Part 2The Night My Marriage Ended

The crowd grew, the noise escalating until someone called building security. People began to disperse. Jennifer grabbed my wrist, her grip like steel, and dragged me back inside.

She wasn’t giving up. “Noah, you were just saying that to get a rise out of me, right? It was a joke?” she pressed, her eyes searching mine for a flicker of the man she knew. “I’ve given medicine to neighbors before. You never cared. I don’t believe you’d—”

Her voice was becoming a grating buzz in my ears. I cut her off. Not with words, but with my hand.

The sharp crack of my palm against her cheek echoed in the sudden silence.

“If your brain isn’t working, go get it checked,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “But stop your damn whining in my house.”

I turned away. “Monday. Be ready. Don’t make this uglier than it has to be.”

Without another glance, I slammed the bedroom door shut.

It was the first time I had ever been so completely, utterly cold to her. Even her legendary patience had its limits. I heard a vicious thud as her foot connected with the door.

“Noah, this is insane! You have to stop this!” she screamed through the wood. “I am not agreeing to a divorce. Not now, not ever. So don't even think about it!”

The front door slammed shut, the sound rattling the apartment. But inside me, there was only a profound calm. An unprecedented sense of release.

Is it finally ending?

I didn’t waste any time. I packed a bag with my essentials and got on my laptop, finding a lawyer and initiating the divorce proceedings online.

Sleep never came. As dawn broke, the apartment was empty. Jennifer was gone, but on the coffee table sat a bouquet of roses. It was her peace offering. For years, whenever we fought, she’d buy me flowers. That night, she’d cook my favorite meal, and we’d fall back into our rhythm, the argument forgotten. It was our unspoken ritual of reconciliation.

But not this time. This time, there was no going back.

I picked up the exquisitely wrapped bouquet. There were supposed to be nine roses, but I counted only eight.

I knew exactly where the ninth one had gone.

After tossing them in the trash, I headed for the door, only to trip on something lumpy under the rug. I bent down and picked it up. It was a new, unreleased Rolex. A buddy of mine who worked at a high-end boutique had told me about this model just last week.

I hadn’t worn a watch in years. My job didn’t allow for it.

But I remembered something. Liam loved watches.

…

My phone buzzed, shattering the quiet. It was one of Jennifer’s colleagues from the hospital.

“Noah, you need to get down to the hospital, now,” she said, her voice strained with panic. “Jennifer… she’s had a severe allergic reaction to something. We need a family member to sign off on the procedure.”

Her parents lived hours away. There was no time.

I drove, my hands steady on the wheel. When I arrived, the scene was chaotic. Her friends and colleagues surrounded me, their faces a mixture of fear and anger. In front of them all, I laid out my terms.

“I’ll sign,” I said, my voice clear and steady. “As soon as she signs the divorce papers.”

The room erupted. A close friend of ours lunged at me, his face contorted with rage. “You son of a bitch! Have you lost your mind?”

“She was only testing that new drug so she could get a few extra days off to spend with you!” another colleague yelled. “And this is how you repay her? Demanding a divorce while she’s lying in a hospital bed? Are you even human?”

“We heard what happened last night,” someone else added, her voice dripping with contempt. “She did the right thing. That child could have died. How could you be so cruel?”

From the hospital bed, Jennifer looked at me, her eyes wide with a despair that should have broken my heart.

“Noah… please,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “I don’t want a divorce. I’ll be better. I’ll pay more attention to you. Please, just… stop this.”

She reached a trembling hand toward me, tears tracing paths down her pale cheeks. It was a picture of pure, heart-wrenching devotion. Anyone else would have melted.

I remained perfectly still, my expression unreadable. “Sign the divorce papers and the asset division agreement,” I repeated, my voice like ice, “and I’ll sign the surgical consent form.”

The room exploded in a fresh wave of fury.

“You’re a monster! All you care about is the money!”

“I can’t believe this. They should be saving you, you bastard!”

Through the storm of insults, another sound reached my ears. A small, almost imperceptible noise from the other side of the room.

Ignoring the chaos around me, I strode forward, every eye in the room following my path. With one swift, decisive motion, I ripped back the privacy curtain separating the beds.