The Los Angeles County Courthouse was unusually cold that morning. Not the aggressive chill of overzealous air conditioning, but the profound coldness that settles when two people who once promised forever sit across from each other, preparing to sign away their shared history. 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 our divorce agreement.
The documents were stacked so neatly on the table, as if everything could just be folded up, tucked into a drawer, and forgotten. But I knew some wounds aren’t on paper.
They’re carved into your heart. Across from me sat Richard, the man I’d been married to for five years.
He leaned back with his legs crossed, one hand idly flicking a silver Zippo lighter, the other holding an unlit cigarette.
His eyes on me weren’t filled with hatred or 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 fall.
He smirked, his voice slow but loud enough for others nearby to hear.
“Once you sign that, Eleanor, you’re no longer Mrs. Hayes.
Don’t think for a second this divorce means you’re free. There’s no one to pay your bills anymore, no one to support you like a child.
You’re thirty 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 and pulled the agreement toward me.
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 foreign perfume on his collar, and hearing lies so smooth you could either believe them or drive yourself mad. I had chosen a third option: silence, observation, and documentation.
Richard looked at me like I was outdated furniture. “Silent treatment, huh?
Don’t pretend to be strong.
You’ve gotten used to living off me.”
I signed my name. The script was neat and clean, not a single stroke out of place. As I set the pen down, I felt a door slam shut inside my chest.
Not the door to love—that had died long ago—but the door to my own silent endurance.
I pushed the agreement across the table. The paper rustled softly, but to me it sounded like a tether breaking.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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