Giving up

Evangeline POV

I didn’t know how I made it up the stairs.

I barely felt my feet moving.

Everything around me was just a blur of walls and furniture, my vision tunneled by the furious pounding of my heart.

I shoved open our bedroom door and lunged for the closet. My hands were trembling so hard I could barely pull down the suitcase from the top shelf.

It crashed onto the floor with a loud thud.

I didn’t care.

I dropped to my knees and yanked open drawers, grabbing whatever clothes I could, stuffing them into the suitcase without folding, without thinking. My fingers burned, my throat was raw from holding back the scream clawing its way up.

How could he?

How could he do this to me?

The bedroom door slammed open behind me.

"Evangeline!" Nathan's voice roared through the room.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t stop packing.

I heard him cross the room in two angry strides. I barely had time to react before he grabbed my wrist and yanked me back hard.

"Where the hell do you think you’re going?" he growled, his grip bruising.

Without thinking, I spun around — and slapped him.

The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot.

He stumbled back a step, stunned, holding his cheek.

"Don’t you ever fucking touch me again!" I screamed, my voice shaking with rage, with betrayal, with the kind of heartbreak that made your whole body tremble.

Nathan stared at me, his chest heaving, his face red.

And then he laughed. A hollow, ugly sound.

"You’re seriously leaving because of this?" he sneered, wiping his mouth. "Oh, come on, Evangeline. Don’t act like you’re some innocent saint."

I froze, my fists clenching at my sides.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I hissed.

"You really wanna stand there," he said, stepping closer, "and pretend like you’ve been the perfect wife? Like you didn’t abandon this family long before today?"

I shook my head, blinking in disbelief. "I worked for this family, Nathan. Every damn day. I broke my back trying to provide because someone—" I jabbed my finger at him "—was too lazy to lift a damn finger!"

His mouth twisted into a sneer.

"Oh, is that what you call it? Providing?" he spat. "Running off every night to your 'business dinners' and 'conferences' and staying late at the office? You think I don’t know how you got all those promotions?"

I stared at him, stunned.

"You think I didn’t hear the rumors?" Nathan said, his voice dripping with venom. "Everyone knows. Everyone fucking knows you were sleeping your way up the ladder. Probably fucking your bosses every chance you got."

My breath caught painfully in my throat.

He smirked, seeing the hurt flash across my face.

"Yeah," he said, voice low and mocking. "Keep it up, Evangeline. Maybe you’ll be CEO soon. All you gotta do is spread your legs a little wider."

The room tilted. I staggered back a step, the words hitting harder than any slap.

For a second, I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t breathe.

"You... you really think that little of me?" I finally whispered, my voice cracking.

Nathan shrugged carelessly.

"You weren’t here," he said coldly. "You were never here. Someone else had to be."

Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

I forced my chin up, my voice steady even as my heart splintered.

"And maybe," I said quietly, "if you’d bothered to get off your lazy ass and help provide for this family, I wouldn’t have had to kill myself working jobs and missing every goddamn milestone of my child’s life."

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t back down.

"I didn’t ask you to become a man," he snapped. "I didn’t ask you to act like some fucking breadwinner."

"Someone had to!" I shouted, the dam finally breaking. "Someone had to keep the lights on! Someone had to make sure our son had clothes and food and a goddamn roof over his head!"

I swiped angrily at my eyes.

"And while I was out there fighting for us, you were sitting here — jobless, hopeless — fucking the nanny!"

Nathan’s eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read — anger, shame, hatred — and he took a step toward me.

But I straightened, my voice dropping to a deadly calm.

"Don't you fucking dare," I hissed.

He froze.

I took a deep breath, the air burning in my lungs.

"If you so much as touch me again," I said slowly, enunciating every word, "I will scream so loud the neighbors will come running. And I will tell Noah exactly what his daddy did."

Nathan flinched, his face paling slightly.

I turned back to the suitcase and started shoving the last of my things inside. My hands were trembling, but I forced them to move.

This was it.

I was done.

"You’re really gonna destroy everything over one mistake?" Nathan said, his voice quieter now. Desperate.

I zipped up the suitcase and yanked it upright.

"You destroyed it," I said flatly. "The second you touched her, you destroyed everything."

I grabbed the handle of the suitcase and marched toward the door.

Nathan blocked my path.

"You’re overreacting," he said, his voice low, pleading. "You don’t have to do this, Evangeline. You’re just upset. Let’s just... talk about this. Calm down."

I stared at him, feeling absolutely nothing anymore.

"I want a divorce," I said.

The words tasted bitter and final on my tongue.

Nathan’s face crumpled, but I didn’t wait for a response.

I shoved past him, my suitcase thudding heavily down each step as I dragged it behind me.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, she was there.

Lora.

Standing awkwardly in the hallway, her hands twisting in front of her.

I paused at the foot of the stairs.

For a long moment, we just stared at each other.

She opened her mouth — maybe to apologize, maybe to beg — but I didn’t let her.

I smiled.

A cold, brittle smile.

"Take good care of him," I said, my voice dripping with a venom I didn’t bother to hide.

Her face flushed deep red, and she looked away.

I turned without another word, yanked the front door open, and stepped out into the sunlight.

The door slammed behind me with a final, satisfying bang.

The cool air hit my face. But this time, it didn’t hurt.

It woke me up.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t know how I would explain this to Noah. How I had given up on him.

I didn’t know how I was going to rebuild my life from the ashes he had left behind.

But I knew one thing.

I was done being the woman who stayed and pretended.

I was done being the woman who sacrificed everything and got nothing.

From now on, I would be the woman who chose herself.

Even if it killed me.

I took a step down the porch — and that’s when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I yanked it out, still shaking.

A new message from Christine, my colleague at work.

I frowned, swiping it open. "You're needed at the company tommorow as early as possible, a new CEO has been reinstated and demands all employees presence at once, he's terrifying"