The Last Straw

Emily's fingers flicked over the phone one more time as the elevator glided upwards towards the eighth floor. It was hardly past 8 pm, and she found herself thoughtfully picking up a few things from the grocery store on 12th Crescent Street, just enough to prepare Carl’s favorite meal.

Stewed spicy Pasta and the tasty grilled chicken, slightly salted that was how he liked it. She had heard him complaining silently earlier in the day about how rare it was becoming to get a good pasta these days. It had to be the way he liked it and she knew just what he needed.

A weak sigh escaped her lips. He had been avoiding her recently like an infection. Not that he hadn’t always kept his distance, but now... she felt like a plague in her own house. He had been recently stressed too much about work, business deals, and contracts. Maybe it would make him soften, even if just a little.

Or maybe it wouldn’t.

She shrugged lightly. It hadn’t worked before. Still, she tried, she hoped. She always did.

He remained unfriendly to her since the moment the promise was made at the altar, even as a Mayor and the richest Billionaire in Grethon state. There was money but only now did she begin to value happiness more. A sad lower arch formed on her lips, as a quick hiss found its way out.

Maybe she just needed to remind him that she was still with him even if he couldn't see her. She had spent five years of her life waiting for a change that never seemed to come.

The lobby smelled faintly of food from the kitchen. Perhaps the maid had already started cooking. Carl preferred her dishes anyway, but tonight, he didn't have to know who made his delicacy. She just needed him to enjoy a good meal and rest in bed.

She set the paper bags down briefly and reached into her mini handbag for the house remote.

The door clicked open quietly.

Stepping inside, she slipped off her heels with a soft exhale. Lifting them gently in one hand, she moved deeper into the house.

She opened her mouth to call softly, instinctively, the way wives called their husbands, then she remembered. She was invisible in this house.

The living room lights were ,on low, the TV off. She placed the food, on the kitchen counter and noticed something off. Only her eyes had skipped a detail she now remembered. Her eyes drifted back toward the living room, and that was when she noticed it.

She made her way back to it with a furrow on her brow.

A pair of python-skinned high stilettos sat by the couch. Not hers, but they were familiar, strappy, brand-new, expensive next to them, a small red purse and a gold bracelet. She felt a pang in her lower stomach.

Maybe one of his business partners had stopped by. Maybe someone had brought a guest. But it was getting late, well beyond 8pm. Of course, he never cared if she returned, just not with the satisfaction of anyone else.

She walked toward the hallway leading to their shared bedroom.

Her feet were a cat's paw on polished hardwood. Halfway down, something caught her eye on the floor. A red laced lingerie, they weren't like hers, just lying there like it had been tossed or discarded. She could feel her pulse quicken.

This was strange.

She kept moving forward, only more carefully now. Voices came from behind the closed bedroom door. Low, panting, breathy. A woman's soft moans, then Carl's voice came wild, unrestrained and excited.

"Come on, baby, harder, keep rocking that way. Your pussy is so fucking good. Tighter and juicer than hers can ever be."

Emily froze at the door. Those words struck like a punch. She knew that tone. He had said it to her too once, desperately.

Her hand reached slowly for the doorknob before her mind could even catch on. She turned it slowly and pushed the door open just enough to see.

Carl was on top of a brown-haired girl, and she had her legs tightly wrapped around his waist.

When she looked to the right, with pleasure in her eyebrows and her lips slightly apart, I fully recognized her face, she was Emily's non-identical twin sister, Emila and her expression slowly dissolved into a smile as she locked eyes with her.

Carl was busier moving roughly, fast, and grunting. Emila smiled at Emily sinisterly, then she moaned louder, more intensely and digging her nails into his back as she edged herself towards him. The sheets remained tangled between them. The room reeked thick of orgasms and sweat mingled with her perfume.

She stood there for what felt like forever, but it could only be a few seconds. Her chest hurt so bad she couldn't breathe right. Her handbag was still in her right hand. Then, It snapped off her fingers, the metallic handle crinkling loudly on the floor.

Carl didn't even notice and when he looked up at the sound suddenly, his eyes remained calm, his expression unshaken, then a slight satisfied smile flickered across his face as it met hers.

Her twin sister squealed pulling the blanket over with one hand gently proudly exposing what was going on underneath to Emily as Carl's pace slowed increased slightly.

Emily didn't say anything, she was too cold and broken to. She just turned and walked out. Her knees felt weak, light like they had been attached wrongly. She didn't expect Carl to call her name the way most cheating husbands did. In fact, he looked pleased that she had seen him between another woman's thighs.

She ran into the hallway. Getting more tired with each step. Finally, she made it to her room, threw herself on the bed and tried to sob, but no tears came forth, and her throat remained too involuntarily dry to offer even a muffle.

Maybe it was because she had been enduring it for years now. She cried so much in previous nights that there was nothing left to push out anymore in the hardest moment.

Standing up firmly as a single tear managed to escape down her cheeks, Emily made it to her private bathroom in her room. Carl never wanted her around him, so they slept in different rooms and only now did she realize why. Since the first day of their marriage he made his boundaries clear and she respected it ignorantly. Now, she never felt more sure that fate had allowed it, for a day like this.

Her bare feet remained chilled against the imported marble floor, as she stared at a little plastic stick, a secret, rearranging her entire life. Two little pink lines stared back at her. Two small lines glowing faintly, like straight neon signs, like a disaster or maybe a blessing in disguise, or maybe the reason he would regret what he had just done this very night. The choice was hers to make.

Her hand slid down to her stomach, which looked the same as always, flat and insignificantly pregnant, it had been two weeks. Only now she was never going to let him know, that there was something in there. A tiny version of him or something better than the monster he was. A little person who she now swore to make the greatest. A small secret that she got to carry around with her and belonged to her.

"Mh," she whispered softly to the empty bathroom, as fingers resting gently above her navel on the growing child that remained invisible but could already be felt pressing against her lower spine on her bones. "Oh, darling This is just the beginning, Isn't it?..."

Her lips trembled slightly.

"I'll give you a life he never could"

Footsteps echoed outside as her head snapped up.

Quickly, she grabbed the test, slipped it into her bag, and zipped it shut.

Back in her room, she moved faster.

Clothes then documents. Anything she could carry. Tears blurred her vision, but she didn’t stop.

He could take his wealth and the stupid diamond, he made clear to her that he'd only given her, because it was necessary for the wedding, nothing else. A weight pulled on her heart each time she looked at it. A reminder that it would be the first and last thing he would ever give her.

Right now it was all bullshit, everything that belonged to him. She just wanted to be free from a bondage disguised as a wealthy home.

She cried because of the baby, because she was never going to let him know, not for Carl, not even for her cruel twin sister whose jealousy for her grew from birth.

After what seemed like forever, Carl walked into the room.

His gaze swept over her packing her belongings

And he smiled gently.

“Good,” he said slowly. “My real woman deserves this place, the one who saved my life. Not you.”

His voice dropped, razor-sharp, cold and unfeeling.

“Before you leave… sign this.”

He said sliding a thick yellow manila folder across the table at the centre of the room.

Emily didn't try to convince him again. Five years of trying to tell him the truth he rejected, that she was the one who saved him not Emila was enough.

She didn’t open it or rush to grab it. She didn’t need to, even as her chest tightened hard.

She already knew what divorce papers looked like.

“Sign it,” Carl said flatly. “And be done with it, Emily. Stop making this difficult.”

For a moment, she didn’t move. She stared at it, painfully numb. Her fingers hovered just above the edge of the table, trembling slightly before going still again.

She knew she was invisible but ...Difficult?

A faint, almost empty breath left her.

Was that what this had been to him?

After five years? Five years of silence, of trying, of shrinking herself into something smaller just to fit into his world and it had all been… difficult.

She reached for the folder.

"Okay, Carl" she croaked like it didn't matter and yet somewhere in her heart, she was wounded.

The paper felt heavier than it should.

Her eyes skimmed over the first page without really reading it. A bunch of legal words and cold sentences. A clean ending to something that had never even truly begun in the first place.

Her grip tightened around the pen.

“Good,” Carl murmured slowly from across the room, leaning back like a man watching a deal close. “At least you know your place.”

For the first time that night, Emily looked at him and then really looked this time. There was no anger in her chest. No heartbreak followed. Something that existed long ago developed fully now, clarity.

“You’ve been waiting for this,” she said quietly.

Her voice didn’t shake. Carl let out a short, humorless chuckle. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve been patient long enough.”

Emily nodded once.

As if that explained everything.

Without another word, she lowered the pen and signed it quickly.

The sound of ink against paper was soft, scratchy, final.

Emila walked in as Carl leaned forward immediately, pulling the folder toward himself as if afraid she might change her mind.

But she didn’t. She had none left to change.

Her fingers slid gently, possessively over his shoulders as leaned down a little and stole another soft kiss from the corner of his lips. Then her eyes landed on Emily again and she chuckled.

“Good,” he said again, flipping through the pages quickly. “That’s settled.”

Settled.

Emily repeated in her mind placing the pen down gently.

Her hands folded in her lap, fingers loosely intertwined, as if she were simply waiting for something and she hated herself for even expecting something in the first place from a man like him. But nothing came, no apology, hesitation, no second glances.

Carl stood, with interest lost long ago.

“You can leave tonight,” he added as Emila moved behind him, her hands resting lightly on his chest as he spoke, almost as an afterthought. “Take whatever you came with. Everything else stays.”

She nodded. Of course it did. Nothing here had ever been hers. He paused at the door, glancing back briefly.

“Don’t make a scene on your way out.”

“We didn’t finish,” Emila’s voice floated after him, soft, amused.

Carl’s reply came easily.

“No. We didn’t.”

There was a brief quiet, then,

“But we have all the time now.”

Her laughter faded into the distance and then Emily knew, he was completely gone.

The door closed with a soft click.

Then Silence returned.

Emily sat there for a long time. Just… existing.

Then, slowly, she stood up.

Her hand drifted to lightly and carefully her stomach again.

“Well,” she whispered into the quiet room, her voice softer than before, but steadier. “It’s just us now.”

She felt Something shift inside her, something stronger this time, a decision.

She moved again, and for the first time in her life, she felt sure of something.

The suitcase clicked shut. The room stayed exactly the same. Like she had never been there at all.

At the door, she paused.

Just once, allowing the cold wind brush her hair backwards a little.

Then she stepped out.

And didn’t look back.