In the morning, I went through the divorce procedures. In the afternoon, my ex-husband took his mistress to buy a Rolls-Royce. My ex-husband said, “The car is only $1 million.
If you like it, just buy it.”
But the sales associate replied, “Sorry, sir, but all three of your credit cards…”
That morning, I signed my divorce papers. That afternoon, my ex-husband took his mistress to buy a Rolls-Royce. He told her, “It’s only a million dollars.
If you like it, we’ll take it.”
The salesman said, “I’m sorry, sir. All three of your cards have been declined.”
The Los Angeles County Courthouse was unusually cold this morning. It wasn’t the aggressive chill of overzealous air conditioning, but the profound coldness in the way people look at each other when they come here to sign a piece of paper that ends a life they built together.
I sat with my back straight on a gray plastic chair, a cheap blue ballpoint pen in my hand. Its tip rested lightly on the final page of the divorce agreement. On the table, the documents were stacked so neatly, as if everything could just be folded up, tucked into a drawer, and pretended it never existed.
But I knew some scratches aren’t on paper. They’re carved into your heart. Across from me was Richard, the man I’d been married to for five years.
He sat with his legs crossed, leaning back, one hand idly flicking a silver Zippo lighter, the other holding an unlit cigarette. His eyes on me weren’t filled with hatred, nor with sorrow. It was the look of a man who believed, with every fiber of his being, that he was winning.
The look of someone standing on high, watching a woman about to fall from the pedestal he called my wife. He smirked, his voice slow, but loud enough for the others waiting nearby to hear. “Once you sign that, Eleanor, you’re no longer Mrs.
Hayes. Don’t think for a second that this divorce means you’re free. There’s no one to pay the mortgage, the utilities, no one to support you like a child.
You’re 30 years old. What are you even going to do? Run home to your mother’s?”
I didn’t look up.
I just flipped to the page that needed my signature, pulled the agreement toward me, and placed the pen exactly where my name was supposed to go. My hand didn’t tremble. I had done all my trembling during the long sleepless nights alone, listening for the sound of his car returning late, smelling the foreign perfume clinging to his collar, and hearing the lies that were so smooth you could only believe them or turn yourself into a paranoid wreck.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
