Chapter 2

Kevin looked at me as if I'd just told a joke. "Are you kidding me?"

I shook my head.

His lips pressed into a thin line and his expression went cold, a sure sign he was getting angry. "All this over a pair of Monica's slippers?"

My lips moved. I badly wanted to say no.

But it suddenly hit me. I'd endured it for three years and swallowed my hurt for over a thousand days, and he'd never seen any of it. Or maybe he'd never wanted to.

What difference would it make whether I said it or not?

I lowered my eyes. For the first time, I didn't answer him. I simply turned to go back to the bedroom.

He grabbed my wrist hard. "Hold on!"

Kevin jabbed a finger irritably toward the living room. "You're just going to leave all this?"

I followed his finger.

Under the light, his finger looked almost glaringly bright. The wedding ring on his ring finger was long gone. There wasn't even the faintest mark left where it had been.

He'd taken the ring off the day after we got married. I'd felt a little hurt back then.

He'd leaned close to my ear, breathing softly against it, and comforted me with a smile, "I've got class this afternoon. I know this isn't fair to you. I'll make it all up to you later, okay?"

He'd made it sound so sweet.

But that ring never went back on his finger.

Sometimes I'd make a fuss about it. He'd look at me the way you'd look at a child who didn't know any better. "Laurie, I just made associate professor, and the university leadership thinks highly of me. I can't afford any trouble right now. It's better to be careful about the little things."

I'd been so naive back then. I believed whatever he told me.

It never once occurred to me that, in his eyes, that ring, along with me and our marriage, was nothing more than a little thing he could take or leave.

It couldn't compare to Monica's stomachaches.

It couldn't compare to her being so homesick she couldn't eat.

It couldn't compare to her being heartbroken over missing out on a year-end bonus and needing him to comfort her in person.

Thinking back on all of it, then looking at the mess in front of me, I suddenly laughed out loud.

The tablecloth was smeared with large brown grease stains. The pot roast on the porcelain platter had long since congealed into a waxy white, and under the cold light, it looked like shattered rock.

Just like my marriage to Kevin. It looked polished on the outside, but it had been riddled with holes for a long time.

He didn't know I'd spent two hours buying groceries, three hours in the kitchen, and then several more hours waiting downstairs.

He never asked if I was hungry, tired, or cold.

All he remembered was to tell me to clean up. As if I really were just a maid he paid by the hour, summoned when needed and dismissed when not.

My forlorn laughter, ringing out over a table of cold leftovers, made the scene all the more pitiful.

Kevin didn't say anything. He just reached out to feel my forehead, then said, "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting so unhinged?"

I brushed his hand away and turned him down for the first time.

"I'm tired. I need to rest. Whoever ate it can clean it up. If you don't want to, hire a cleaning service."

With that, I turned and went into the bedroom.

"Laurie? Are you going through menopause or something? What's gotten into you?"

Hearing those familiar accusations, I didn't panic the way I used to, scrambling to figure out how to explain myself. Instead, I went straight into the shower without looking back.

Only when the hot water had soaked into every pore did I feel alive again.

Kevin was right about one thing. For an orphan with no background or connections, studying far from home really was hard.

So back then, when someone locked me in the restroom and Kevin was the one who got me out, I started to fall for him. He'd only just come to the university as a teaching assistant.

He was young and refined-looking, and he blushed every time he looked at me.

The more often he helped me, the closer we grew, until we were secretly dating.

Right after I graduated from college, we got our marriage license.

Back then, he'd held me close on a mountaintop. Even though he was shivering from the cold himself, he'd wrapped me up in his coat and pulled me into his arms.

"Laurie, marry me. I want to come home every day and see you, see the little lamp you leave on for me."

The water rushed loudly in my ears.

When my gaze swept over the overlapping handprints on the mirror, I snapped back to my senses.

I picked up my phone, looked at my reflection, and called my old senior from college. "I need you to draw up a divorce agreement for me."