Chapter 7

The highway stretched out in front of them — long, flat, unforgiving.

Dominic drove.

Sophia watched the road.

No music.

No small talk.

Just the hum of tires against pavement and twenty-four years sitting quietly between them.

About thirty minutes in, he cleared his throat.

“I ended it,” he said.

She didn’t look at him. “With which name?”

He flinched.

“With her,” he said. “For good.”

Sophia nodded once, still facing forward. “You ended something that never should’ve started.”

Silence settled again.

The city skyline disappeared in the rearview mirror.

“I keep replaying last night,” he said. “Your face when you stood up. I’ve never seen you like that.”

“Like what?”

“Unreachable.”

That word lingered.

She finally turned her head slightly. “I wasn’t unreachable. I was finished begging for reassurance.”

He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“I didn’t think you’d ever walk away.”

“And that,” she said calmly, “is why you felt safe doing it.”

The truth hit harder in a moving car. There’s no escape. No room to storm off.

Just miles to sit in what’s been said.

“I got used to you being steady,” he admitted. “I took that for granted.”

“I wasn’t steady,” she corrected. “I was carrying everything quietly.”

He absorbed that.

A rest stop sign passed overhead. He didn’t take it.

“I need to ask you something,” he said carefully.

She waited.

“Did you ever… talk to someone?”

It was a subtle question, but loaded.

Sophia kept her voice even.

“I talked to myself a lot,” she said. “And I didn’t like what I was becoming.”

That was true.

Not the fake accounts.

Not the strategy.

But the constant hyper-awareness. The quiet monitoring. The shift inside her.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to watch me,” he said.

“Then live in a way that doesn’t require surveillance.”

That landed clean.

He exhaled slowly.

“I was selfish,” he repeated. “It was about ego. Not love.”

“And that’s the part you need to understand,” she said. “If it wasn’t about love, then you risked our marriage for something even smaller.”

The weight of that filled the car.

They drove another twenty miles in silence.

Fields rolled by.

Billboards flashed.

Life went on.

Finally, he spoke again — softer this time.

“Are you staying?”

She considered the question carefully.

“I’m not leaving today,” she said.

It wasn’t a promise.

It wasn’t a guarantee.

But it was honest.

He nodded.

“That’s more than I deserve.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

And somehow, that simple acknowledgment shifted something.

Not repaired.

Not healed.

But real.

As they got closer to home, the normalcy of their life crept back in. Exit signs they recognized. The grocery store they always passed. The familiar road leading to their neighborhood.

Before turning onto their street, he slowed the car slightly.

“I will do the work,” he said. “Not perform it. Not talk about it. Do it.”

Sophia studied his profile — the man she had built a life with, fractured and human now.

“I hope so,” she said. “Because I’m not rebuilding this alone.”

He nodded once.

They pulled into the driveway.

The house looked the same.

But the marriage inside it was not.

He turned off the engine.

Neither moved immediately.

Finally, she reached for the door handle.

“Dominic?”

He looked at her.

“There’s no more Vincent.”

It wasn’t a request.

It was a boundary.

He held her gaze.

“There never will be again.”

She stepped out of the car first.

Not in anger.

Not in defeat.

But in quiet strength.

And for the first time in a long time, the future wasn’t about control.

It was about choice.