Chapter 29
The day of my divorce feels like any other goddamn day.
There’s no thunder. No lightning. No dramatic movie score swelling in the background. Just me, sitting in this weirdly cold courthouse hallway, drinking burnt coffee from a vending machine and wondering how I ever thought I’d feel victorious.
A month ago, I was planning revenge like it was a full-time job. I was ready to torch his world, salt the earth, take every car, every house, every ugly modernist painting he thinks screams "wealth and taste."
But now? I just want him gone. I want the paperwork signed. I want to stop seeing his name on my bank statements and start breathing air that doesn’t have his cologne clinging to it like a curse.
I thought about warning him. About his father. About the story the Judge told me, the truth of his origin .
But then I thought: why should I?
I might not want him dead anymore. But I definitely don’t care if he’s happy.
Because here’s the part no one talks about: he didn’t just cheat. He preyed . On a nineteen-year-old girl barely holding it together. A girl who looked up to him like a saviour. Who was drowning and thought he was a life raft, when really, he was just a polished, predatory anchor .
She was depressed and na?ve with the emotional boundaries of a wet napkin and a deeply screwed-up relationship with male authority. And the cherry on top?
She was his wife’s sister.
The girl he’d known since she was ten.
Okay. I want him dead again.
Lorna shifts beside me, flipping through a worn manila folder with a calm competence. She’s been my rock. Caden wanted to be here too, to hold my hand or take names or possibly light my ex on fire with his eyes, but I told him no.
This is mine.
I need to do this on my own. I’ve sat in the passenger seat of my own life for too long. I need to look this moment in the face and not flinch.
I actually went to therapy. Real therapy. A few sessions, nothing epic, but enough. Enough for the therapist and Caden, bless his emotionally evolved heart, to help me see the truth I’ve been avoiding:
I won’t ever move on until I get closure.
Until I say what I need to say, not just for him to hear, but for me to hear out loud.
And it has to be after the court declares us divorced. Because I want those words, “it’s over” to sit heavy in the air between us when I tell him exactly who he was. And exactly who I am now .
Our number is called, and my heart does that weird skip-thump thing it does right before something irreversible. Lorna squeezes my hand once then lets go. Because this part? I walk alone.
The courtroom is smaller than I expected.
Unremarkable, even. No fiery cross-examinations.
No shouting or gasping or someone yelling “Objection!” like in the movies.
Just a judge in half-moon glasses flipping through a stack of paperwork like he’s reviewing a grocery list instead of legally ending my marriage.
It’s boring. Shockingly normal. Civil, even.
We sit. We state our names for the record. There's testimony, but it’s barely dramatic, confirming residency, yes, there are irreconcilable differences, yes, property has been divided.
A dry list of facts about a life that feels like it bled out in technicolour.
The judge reads through the Marital Settlement Agreement then he pauses. Looks up at me. Tilts his head just slightly, like he’s trying to see something behind my eyes.
“You’re sure the house is all you want?” he asks, his tone neutral, but with just a pinch too much…familiarity.
And in that moment, I know . I know exactly who he is.
He’s a friend of my father-in-law.
Of his father. A man with money and secrets and old friends in high places. Probably sent Christmas cards with embossed envelopes and matching return address labels.
I meet the judge’s gaze head-on. “Yes, Your Honor. That’s all I want.”
Because that house? That haunted, cold, echoing monument of bad choices and worse memories? It's mine now. And not because I want to live in it, but because I need to leave it on my own terms.
He studies me for a second longer, like he’s waiting for me to crack. I don’t. I’ve been cracked before. I know how to hold the pieces in place now.
Then the judge turns to Mike. My soon-to-be-ex, sitting there in a too-expensive suit with his too-clean conscience. And something in the judge’s face shifts, just slightly, but enough that I catch it.
“What you did,” the judge says slowly, like each word is being chosen from a darker place, “was reprehensible. And you should be ashamed.”
Oh.
I didn’t see that coming.
Neither did Mike. His face tightens, like someone just slapped him with a dictionary.
And me? I sit straighter. I let those words wrap around me like vindication. Because this man, this official, this neutral third party, is saying what I’ve screamed into my pillow at 3AM for days . He’s putting it in the record. Making it real.
The gavel drops .
And just like that, it’s over.
Except, it isn’t.
Because now it’s my turn.
Walking out of the courthouse feels… surreal. Like stepping out of a dream I didn’t know I was still stuck in. The sun’s too bright. My shoes feel too tight. My skin doesn’t quite fit right.
But it’s done .
A single gavel drop and ten years of emotional sludge just got filed under case closed . I should feel lighter. I don’t yet. But I will.
This past month has felt like a goddamn year.
A blur of legal documents, therapy sessions, bad dreams, and learning how to breathe without clenching my jaw.
The stuff was already divided, technically .
As in, I stuffed all his designer garbage into black plastic bags and had Eli, Hannah’s very patient, very buff husband, drop it at whatever crypt Mike’s been hiding in.
I wasn’t about to see him. And I definitely didn’t want him showing up at my house while Keira was there. She doesn’t need to see that walking red flag ever again.
Lorna and I are halfway down the courthouse steps, the cement still radiating leftover heat from the morning sun, when I hear it.
“Leni. ”
I don’t have to look. I know that voice. I hate that I know that voice.
Lorna turns instantly, sharp as a knife. “Nope. Not today.” She steps in front of me like a human shield in high heels.
But I touch her arm. “It’s okay.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she steps aside with a slow exhale, like she’s warning the universe to behave.
I nod once. Then take a few steps forward with him. Not far. Not private. Just enough distance to make it clear I don’t owe him a goddamn thing.
Mike looks older. Not in a tragic, sympathetic way, more like the kind of tired that comes from finally being seen for who you really are. His tie is crooked. His confidence, even more so.
He opens his mouth. “I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry. For everything.”
I tilt my head, not saying a word. He takes that as permission and keeps going, big mistake.
“I hope, maybe… we can be friends someday.”
Friends.
I blink at him. Once. Slowly. “Let me be very clear. Are you saying you want to be friends with me … or with Keira ?”
He freezes. Not expecting that .
His expression shifts like I’ve said something outrageous. Like I’m the one who’s making things ugly.
“You do realize,” I say, voice low but lethal, “you fucked a nineteen-year-old girl you’d known since she was ten, right?”
He opens his mouth, probably to deny it, to twist it, but I don’t let him. “A girl who trusted you. Who looked up to you. Who thought you were safe. You were family, Mike. You were supposed to protect her.”
“She came onto me,” he says, weakly. Like that makes any of it less vile.
I actually laugh, cold, bitter. “And you knew damn well she had a messed-up relationship with male authority. You knew everything about her. You knew about me. And you used it.”
He shifts again, voice tightening. “This isn’t about her. This is about us. ”
“No,” I say, eyes narrowing. “See, that’s your favourite trick, pretending things only matter when you’re at the centre.
But this? What you did? This isn’t just about cheating or ending a marriage.
You didn’t just hurt me. You jeopardized my relationship with my sister.
You blew up our entire family so you could chase some pathetic fantasy where you’re still the hero. ”
I take a step back, straighten my spine, and look him in the eyes.
“If there was ever a time we could’ve ended this and maybe, maybe salvaged something human between us, it would’ve been if you’d ended our marriage like a man.
With dignity. With honesty. But you didn’t.
You ended it like a coward. You made me question every memory, every good moment we ever had.
You made our whole history feel like a lie.
If I never see you again, it’ll be too soon. ”
And that’s it. That’s the last word.
I turn on my heel, walk back to Lorna, who’s standing like a quiet bodyguard with murder in her eyes, and I don’t look back.
Because I’m done.
Really, truly, finally done .