After years of marriage, countless holidays, a thousand little routines, morning coffee brewed before she even got out of bed, the way he used to leave the porch light on when she came home late from work—after all of that, it ended in just two days.
Two days and two lawyers.
Selena sat in the conference room of the law office, surrounded by polished furniture and air that smelled faintly of paper and disinfectant. The room was cold despite the late spring sun pouring through the glass walls. She crossed her arms tightly, her back stiff against the leather chair. Her lawyer murmured some legal term she didn't quite catch, but she didn't ask for clarification. She simply didn't really care anymore.
Across from her sat Peter. He was dressed like he couldn't decide if he wanted to look respectable or casual—blue shirt, no tie, blazer draped on the back of his chair. His sleeves were rolled up, forearms tanned, fingers tapping a rhythm on the smooth wooden surface of the table. Impatient, irritated, detached. Those were words to describe him at that moment.
They hadn't spoken much since that morning. Now, they just sat like two strangers finalizing the terms of a failed business deal.
The attorney on Peter's side cleared his throat and began reading aloud. Formal words. Standard clauses. Language is meant to keep things neutral. Selena's gaze drifted to the window behind him, where the downtown skyline blurred in the midday haze.
Under Texas law, a divorce needs sixty days to process before the first hearing. It was a built-in pause—time to reconsider, cool off, maybe make amends. But there were no amends here. Just the cold mechanics of division.
Still, both she and Peter had agreed to fast-track the inevitable. They would sort the property now, avoiding the prolonged tug-of-war most couples found themselves trapped in. No more back-and-forths. No court drama. Just signatures and silence.
Peter had been the first to speak up when the question of assets came up.
"I'll give her half," he said, casually, like he was tossing a tip on the table. "She can have fifty percent of everything. Including my earnings."
Selena didn't react. Not at first.
Her lawyer gave her a quick, surprised look, then leaned over to whisper in her ear, "That's generous. More than fair. We can accept."
But Selena simply shook her head.
"I don't want half," she said, her voice even, quiet. "I just want two hundred and fifty thousand."
The air shifted.
Selena's lawyer from all of them looks the most surprised in the room.
Peter sat up straighter, eyebrows raised. "Two-fifty?" he repeated, like she'd said something ridiculous. "You're serious?"
Selena nodded once, her eyes never leaving the paper in front of her.
Peter laughed in just disbelief, curdled with bitterness.
"Jesus," he muttered, leaning back. "You're walking away from a million-dollar settlement for pocket change?"
Selena didn't answer. She didn't owe him one.
He stared at her for a moment longer. Then his lips twisted into a smile, the kind that made her stomach knot.
"Well," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "I guess Jack will provide for you anyway."
There it was. The name. The knife. And he knew exactly where to stab.
Her fingers tightened in her lap. But her face didn't change.
She didn't flinch. Didn't rise to it. She'd cried enough. Shouted enough. Explained more than she should have. All she felt was just tired.
Peter turned to his lawyer with a wave of his hand. "Then process it," he said briskly. "So I don't have to meet her ever again."
Her.
Like she was a case file to close, a chapter to forget.
Selena sat motionless as he stood and left the room without looking back. The door clicked shut behind him, and with it, ten years of history disappeared like a sigh.
Her lawyer reached out, placing the final draft in front of her.
"All that's left is your signature," he said gently.
She nodded.
Outside, the day was too bright.
Selena walked to her car slowly, her heels clicking against the pavement. Traffic buzzed in the distance, people moved past her with coffee cups and briefcases and lives that hadn't just come undone.
She reached the car, resting her hand on the door handle, but didn't open it. Instead, she leaned her head against the window and exhaled, eyes fluttering shut.
She didn't want the house. Didn't want the furniture. Didn't care for the fine china they'd never used. Those things held memories she no longer trusted. They were soaked in silence, in nights spent lying awake beside someone who looked at her like she was a shadow.
Peter had offered her more than what she asked for, but she couldn't take it. She wasn't trying to win in their relationship. She wasn't trying to punish. She just wanted to leave without owing anyone a piece of her soul.
That night, the house felt colder than usual. The shadows are longer. Every room echoed a little louder. She sat alone still at the parking lot with the folder from her lawyer lying beside her seat. The final document. Neat and binding. It was strange how something so clean could contain so much pain.
She stared at it for a long time.
Not because she had doubts—she didn't—but because signing it felt like writing her own obituary. For the woman she used to be. For the life she had spent years pretending was still alive.
The phone buzzed on the counter. Her heart jumped. But when she picked it up, the name on the screen was not Jack.
It was her bank. A deposit notification.
$250,000.
It was done.
There would still be hearings, still a wait, but the rest was just formality. The cord had been cut.
She chose not to go home tonight. It was not a home for her, she said to herself. She passed familiar blocks without really seeing them, the streets blurring into one another, her mind blank and buzzing at the same time. She didn't know what she was looking for. Maybe nothing. Maybe just distance. Maybe just air that hadn't been filtered through Peter's presence.
Eventually, she turned onto a side street. One of those quiet, in-between neighborhoods with cracked pavement and streetlamps that flickered like they were tired too. She parked under a crooked tree near the end of the block. There were no other cars. No lights in the houses. Just a dog barking far away, then silence.
She shut off the engine and leaned her seat back. The folder with the signed papers still sat on the passenger seat like a ghost. For a long time, she just sat there. Breathing. Then she turned her head toward the window and closed her eyes.
The car was stuffy, but she didn't care. The seat was uncomfortable, her neck already aching, but it didn't matter. There was something oddly safe about being here. Suspended in a place that belonged to no one.