002: Three years

Anastasia's POV

For a second, nobody moved.

Lucas stood there with coffee dripping down his face and chest, his mouth hanging open in shock. Jennifer froze on the bed with the sheet clutched to her chest and her eyes went wide. I stared at my empty hand, at the coffee cup that had slipped from my fingers and landed on the floor with a thud.

I could not believe what I just did.

But I had no single regret about it. It was just too bad the coffee was no longer piping hot. Watching Lucas stand there so smug and cruel, listening to him call me boring and simple like I was nothing, I was certainly not going to swallow that insult.

Lucas wiped coffee from his eyes as his face turned red. "You crazy bitch!"

His voice snapped me out of my shock and I took a step back. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

"I'm calling the police," Lucas said as he grabbed his phone from the nightstand. "You just assaulted me and I'm going to have you arrested."

I should have been scared at that moment, but instead I became even more angry. He cheated on me with my own cousin in my own bed, ended our entire three years of marriage with some stupid papers, he was kicking me out of my own house, and he had the audacity to threaten to have me arrested for throwing barely warm coffee at him?

"Go ahead," I said with the strongest tone I could muster. "Call them and explain why I threw the coffee. Tell them how you've been lying to me and deceiving me for years about our marriage. I'm sure they'll be very sympathetic," I added.

Jennifer finally scrambled out of the bed. She grabbed tissues from the nightstand to start dabbing at Lucas's chest. "Baby, you're burned, we need to run cold water on this."

I almost laughed because there were no signs of burns on him. I had been holding that coffee for almost twenty minutes while driving home and standing in the hallway listening to them.

Lucas pushed Jennifer's hand away and pointed at me. "You think you're so smart but you have nothing, Anastasia. Nothing. You have absolutely no rights to anything in this apartment."

"I know," I said and my voice nearly shook but I refused to cry in front of him. "You made that very clear."

I bent down and picked up the folder he had dropped. The papers were scattered across the floor. I gathered them up even though my hands were shaking because I did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart. The words on the papers blurred together as tears filled my eyes but I blinked them back.

Lucas was still talking and his voice got louder. "You're pathetic, you know that? I wasted three years on you and for what? You couldn't even keep me interested."

I stood up with the papers clutched in my hand and looked at him, at the man I thought I loved, the man I married in Vegas and spent three years trying to make happy. How did I not see what he really was?

"You're right," I said quietly. "I am pathetic because I actually believed you cared about me."

"Keep the house because I don't need proof that our marriage was fake. I have all the proof I need right here."

I turned to walk away but Lucas' voice followed me. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Away from your sight. You disgust me," I said without looking back.

"You have until tomorrow!" Lucas shouted. "I'm changing the locks. If you're not out by end of day tomorrow, you have yourself to blame!"

I kept walking down the hallway with my head up and my shoulders straight even though my whole body was shaking. I could hear Jennifer's voice behind me, sweet and concerned as she fussed over Lucas. The sound made me sick.

I grabbed my purse and my coat from where I had left them by the door and was about to leave when Lucas appeared at the bottom of the stairs. he had put on a shirt but it was not buttoned right. "And Anastasia? Don't even think about taking anything that belongs to me."

I looked him up and down and turned away without another word. Because I was on the verge of giving his stupid ass a black eye.

"You're leaving with exactly what you came with," Lucas screamed after me. "Nothing."

I walked out and pulled the door shut behind me. I could still hear Lucas shouting something but his voice was muffled now. My legs felt weak as I walked down the front steps but I forced myself to keep moving.

I walked toward my car with my head up even though tears were already starting to blur my vision. I wiped them away with the back of my hand but more kept coming. I kept my head up anyway because even though no one could see me, I needed to prove to myself that I was stronger than this.

As soon as I pulled the door of my car shut, everything hit me all at once and I broke.

The sobs came from somewhere deep in my chest and I could not stop them. I cried so hard I could barely breathe and my whole body shook. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel as tears poured down my face and dripped onto my lap.

Three years and it was all a lie. The wedding, the promises, the life we built together. None of it was real and I had been so stupid to believe it was, despite his behavior. I gave him everything I had and he threw it back in my face.

I cried until my eyes burned and I had no tears left. Then I just sat there in the silence of my car, staring at nothing and feeling completely empty.

I needed to go somewhere but I could not go back into that house and I had nowhere else to go. My parents were dead and I had no other family besides Jennifer and her mother, Aunt Dora, and that was obviously not an option anymore.

I started the car and backed out of the driveway without knowing where I was going. The sun was setting and the sky was turning orange and pink but it all looked gray to me.

At a red light I got a voicemail from Lucas. I almost deleted it without listening but just decided to press play.

He sounded calm and almost friendly. "Anastasia, I've decided not to press charges for the assault as a final gift to you. Consider it my way of saying thank you for the last three years, even if they were a waste of my time."

The sheer audacity of this foolish man! I thought to myself.

"But I want you to know something and I want you to remember this. For humiliating and embarrassing me today, I'm going to make sure you lose everything, starting with that pathetic little bakery you care so much about. By the time I'm done with you, you'll have nothing left."

The voicemail ended.