Chapter 4: The Night After Goodbye

Naomi’s apartment smelled like lavender and clean cotton safe, familiar, nothing like the marble-and-glass mansion I had just walked away from.

She handed me a glass of water and guided me gently to the couch, as if I might shatter if she let go.

“Drink,” she said softly.

I obeyed, though my hands were still trembling.

Only when the door closed behind us and the city noise faded into the background did the truth finally sink in.

I was no longer married.

No worse.

I had been married and discarded within the same night.

Naomi sat beside me, watching carefully. “Do you want to talk?”

I stared at the wall opposite us, my reflection faint in the darkened television screen. A woman in a wedding dress, makeup smudged, eyes hollow.

“I don’t know how,” I said honestly.

Silence settled between us not uncomfortable, just heavy.

After a moment, Naomi stood. “I’ll get you something to change into. And wipes. And ice cream. In that order.”

I almost smiled.

She returned with an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants, leaving me alone to change in the bathroom. The moment the door closed, my composure finally cracked.

I gripped the edge of the sink as sobs tore out of my chest sharp, painful, humiliating. Tears streamed down my face, blurring everything until I could barely see my reflection.

I pressed my forehead to the mirror.

“You knew,” I whispered to myself. “You always knew.”

Cassian had never touched me the way a husband should. Never looked at me like I was something he was afraid to lose. Our marriage had been polite. Civil. Empty.

I had filled in the gaps with hope.

I stripped out of the dress slowly, folding it with care despite everything. It felt wrong to treat it roughly. It hadn’t done anything wrong.

When I emerged, Naomi was waiting, her eyes softening when she saw me.

She pulled me into a hug without a word.

This time, I didn’t hold back.

“I feel so stupid,” I whispered into her shoulder. “Everyone warned me. Even you.”

Naomi stiffened slightly. “I never warned you.”

I pulled back to look at her.

“I wanted to,” she admitted quietly. “But you loved him. And sometimes love makes people deaf.”

I nodded.

“I kept telling myself he’d learn to love me,” I said. “That if I tried harder, if I was patient enough… I could be enough.”

Naomi’s eyes darkened. “Avelyn, listen to me.”

She took my face in her hands gently, forcing me to meet her gaze.

“You were never lacking,” she said. “He was.”

The words sank in slowly, like drops of rain on parched earth.

I curled up on the couch later, exhaustion finally pulling me under. Sleep came in fragments memories bleeding into dreams.

Cassian’s voice.

The papers.

The ring sliding off my finger.

I woke just before dawn with a sharp pain twisting through my lower abdomen.

I sucked in a breath, sitting up slowly.

Probably stress, I told myself. The body reacting to shock.

But the pain lingered dull, insistent.

I pressed a hand to my stomach unconsciously.

Something about the sensation felt… different.

Unfamiliar.

The room was still dark. Naomi slept on the armchair nearby, wrapped in a blanket, one arm dangling off the side.

I didn’t wake her.

Instead, I stood quietly and walked to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. I looked pale. Too pale.

“You’re fine,” I whispered. “You’re just tired.”

But as I straightened, another wave of discomfort rolled through me.

My breath hitched.

I remembered the calendar. The missed date I had dismissed. The way my body had felt off for weeks.

No.

The thought settled heavily in my chest, uninvited and terrifying.

I shook my head, refusing to entertain it.

Not now.

Not like this.

I returned to the couch and lay back down, staring at the ceiling as the sky outside slowly lightened from black to gray.

The world was waking up.

My old life was already gone.

And though I didn’t yet have proof, a quiet, instinctive fear curled deep in my stomach

Whatever Cassian had ended last night might not be as finished as he believed.