Chapter 3
Mia
Ilie in bed and stare at the ceiling.
My heart hurts.
My Aiden kissed another woman.
My Aiden doesn’t love me.
My Aiden is not mine.
We met eight years ago. I was so young. Just twenty-two, studying to become a kindergarten teacher. He was thirty, having already completed the educational part of his life, and was working at his family’s business.
I had no money. He had too much.
I had no family. He had everyone, even grandparents.
Nothing much has changed, has it? I still have no money. I still have no family.
We live in a very nice home in Burlington, Vermont, one we bought together. With his money, obviously. But he always said everything he had was mine. It was our money.
It felt like a dream. Like I’d won the lottery, not the financial kind but the kind of love I thought only happened in movies.
The first time he saw me, I was shelving books in the children’s section of the bookstore where I worked part-time. He walked in, tall and polished in a charcoal-gray coat, lost in the stacks like he didn’t belong among the tiny tables and mismatched rugs.
I asked if I could help him. He wanted to buy a book as a Christmas present for his two-year-old nephew. I recommended Corduroy.
He thanked me. Said I had beautiful eyes.
He kept coming back.
Every Friday at 4 p.m., like clockwork, he would buy another book for his nephew.
When he finally asked me to dinner, I said no the first time. And the second.
I knew who he was. In Burlington, everyone knew the Winter family. They were wealthy beyond belief.
He kept asking, especially when I told him that he was not in my league. He said he loved that about me, that I wasn’t like the women he knew. That I saw him, not his bank account.
He made me feel special.
Chosen.
That’s the part that hurts the most now.
Because when he kissed her, Diana Valentine, he un-chose me.
After all these years of loyalty—of swallowing my pride and putting up with his family because he loves them—even though they treat me like dirt ground into their custom Persian rugs…he still discarded me.
All the times I smiled through his mother’s digs about my wardrobe being ‘too schoolteacher-like’, sat through dinner parties where she practically introduced me as Aiden’s charity case, swallowed his father calling me barren, endured his sister’s little jabs—like saying I probably couldn’t even spell “fiduciary”—and his brother and sister-in-law’s constant reminders that we were childless because my body had failed Aiden… .
And what do I have to show for it?
Nothing.
No—that’s not true. I have a broken heart to match my broken uterus.
It wasn’t like this all the time. I wonder how many women, who see their marriage disintegrate, say that.
Before Aiden took over as CEO, he would wake up before me, make me coffee, and we’d drink it together while we ate breakfast. He was always home for dinner. He sent me text messages all day.
Even after the doctors said I had endometriosis, which had made me infertile, he never made me feel bad about it.
When I suggested we should adopt, he told me that would be a bad idea, considering his parents would have a problem with it.
We talked about surrogacy. We talked about a lot of things regarding having children—not once did he tell me that he resented me for us not being able to have children.
All that changed when he became the CEO and Diana returned to Burlington.
It started slowly, the way these things usually do.
A missed dinner—followed by an apology.
A missed birthday—followed by flowers and an apology.
A missed wedding anniversary—followed by a gift, flowers, and an apology.
And then he started missing more and more…and stopped apologizing.
Just a casual, “You understand, don’t you, baby? It’s so busy.”
As if I didn’t even deserve an explanation.
I took it. I swallowed my hurt. I wanted to be supportive. I wanted to be a good wife.
I wanted to—God help me—keep him.
Tears fill my eyes.
I was afraid of losing him.
That’s the reason I let his family abuse me.
Let him disrespect me by spending more and more time with another woman.
I allowed this to happen.
I was so busy being a good wife, I didn’t realize that I was compensating for him being a shit husband.
I mean, who takes his work wife (yeah, I know what they call Diana) to Paris on his wedding anniversary? An asshole does. A man who isn’t worthy of being called husband.
I let my need for a family take precedence over my need to be seen. I kept shrinking, kept smiling, kept hoping and praying that Aiden wouldn’t leave me.
And now?
Now, I’m lying in a bed we picked out together, in a house I helped turn into a home, wondering how long I’ve been disappearing—little pieces at a time.
I turn my head to look at his side of the bed. It’s empty. Devoid.
Deciding to leave him has resulted in heartache, absolutely.
But surprisingly, there is also peace.
I no longer have to live in fear that he’s going to abandon me, because that already happened.
I don’t have to be terrified of him asking me for a divorce, because that’s happening.
I don’t have to be petrified of the idea that he’s going to choose another, better woman, because… he’s done that, too.
All my nightmares have come true, so I don’t have to fear them anymore.
I lay a hand on the cold pillow.
Is he working in his office downstairs, or is he mourning the version of us that I’m still fighting to remember?
My eyes fall on the photo on his nightstand. It’s his favorite. At least that’s the bullshit he sold me.
It’s when we got engaged. It’s candid.
The bookstore manager took it. That’s where he proposed to me, where we first met. Aiden had told her he was planning on proposing to me, so she was ready for it.
I’m laughing while he kisses my lips.
The ring is beautiful.
My eyes are filled with happiness.
His smile is wide.
We look like a couple who’ll make it.
I look away from it, draw my hand back from the unoccupied pillow, and rest my chin on the fist I curl beneath it as I turn my back to his side of the bed.
I don’t cry.
I’ve cried enough.
I have pain, yes. But I also have a plan.
I have the divorce papers. I am going to reclaim my dignity. I’m not going to be a doormat any longer. I’m going to be someone I can be proud of.
But…the ache in my chest tells me one thing—
No matter how broken he’s made me feel, I still love him.
And that might be the cruelest betrayal of all.
When the bedroom door opens, I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
I’ve never done this.
I waited for him, cuddled with him, and talked to him. And, now I realize, forced him to pay attention to me.
I hear the gentle click of the handle, the faint shuffle of his bare feet on the carpet.
Aiden. He moves quietly, like he thinks I might be asleep. Or maybe he’s hoping I am?
He goes into the bathroom. I hear the sounds of the shower, the toothbrush, of Aiden—familiar sounds, routine, intimate.
Will I miss this in two nights?
Those are the number of nights we have left together.
Tonight.
Tomorrow night.
And then it’s Christmas Eve, when we’ll open presents after dinner, as is the Winter tradition. The kids get their presents before dinner so they can be put to bed right after they finish eating—shuttled off with nannies who don’t get Christmas off.
That’s when I will end this.
Aiden slips under the covers beside me, his body warm and familiar, and somehow, because of that kiss I saw him sharing with Diana, cold and strange.
I used to turn toward him, automatically. My cheek would find his chest, his arm would wrap around my waist. I’d exhale like I’d come home.
I don’t move now. I lie there, tense, facing away.
A moment passes. Two.
Then his hand rests lightly on my hip.
“Mia,” he murmurs, voice low. He shifts closer, his body curling around mine.
His fingers brush the bare skin at my waist, under the edge of my sleep shirt.
His mouth finds the curve of my neck, presses a kiss there. Soft. Tentative.
I feel nothing. No spark. No flutter. Just a rising wave of cold.
I make a sound like I’m fast asleep.
He kisses my shoulder.
“Baby, wake up,” he cajoles, trying again, like we haven’t drifted into two entirely different solar systems.
I mumble something like I’m in the middle of my REM cycle.
I don’t know if I’m fooling him or not, but I don’t care.
I can’t make love with him. Not after he was with another woman.
I saw them kiss, but they’ve probably had sex, too. Did he ever make love to her and then come home and fuck me? Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Fucking…when there is no love?
I relax my body to convince him to leave me alone so I can sleep.
How many wives do this as a way to not have sex with their spouses?
The cliché of it stings, but the truth behind it is worse. I’m in so much pain, from what he did, from holding back the truth, from pretending we’re still us.
He hesitates. His hand lingers a moment before he withdraws it.
I can feel the tension seeping out of him.
Confusion.
Frustration.
Guilt?
I almost want to comfort him. The old me would. She would’ve rolled over and kissed him. Told him it was okay. That she understood. That tomorrow would be better.
But that Mia has packed her bags and left.
I feel his lips brush against my cheek. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
That guts me. He calls Diana sweetheart, too. Is he thinking of her right now?
I don’t say anything.
If I open my mouth, I’ll scream. Or cry. Or admit that I miss him, too, and that would be worse than either of those.
He lies on his back.
I listen to his breathing settle.
It doesn’t take him long—it never does. Five minutes later, he’s out.
It takes me longer to fall asleep as I grieve the loss of the illusion of Aiden, of a man who made me believe love was enough. A man who doesn’t exist.
I have to face facts. He doesn’t love me; if he did, he wouldn’t have touched Diana. If he did, he wouldn’t have abandoned me the way he has.
The kiss I witnessed is the culmination of what’s been going on for two long years.
That kiss was my wake-up call.