Chapter Ten Julian #3
The paper is warm. Or maybe that is my imagination. Maybe my hands are so cold that anything they touch feels warm.
Two sentences.
That’s all she left.
Two sentences that tear my life in two.
My throat closes. My heartbeat stutters, then slams painfully against my ribs. A wound rips open in my chest, and through the gap comes a sound I didn’t know I could make. “No.”
I read it again.
And again.
I stare at the loops of the letters until they become meaningless black smudges on a yellow field.
The paper blurs and sharpens, blurs and sharpens.
My eyes are wet. I didn’t notice when that happened.
I don’t remember crying. But there are tears on my cheeks, warm and salt, and I don’t wipe them away because wiping them away will mean accepting that they are there.
I let them roll down my face.
The letters don’t change.
She’s gone.
She actually left.
“Nora?” Her name shatters against my teeth. Dry and chalky.
I clear my throat and try again, louder, firmer, the authoritative call of a husband summoning his wife.
“Nora.”
Silence answers.
My gaze drops to the space beside the note. Her phone. And beside it—
Her wedding ring.
The world tilts, the edges of my vision dissolving into a blur.
The ring is the thing that finishes me.
A tiny yet heavy lead weight dropped into the center of the room.
“No—no, no, no—” My hands tremble so badly the note flutters. The paper slips between my fingers and drifts toward the floor. I grab for it, miss, grab again, and crush it in my fist. “Nora!”
I don’t even recognize the guttural scream that tears from my throat. It sounds like an animal being slaughtered in a distant room. It is raw, unpracticed and absolutely repulsive.
I grip the edge of the desk, the wood biting into my palms, my knuckles bleaching of all colour, until they look like polished bone. The edge is sharp. The pain is real. I hold onto it, because this stinging pain is the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
She left the phone.
She left me.
She left the ring.
She does not want to be my wife anymore.
How long had she been planning this?
I see it in my head. Her blank small face as a mask of compliance while her brain performs the cold calculation of her leaving me.
Was she just waiting for me to let my guard down?
Was there ever a part of her that considered giving me a chance?
Did she spend these last months secretly despising me?
“I was fixing it,” I choke out, the words swallowed by the empty house. “I was making it right. I ended it with Briana. I was choosing you. I chose you.”
The house does not care.
My thoughts spiral into a sickening whirlwind.
Did she ever plan on forgiving me? Was she going to leave no matter what I did? Was there ever a chance, or was I just fooling myself?
A wave of nausea rolls through me, heavy and hot.
My stomach lurches, and I taste the acerbic, sour sting of bile at the back of my throat. I lean over the desk, my forehead pressing against the cool wood, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
My chest feels too tight. The world shifts in and out of focus. The floor is swimming beneath my feet.
Everything feels wrong.
The colours are wrong. The light is wrong. The air is wrong.
My eyes are dragged back to the desk. I pick up the ring, my fingers shaking so violently I can barely grasp it.
It’s cold.
So, so cold.
A dead, final cold.
A cold, golden tooth pulled from the mouth of a dead body. I hold the ring up to the light, staring at the empty space where her finger used to be, waiting for the utterly useless circle of gold to explain why I am still standing here while my wife has vanished.
I cannot accept that she is gone. I cannot accept that she left. I cannot accept that the woman I love has chosen to walk away from me, from us, from everything we built.
“She can’t be gone,” I rasp, the words cutting the stagnant air.
Not like this.
Not without a word.
Not without a fight.
Not without giving me the chance to finally be the man I promised I would be.
Not without a warning.
I collapse onto the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. The duvet is linen and crisp, too smooth, too clean, too perfect under my weight.
My wife left me.
This isn’t real.
This can’t be my life.
I am Julian. I have a good job. A nice house with a nice lawn.
A beautiful wife. I am the kind of man who other men envy and women want.
I am the natural, polished image of everything others lack.
The career. The symmetry. The effortless ease of a life that looks like it was curated by a professional. That’s how it has always been.
I don’t get left. I don’t get abandoned. I don’t get reduced to a post-it note and an indifferent ring on a desk.
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, the room will be different. The note will be gone. The ring will be cinched on her slender finger. She will be in the kitchen, stirring a pot. I will walk in and wrap my arms around her. She will lean back into my chest. Everything will be as it was.
I open my eyes.
The note is still there. The ring is still in my hand. The house is still silent.
A thought locks into place.
“No,” I whisper.
No.
She isn’t really gone.
She can’t be.
She is just… angry. Hurt. This is a punishment. A cry for attention. A test. It has to be. A test of my commitment. A test of my love. She wants to see if I’ll fight for her, or if I’ll just stand here and let the house get dusty.
“She’ll come back,” I say aloud, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat.
She has to.
The alternative is unthinkable. The alternative is a future without her. The alternative is an empty house, an empty bed, an empty life.
This is temporary.
She’s overwhelmed.
She’s not thinking clearly.
She’s acting out of emotion, not logic.
She’s confused.
But she’ll calm down.
She’ll realize she can’t just leave. She’ll realize she belongs here. Belongs right here, nestled into the grooves of our life, like a piece of furniture that’s finally settled into the floorboards.
With me.
“She’s not gone,” I mutter, surging to my feet and pacing the room, the ring a cold, hard knot in my sweating palm. “She’s just… upset. That’s all. She just needs time.”
Yes.
Time.
That’s all.
Time heals all wounds. Time erases all sins. Time turns betrayal into memory and memory into forgiveness.
She’ll realize she made a mistake, that leaving was a rash decision, that the note was written in anger, not in truth. I’m the only one who knows how to turn the lights on for her. She just needs to sit in the dark long enough to remember that. That she loves me. She needs me.
I cross to the window. The street outside is empty.
She’ll come home. She’ll walk back in with that quiet little nod she always gives. Her eyes will find mine again. She’ll learn to forgive me.
She has to.
“She’ll come back,” I say loudly, daring the air not to believe me.
She has to.
She’s my wife.
And wives don’t just leave.
Not really.
Not forever.
I look down at the ring in my hand. The gold gleams in the light. I will find her. I will bring her home. I will make her see that we belong together.
And if she will not come willingly—
No. I don’t finish that thought. I shove it down, bury it, lock it away.
She will come willingly.
Because she loves me.
And love does not just disappear.
It cannot.
I will not let it.