Chapter 01 #2
"Ceci, I'm the man you love. The same man who never stopped loving you," I manage, my voice breaking.
Ceci closes her eyes, and I watch the rise and fall of her chest as she fights to steady her breathing. When she opens them again, it's as if she's retreated miles away, standing on the other side of a divide I'll never cross.
"I want you to pack a bag. The rest of your things can be sent to your new address later.
But I don't want you here when I come back with the kids tomorrow night.
They're staying at my parents' house right now.
Don't go there. I'll let you know when you can see them.
That's how it's going to be… at least until the lawyers make it official. "
I freeze, her words hitting me like a physical blow.
"What are you talking about, Ceci? We are not getting divorced, and I am not leaving our home!" I shout, exasperated.
She can't mean this. She can't.
"You heard me. If you're still here when we come back tomorrow, you'll have to be the one to tell the kids why I'm asking you to leave. Ethan already knows something's wrong; Alicia doesn't, not yet."
“W-what does Ethan know?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
"He overheard you on the phone Tuesday morning, just before you left the house. Ordering expensive flowers and chocolates with a birthday card for your mistress."
"Ceci, that was nothing. It didn't mean anything," I say, deliberately ignoring the word mistress.
She lets out a harsh, humorless scoff.
"All the years Margaret worked for you, how many times did you send her flowers and chocolates for her birthday? For Christmas? Or even recently, when she was in the hospital?"
I say nothing.
"Please, don't be here tomorrow. I really don't want to have this conversation with them right now.
If it were up to me, I'd be the one leaving this house…
these walls feel like they echo every single one of your lies.
But I won't tear my children's lives apart any more than their father's choices have already fractured them. "
Her children. Not ours.
When she's done, she snatches the purse from the armchair. I catch her arm before she can take another step.
"Don't go. Please don't go. Let's talk—let me explain it properly. We can fix this. It was just a mistake, a mistake I'll never make again. I love you more than anything—that's all that should matter."
Ceci wrenches her arm free, her eyes locking onto mine with a force that pins me in place.
"I don't want your love. Not when all it's brought me in the end is pain. A mistake would be leaving the door unlocked when you left, or forgetting to pay a bill before it's due. You made choices, Colin. And I wasn't one of them."
Her voice breaks as she says it. “I’m choosing myself now.”
She looks at me, anguished eyes searching my face one last time.
“Goodbye, Colin.”
I stand frozen, my tongue heavy, unable to form a single word.
I can only watch as she turns, as the door closes behind her… and the world around me caves in.
Cecily
I force myself to keep walking without looking back. One step at a time, even as my legs weaken, trembling, ready to give out at any moment. Afraid that if I fall now, I'll never rise again.
When I reach the other side of the street, I can't resist. I turn, glancing back at the house.
The thought of returning tomorrow brings no comfort. I don't think I can ever be happy within those walls again.
It was never the house I would have chosen for us. Too big, too showy.
And yet, somehow, I made it a home. Our home.
But bad memories have a way of eclipsing the good.
I want only to remember the first time Colin brought us here after buying the house. The way Ethan tore through the living room, shouting just to hear his own echo.
The first swim in the pool, the three of us together, Colin holding Ethan in his arms. Alicia's first steps. Every birthday party... so many moments.
But what plays on a loop in my mind are the nights I stayed awake, waiting. All the dinners where Colin never came home.
Me, lying in a cold bed alone while he was God knows where… doing things he never should have.
I have no idea where I found the strength to face him and say everything that had been trapped in my chest. For a moment, I doubted I'd even be able to do it.
When he came home—calling out my name, the kids' names, frantic and desperate—I had a knot in my throat so tight I could barely swallow.
I used the time he spent searching for us upstairs to pull myself together.
To steel myself. To finally let go of everything that had been suffocating me these past few weeks.
I avoided him in every way I could, at every possible moment. Afraid that if I opened my mouth, I'd either scream and spill everything that was eating me alive... or collapse into his arms, crying, begging to know why.
Why he did this to me? How he could do this to us?
The way he danced with me in our living room. The way he tried to summon our memories.
It only reminded me how far he’d fallen from grace. The Colin who danced with me on our wedding night no longer exists.
I felt so weak. So pathetic.
Needing to be near him. Needing to feel his body close to mine one last time. I couldn't bring myself to kiss him… or to let him touch me in any other way.
But I let him hold me in his arms. I let my head rest against his chest, and for that one night, I pretended everything was exactly as it used to be. Because in the morning, nothing would ever be the same again.
I don’t recognize him in those images, those receipts, those texts.
And that last photo… his lips touching hers in a closed-mouth kiss. Somehow, even after everything I’d already seen, it hurt anyway.
Because it felt intimate. Tender. Caring.
All I could think was, that's not the man I love. Loved.
That's the cruelest part. The split between reason and this foolish, aching heart. Knowing I shouldn't love him, yet powerless to let it go… as if an eraser could simply wipe love away.
Part of me wanted more time. Time to process everything.
But the days kept passing, and instead of feeling more prepared, I felt the opposite—because the truth had already settled. I knew what I had to do.
And yet, all the years we spent together sat heavy, weighing on me as I waited for the moment to finally put an end to it.
Then Ethan came to me and told me about the phone call he'd overheard. And in that moment, I knew my time was up.
"He was on the phone, alone in the kitchen, talking in a low voice… ordering chocolates and flowers, with a birthday card. And they weren't for you, Mom. They were for someone else."
His voice faltered. I could hear the anger threaded through it, but beneath that anger was something denser. A deep, aching sadness.
"I didn't know how to react at the moment, and he left soon after. I don't want to hurt you... but I felt like I had to tell you."
I hugged him, holding back my tears, and told him it was all right. That he had done nothing wrong, and that he didn't need to say anything to his father. That he didn't need to carry that burden.
I asked him to trust me. And my boy did.
In the days that followed, when he started spending more time away from home whenever he wasn't at school, I said nothing. Not even when he refused to go to the dinner Colin had arranged the night before his trip. Our last dinner together.
I let him process it in his own way.
Ethan will always be my boy, but I know he's no longer a little child. He already has some sense of what's happening.
How am I supposed to tell him? To lay out the truth without shattering his heart in the process?
As much as he and his father are at odds, I know a part of him still loves his dad. Still misses him.
I shut my eyes tight.
No more tears. I'm done crying. Colin doesn't deserve another tear, another breath, another piece of me.
Dressing to wait for him felt like nothing less than preparing for a funeral.
The simple black dress. The low black heels. My hair pulled back, all remnants of softness erased.
And perhaps it was a funeral. Tonight, I laid to rest the last piece of what was left. I shoveled the final, choking mound of earth onto the grave Colin had spent months digging for our marriage. For our whole story.
When I open my eyes again, I see his shadow framed in the living room window. I turn my back and start walking.
I haven't even reached the end of the street when a car slows in my peripheral vision. I turn just in time to see Mark leaning across the console, pushing the passenger door open for me.
My shoulders sag. "I told you, you didn't have to come."
"Since when do I do everything I'm told?" he says, a faint grin tugging at his mouth.
I slide into the seat, and as soon as I close the door and buckle my belt, I feel his eyes on me.
"How was it?" he asks after a beat.
Staring out through the windshield, I whisper, "As bad as you can imagine."
Mark reaches over, his hand brushing my cheek, gently guiding my face until our eyes meet.
"Cecily Sterling," his voice eases. "You're going to be okay. This isn't what breaks you."
Sterling.
Cecily Sterling. It feels so strange now, like it was never really mine, even though I wore it as my name for as long as Cecily Montgomery has been.
Was. It won't be anymore.
After Mark asks where I want to go, I tell him just to drive for a while. I'm not ready to return to my parents' house. Not ready to face my children without falling apart.
I lean my head against the window, watching the scenery blur past me in muted streaks, though none of it registers.
My phone begins to ring in my bag. I pull it out, my heart tightening, thinking it might be my mother. It isn't.
An unknown number. I hesitate, thumb hovering, unsure if I should answer.
At last, I lift the phone to my ear and speak, my voice uncertain. "Hello?"
“I’m sorry for calling without notice. I just read your blog, and if I’m understanding it correctly… I’m truly sorry for what you’re going through. Is there anything I can do?”
I close my eyes as silent tears slip down my cheeks. And somehow, in the middle of all this wreckage, I feel the faintest, broken smile curve my lips… because his words bring me a fragile kind of comfort.
And so, I answer.