phone away immediately.
A small gesture. Before, I'd have rewarded it with an internal "thank you.
" Now I simply noted: he'd learned to holster the weapon before the child approached.
"Daddy!" Marta broke free toward him.
He scooped her up, spun her, and she laughed so brightly my heart clenched. Tim walked beside me, not speeding up.
"Hey, champ," Damien said to his son.
"Hey."
"I won't boss the coach around."
"Good."
"I can stand by the wall and pretend I'm furniture."
Tim looked at him with something close to interest.
"You don't look like furniture."
"I'm an expensive wardrobe."
Marta giggled.
Tim didn't smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
Damien saw. And I saw how he carefully didn't push further.
Didn't try to buy the smile. Didn't demand a hug.
Just nodded and walked alongside. That was the right thing.
And I was furious about it. Because he could be right when he understood the cost of the mistake.
At practice, Tim didn't glance back at his father once.
Usually he searched for him after every good throw, after every coach's remark, after every fall.
Today he looked only forward. Damien stood by the wall, hands in pockets, face calm.
But I knew he was hurting. Badly. And for the first time I didn't rush to repair that pain.
"He's angry at me," Damien said quietly.
"He's confused."