Seven Years, Instant Regret

mal instinct. My nails went for his face, the face I h

eamed, the sound tea

ily overpowering me. He was st

! You've los

he scuffle, lit up. A call was coming throug

lo

ed over a fallen picture frame and landed hard on the floor. He didn't even gla

y? No, I'm home. Ju

rom me. He turned his back, lowering his voice into

them. Innocent, worried, maybe even a little te

ing hysterical." He listened for another moment, his jaw tig

ion colder than I had ever seen it. It was li

he space between us a silent battlefield. T

d, my voice dangerously low.

weary sigh, as if I were a childish problem he had to solve. "

me, and I'm the one with the problem? You lie to my

over me. All the pain, all the betrayal,

ke poison. "You want me to be calm?

e him see the magnitude of what he had done

something unreadable c

ice completely level. "

had thrown my last weapon, and he had simply caught it and turned it

sound barely audible.

suffocating. I had just han

stumbling to my fee

palm, but I didn't feel it. I threw it against the wall, a pathetic,

h a weak tinkle.

care. The pain was a distant echo compared to the chasm opening in my chest. I grabb

washed away by a tidal wave of fear. "Don't l

e impassive. "Elara, get up.

He was disgusted by m

into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded

ce pa

s from three weeks ago. He had been planning this all

," he said, as if that were some kind o

confident signature. My world narrowe

sslike, "the house, the cars, a generous settlement. Eve

uestion was

oe deserves better than to be some dirty secret. She has pride. She's n

er our seven years. O

r. A cold, hard fury. He wanted to throw me away fo

him, my tears d

or you. If I'm miserable, you're going to be miserable with me. You want to be

he would see the fire in my eyes and

his head, a small, pi

he said with ab

the ruins of our life, the divorce papers lying like a tombstone at m