Sign The Papers and Get Out!

[Sarah’s POV]

I stared at Lucy, my best friend. She didn't freeze. She didn't do any of the things a person did when they'd been caught doing something unforgivable.

Her hand was still resting on Tyler’s arm. Her manicured fingers were curled around the wool of his suit jacket. It was a gesture of ownership.

"End?" My voice was a ghost of itself, a thin, pathetic sound that seemed to humiliate me further just by existing. "What do you mean by end?”

Lucy walked across the room without hesitation and reached for the light switch on the wall beside the dresser. The romance died instantly, everything harsh and bright and exposed. She stood there looking at my carefully arranged dinner table the way someone looked at a child's drawing. Amused. Slightly pitiful.

Something cold moved through me. How did she know where the light switch was?

In ten years of friendship, Lucy had never once set foot in my bedroom. Tyler had insisted on it. *The bedroom is private,* he always said. *Our space.* And I had never questioned it because I trusted him. Because I trusted her.

Because I was an idiot.

 "Cover yourself," Tyler’s voice cut through the air. It wasn't filled with the panic of a man caught in an affair. It was filled with disgust. "I mean it, Sarah. Put something on. You look absolutely ridiculous standing there in that... thing."

My hands moved before I thought to move them. I grabbed the robe from the chair behind me and pulled it closed around my body, fumbling with the belt. I hated that the first thing I felt was shame, that I was standing in my own bedroom covering myself up because he had looked at me like that.

 "Tyler, it’s our anniversary," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I did this for us. I... I have news. Miracle news. Everything is going to be different now."

 "The only thing you’ve done for 'us' in seven years is fail to produce a single heir for the Rider Group," Tyler said. He walked past me as if I were a piece of inconvenient furniture, moving toward the dresser. 

My mouth opened but nothing came out because there was no sentence in any language I spoke that fit what was happening in front of me.

 "You’ve had three chances, and you failed every single one of them. I’m not playing this game anymore."

I looked at him. Then I looked at Lucy

Lucy, who had called me twenty minutes ago and assured me everything was going to be fine. Lucy, who was now standing in my bedroom with her hand flat against my husband's chest, unmoved, watching me come apart with the expression of someone who had been waiting a long time for this exact moment.

 "I think," Lucy said lightly, "your wife looks confused. Should we clear things up?”

Tyler reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope. He didn't hand it to me, he threw it at my feet, pages fanning across the rose petals.

 "Sign it," he said. "And get out of my house."

I stared at the papers. The word DIVORCE at the top of the first page.

 "No." My voice surprised me. It was quiet, but it was solid. "Tyler, listen to me. I know we've been struggling. I know this year has been hard. But things are about to change... I am about to change everything, because I'm..."

 "We have an announcement." Lucy stepped forward, and placed herself between us. Her hand moved to her own flat stomach. “I’m pregnant, Sarah. Six weeks. The doctor confirmed it yesterday. It’s going to be a boy, a real Rider heir. Tyler is finally going to be a father.”

The floor felt unsteady beneath my heels.

Six weeks ago, Tyler had told me he was on a business trip in London. He had called me every night, telling me how much he missed the sound of my voice, while he was in a hotel suite with the woman I called my sister.

 "She's the new Mrs. Rider. She's giving me what you never could." Tyler's voice was almost gentle now, which was worse than the anger. "The prenup is clear. You leave the way you arrived."

Lucy tilted her head at me, something glittering behind her eyes. "I was going to send you an invitation to the wedding," she said. "But I think we both know that would be cruel." She said it like she was doing me a favor.

 "Get out of this room." Tyler's voice was very quiet now. 

 "You’re throwing me out? In the middle of the night? Tyler, I have nowhere to go! My parents are dead, you know I don't have any family left!"

 "Call one of your lovers," Lucy suggested, her eyes glittering with a madness I had never seen before. "Tyler told me all about them, Sarah. The multiple men you’ve been seeing, while he was working his fingers to the bone to provide this lifestyle for you."

 "What men? No other man has ever touched me. I’ve spent every day of my life trying to be the wife you wanted!" I looked at Tyler, pleading for a shred of the man I thought I knew. 

 "Sign the papers, Sarah. Or I’ll make sure the news of your infidelity and your mental instability hits the front page of every tabloid by morning," Tyler said coldly. "I have the evidence ready. You can leave quietly, or I can make sure you never show your face in New York again."

I realized then that this was a calculated execution. They had planned this. And they had waited until I was at my most vulnerable to pull the trigger.

My hands were numb as I reached down and picked up the papers. I walked to the desk, and scribbled my name on the dotted line, my handwriting a broken mess.

 "I'll have your things packed by morning.” Tyler said, already turning his back on me to look at Lucy. “Get the hell out of my house!”

I walked out into the cold, rainy New York night, the heavy front door clicking shut behind me with a finality that felt like a coffin lid. I stood on the sidewalk, the rain soaking through my thin robe, and pressed my hand to my stomach.

Something fell from inside my robe. I looked down, the pregnancy test lay on the floor, its two pink lines staring up at me.

Tonight was supposed to be the best night of my life. Of our lives.

 "I'm sorry," I whispered to the life inside me. "I'm so sorry."