I Died Clinging to a Loveless Marriage

As soon as the words left my mouth, I saw Jasmine Maynard's eyelashes fluttering just a little.

She was sitting across from me at the table with that same look of weariness and resignation on her face. It was as though I had been the unreasonable one for the past three years all along.

And now, she finally heard the answer she'd always wanted from me.

"It's good that you've finally come to your senses, Noah Hardin."

She nodded slightly, her tone carrying a hint of relief—something that she probably never even realized she was expressing. Then, she retrieved a document from her workbag and slid it over to me.

"You'll get three properties, a 12% stake in the company, and the Maybach. They're all yours if you sign this. Plus 40 million dollars in cash. Take a look and tell me if you want to add anything else."

She said everything so easily as though she'd already prepared and rehearsed this a long time in advance. She also seemed sincere about it. There was a tinge of concern in her eyes as though she were acting in my best interest.

I lowered my head and looked at the divorce agreement, suddenly feeling like laughing out loud.

I knew that this was far less than whatever she'd given my younger foster brother, Dexter Hardin.

However, I didn't say a thing. I just grabbed the pen and signed my name on the agreement with a flourish.

Jasmine watched me sign the document, a hint of something I couldn't decipher flashing in her eyes for a moment.

…

News about the divorce spread quickly. I saw hundreds of Instagram posts and stories tagging Jasmine, saying things like, "Noah's finally come to his senses!", "Jasmine is free! Finally!", and "They should have divorced a long time ago. What was the point of wasting three years of her life?"

Someone even said, "Jazzy! Wanna come out for drinks tonight to celebrate?"

Later on, they posted photos and videos of Jasmine celebrating her divorce with her closest girlfriends, saying things like she was finally free from being pestered by that "madman".

I read every message, caption, and comment online, but I didn't feel angry at all. I wasn't even upset reading them.

After all, Jasmine and I had been married for seven years, but to others, they only saw the end of our marriage as her "finally finding freedom again".

Nobody bothered asking me if it hurt or if I was fine.

My phone buzzed just then with a call from Vernon Coleman, my best friend. He asked me cautiously, "Are you sure you can really bear to leave her, Noah?"

I leaned against the window and looked out at the gray clouds in the sky. It looked like it was about to rain.

"So what if I can't bear to let her go? It's not like people will stay just because you can't bear to let them go anyway."

Vernon went silent for a while. Finally, he sighed and said, "Well, I guess I'm just gonna take your word for it."

"Yeah."

After hanging up, I tapped into my photo gallery and began deleting all of the photos I'd taken with Jasmine over the years.

There was the photo we'd taken just outside the townhall after registering our marriage to commemorate the occasion. She smiled brightly at the camera, and I was next to her, smiling like a fool.

There was a photo of our honeymoon at the beach. I had my arm circled around her waist while her long hair blew in the seabreeze.

There was a photo of our first wedding anniversary dinner. She had her head lowered as she cut up a piece of her steak to feed me, and I'd taken a side profile photo of her concentrating on her task.

The last photo was the one someone else had taken of us on our wedding day, when she was helping me fix my tie. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows of the church and illuminated the loving tenderness in her eyes.

My finger hesitated as it hovered over the "Delete" button, but I ultimately tapped on it.

The past seven years were deleted within just three seconds.

I closed my eyes, but images from my past life came flooding back to me at the worst possible moment.

After learning that she was pregnant with Dexter's baby, I lost my mind and tore him a new one, loudly demanding to know why he had stolen my wife from me. However, Jasmine's bodyguards grabbed me and pinned me to the ground, pinning my face against the cold tile floor.

I then heard her say, "Send him to the psychiatric hospital and lock him up there. I've had enough of him."

She never spared me another glance.

I'd yelled, screamed, cried, begged, and pleaded with her, but nobody paid me any heed. It wasn't until I was on my deathbed that she finally came to visit me.