Chapter 5
Jennifer
I didn't sleep.
I lay in our bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence of the house settling around me like a tomb. Clayton was somewhere downstairs, probably drinking himself into oblivion, and I should have felt satisfied by that. Should have felt vindicated.
Instead, I just felt hollow.
The sheets smelled like him. His cologne, his skin, that indefinable scent that was just Clayton and had been imprinted on my brain for eight years. I'd buried my face in his pillow so many nights when he worked late, breathing him in like a lovesick teenager. Now the smell made my stomach turn.
I got up before dawn, my body aching from hours of lying rigid and sleepless.
The mirror in the bathroom showed me a woman I barely recognized.
Swollen eyes. Mascara smudged beneath my lashes from tears I'd tried to pretend weren't falling.
The four-thousand-dollar dress was still pooled on the floor where I'd stepped out of it, champagne silk crumpled like discarded skin.
I left it there.
The closet felt different in the gray morning light. Smaller, somehow. Suffocating. I ran my fingers along the row of clothes Clayton had bought me over the years, silk and cashmere and Italian leather, each piece beautiful and expensive and chosen by someone who thought he knew what I wanted.
He didn't know anything about me. Not really.
I pulled out a suitcase from the back of the closet and set it on the bed.
My hands were steady as I began to pack, selecting only the things I'd bought myself.
The soft cream blouse from the boutique in the arts district.
The tailored trousers I'd splurged on after landing my first major design contract.
The gold earrings my mother had given me before she died.
Everything else could stay. Let Clayton look at it. Let him remember.
The bedroom door opened behind me, and I didn't have to turn around to know it was him. I could feel his presence like a change in air pressure, heavy and electric and impossible to ignore.
"What are you doing?"
His voice was rough, wrecked from alcohol or sleeplessness or both. I didn't care.
"Packing," I said without looking at him.
"Jen." He crossed the room in three long strides, and suddenly he was behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body. His hand closed around my wrist, stopping me mid-fold. "Stop. Talk to me."
"I talked to you last night." I kept my voice flat, emotionless, even though my heart was racing so fast I felt dizzy. "You didn't listen."
"I'm listening now."
I finally turned to face him, and the sight of him nearly cracked my resolve.
He looked like hell. His dress shirt was wrinkled and half-unbuttoned, his hair a disaster, his jaw shadowed with stubble.
His hazel eyes were bloodshot and desperate, and there were lines around his mouth I'd never noticed before.
He looked like a man who'd been broken.
Good, I thought viciously. Now you know how it feels.
"Let go of me," I said quietly.
"No." His grip tightened on my wrist, not painfully but firm enough that I couldn't pull free without a struggle. "I'm not letting you leave."
"You don't get to make that decision."
"Jennifer." He stepped closer, using his body to crowd me against the edge of the bed.
His free hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone with a gentleness that made my chest ache.
"I know I fucked up. I know I hurt you. But we can fix this.
We can go to counseling, talk to someone, figure out where it went wrong. "
"I know where it went wrong." I held his gaze, refusing to flinch. "It went wrong when you decided I wasn't worth trusting with the real parts of your life. It went wrong when you chose Grace Shields as your emotional partner and left me with nothing but your body and your credit cards."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" I laughed bitterly. "Tell me something, Clayton. When's the last time you told me something real? Something that scared you? Something that mattered?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. The silence stretched between us, damning and familiar.
"That's what I thought." I twisted my wrist free from his grip and stepped around him, returning to the suitcase.
". I have a small loft downtown, near the studio.
I was hoping I wouldn't have to ever use it.
I was hoping you'd notice that something was wrong and actually do something about it.
" I zipped the suitcase closed with a harsh, final sound. "But you didn't notice. You never do."
"A small loft?" His voice cracked on the words. "You've already been planning to leave?"
"I've been wondering if I’d have to leave for six months." I turned to face him again, and the devastation on his face almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost. "I've been waiting for you to give me a reason to stay. Last night, you gave me a reason to go."
"Jen, please." He reached for me again, but I stepped back, holding up my hand to stop him. "I'll do anything. Whatever you want. Just don't walk out that door."
"It's too late for that."
"It's not." He moved faster than I expected, closing the distance between us and grabbing my shoulders with both hands.
His grip was firm, almost bruising, and he ducked his head until his forehead was pressed against mine.
"I love you. I know I haven't shown it right, I know I've been a fucking disaster, but I love you more than anything in this world. "
My breath caught in my throat. This close, I could see every fleck of gold in his hazel eyes, every tiny line and imperfection in his skin. I could smell the scotch on his breath and the desperation rolling off him in waves, and god help me, I still wanted him. Even now. Even after everything.
My body was a traitor.
"If you loved me," I whispered, "you would have talked to me."
"I was scared."
"So was I." The words came out broken, jagged.
"I've been scared for years, Clayton. Scared that I was losing you.
Scared that you didn't want me anymore. Scared that I'd wake up one day and realize I'd wasted my entire life waiting for a man who was never going to let me in.
" I pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes.
"And you know what? That's exactly what happened. "
"Don't say that."
"It's true." I stepped out of his grip, and this time he let me go.
My hands were shaking as I grabbed the suitcase from the bed, but my voice was steady.
"I can't do this anymore. I can't keep begging for scraps of attention while you give the best parts of yourself to everyone else. I deserve more than that."
"I know you do." His voice was wrecked, raw with emotion I'd never heard from him before. "Let me give it to you. Let me try."
I stopped at the bedroom door, the suitcase heavy in my hand. Part of me wanted to put it down, to run back into his arms and let him convince me that everything would be okay. That voice in my head was loud, insistent, desperate.
But I'd listened to that voice for eight years, and it had led me here. To this moment. To this empty, aching hollow in my chest where my heart used to be.
"I'm going to stay at the loft for a while," I said without turning around. "I need space to think. To figure out what I want."
"What about what I want?"
The question made me laugh, and the sound was ugly. "You've had what you wanted for eight years, Clayton. A wife who looked pretty and fucked well and didn't ask too many questions. Congratulations. You got exactly what you paid for."
"That's not true." His footsteps followed me into the hallway, heavy and urgent. "That's never been true. You're not some trophy to me, Jennifer. You're my wife. My partner. My everything."
"Am I?" I stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face him one last time. "Because Grace Shields seems to think she holds that position. And honestly? Based on everything I learned last night, I'm starting to think she might be right."
His face went white. "That's not... I never..."
"It doesn't matter." I was so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of begging. Tired of loving someone who kept me locked outside the most important rooms of his life. "I need you to let me go, Clayton. If you ever really loved me, you'll give me that."
He stood frozen at the top of the stairs, his hands clenched at his sides, every muscle in his body visibly straining against the urge to stop me.
I watched him fight himself, watched the war play out across his features, and for one terrifying moment I thought he was going to grab me and refuse to let me leave.
Instead, he closed his eyes and stepped back.
"Okay," he said hoarsely. "Okay."
I walked down the stairs and through the living room, past the bar cart with its half-empty bottle of scotch, past the floor-to-ceiling windows with their stunning view of the city, past the kitchen where I'd made him breakfast a thousand mornings while he scrolled through emails and ignored my attempts at conversation.
The front door felt heavier than usual. Or maybe that was just me.
I paused with my hand on the knob and looked back one last time. Clayton was standing at the bottom of the stairs now, watching me with an expression that made my chest crack open.
"I left my ring on your desk," I said quietly. "I thought you should know."
His whole body flinched like I'd shot him.
I opened the door and stepped outside, the early morning air cool against my tear-streaked cheeks. The sun was just coming up over the city skyline, painting everything in shades of gold and pink, and it felt obscene that the world could be so beautiful when my life was falling apart.
I loaded my suitcase into the trunk of my car and slid behind the wheel. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition, but I managed. I always managed. That was what I did.
As I pulled out of the driveway, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Clayton standing in the doorway of our house. Our beautiful, empty, lifeless house. He was still in his wrinkled shirt and bare feet, watching me leave like a man watching his own execution.
I didn't wave.
I didn't look back again.
I just drove, the tears streaming down my face faster than I could wipe them away, my heart shattering into pieces too small to ever be put back together.
I'd done it. I'd actually done it.
I was free.
So why did it feel like I was dying?