6. Anika
— ? —
Anika
Friday arrived like an execution date.
I’d spent the whole day preparing. Hair appointment in the morning.
Nails at noon. A trip to the fancy grocery store for ingredients I would turn into his favorite meal: braised short ribs with rosemary potatoes, the recipe I’d learned in culinary class the year we got engaged.
The one I’d made him the first time he said he loved me.
I set the table myself. We originally planned a dinner out but I said that I’d like to do it at home so we could be extra spicy after.
So there was just me, folding napkins into swans the way I’d learned from YouTube, arranging candles in clusters that cast warm, flickering light across the white linen.
I wore the red dress. The one he’d bought me for our fifth anniversary.
The one he’d peeled off me that night with shaking hands.
Underneath, I was wearing lingerie. Black lace and silk, straps and clasps, the kind of thing designed to make a man lose his mind. The kind of thing I’d bought because I wanted him to see me. Really see me, the way he used to.
The table was set by six.
The candles were lit by seven.
By eight, the short ribs were perfect. By nine, they were drying out.
By ten, the candles had burned down to stubs.
I sat at the table, watching the wax pool on the linen, and waited.
My phone buzzed.
I picked it up with numb fingers. The screen glowed with his name and a message that took two seconds to read and destroyed eight years in the reading.
I’m very sorry Anika. Can we do this tomorrow? I really need to have this dinner with the Sundream CEO. The deal signing is delayed and this is the biggest deal we’ll ever have.
I read it three times.
Tomorrow. Can we do this tomorrow?
I set down the phone. Looked at the table I’d spent hours preparing. The flowers, the candles, the napkins folded into careful swans. The short ribs going cold in their dish. The champagne sweating in its bucket.
Then I looked at my hands that were perfectly manicured for the day. Trembling.
I stood up from the table and walked to our bedroom on autopilot. I unzipped the red dress and let it fall to the floor. Unhooked the expensive lingerie and dropped it on top. Then I opened his closet, pulled out the oldest, softest shirt I could find, and put it on.
It smelled like him. The smell of the man I’d married. The man who’d promised me forever and then scheduled me between deals.
I got into bed.
And I cried.
I cried until my chest ached. Until my eyes swelled shut.
Until the silk pillowcase was soaked through and I had to flip it over.
I cried for the girl who’d said yes in the rain.
For the woman who’d believed him every time he said he’d do better.
For the eight years I’d spent trying to be enough for someone who was never really there.
At some point, I slept.
Morning light woke me.
I lay there for a moment, disoriented. My eyes were crusted with dried tears. My throat was raw. The shirt I was wearing had twisted around me in the night, and I felt small inside it. Lost.
Then I heard the front door.
Footsteps in the hall. Confident and quick, like always. Neil Franco didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop to wonder if he was welcome.
I got up and washed my face. Applied makeup with steady hands, covering the evidence of my night. Foundation over the blotchy patches. Concealer under the swollen eyes. Mascara. Lip gloss. I watched my reflection transform from wrecked to presentable, and I felt something settle in my chest.
By the time I walked into the kitchen, I looked like I could host a dinner party.
Inside, I felt like a ticking bomb.
Neil was standing at the island. Still in last night’s suit, looking rumpled and tired and completely unaware of the devastation he’d left behind. He was pouring coffee, scrolling through his phone, and he smiled when he saw me.
That smile. The one that used to make my heart flip. Now it just made me want to throw something.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry about last night. The Sundream thing went late, and then…”
“You missed it.”
He stopped scrolling and looked at me. Actually looked, for the first time in what felt like weeks.
“I know. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me.” I repeated the words slowly, tasting each one. “You said that after the diary.”
“I know, but…”
“You said that after the gala.”
“Anika…”
“How many chances do you need?”
Neil set down his phone, which was probably a first. He turned to face me fully, and I saw concern flicker in his expression. Or just the dawning realization that this conversation wasn’t going the way he’d planned.
“I know I keep messing up,” he said carefully. “And I know you’re frustrated. But everything I’ve built, I built for you. For us. The company, the money, all of it. So we’d never have to worry about anything.”
I laughed. It came out bitter and broken.
“You built it for you, Neil.” I set down my coffee mug with a click that echoed in the quiet kitchen. “You built it because you love the power and the deals and the thrill of winning. I just clapped.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but I was already walking past him. Past the table still set for an anniversary dinner that never happened, the flowers were already wilting. Past eight years of trying to be enough.
I went to our bedroom and packed a small bag. Called a car.
He followed me, confusion giving way to something like alarm.
“Anika, wait. Where are you going? What’s happening?”
I didn’t answer. I walked out of the triplex with my suitcase rolling behind me and left him standing in the hallway, still wearing last night’s suit, still holding his phone, still not understanding what he’d done.
The elevator doors closed on his face.
I rode down sixty floors alone.
That afternoon, I sat in a lawyer’s office and signed paperwork that would end my marriage. I paid a hefty amount to expedite the process.
The words blurred on the page. Petition for dissolution. Irreconcilable differences. Eight years reduced to legal terminology and filing fees.
“We’ll have him served within the week,” the lawyer said. “Do you have a preferred location?”
I thought about it. Thought about all the places Neil felt invincible. The boardroom, the penthouse. The press conferences where he announced deals worth more than small countries.
“The Sundream signing,” I said. “Tomorrow morning. He’ll be at the press conference.”
The lawyer raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “We’ll make it happen.”
I walked out into the afternoon sun and took a cab to Anwesha’s apartment. She opened the door, took one look at my face, and pulled me inside without a word.
That night, I slept in her spare room, surrounded by half-finished canvases that I asked my housekeeper to send over to Anwesha’s address. I paid her for that too.
My phone stayed off.
Tomorrow, Neil would sign the biggest deal of his career. He’d built an empire. He’d closed a hundred deals. He’d never once considered that he might lose the only thing that actually mattered.
He didn’t see it coming.
But then again, he hadn’t been looking at me for a very long time.