Chapter 3

~CLAIRE’S POV~

The pen felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in my hand.

I stared at my signature on the divorce papers, Claire Winfred, my maiden name looking strange and unknown after three years of being a Blackwood.

The ink was still wet, but already it felt like I had signed away more than just my marriage. I had signed away my entire identity.

I was reaching for the call button to summon a nurse when the door opened again.

Richard stepped back into the room, and for one foolish moment, my heart leaped. Maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe he had realized what a mistake he was making.

Maybe….

"You signed them." His voice was flat as he looked at the papers on my bedside table.

"Yes." The word came out as barely a whisper.

He moved closer to the bed, and I smelled his cologne, the same expensive scent I bought him for Christmas last year. It was the same scent that used to make me feel safe and loved when he held me close.

Now it just made me feel sick.

"Good," he said, gathering up the papers. "That makes this easier."

"Makes what easier?"

Richard sat down in the chair again, but this time he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his blue eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl.

"I need you to understand something, Claire. This is not just about Monica."

My stomach twisted. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this marriage has been over for a long time. Years, maybe. I just did not dare to admit it until now."

Years? We had only been married for three years. When had it gone wrong? When had I lost him without even knowing it?

"I don't understand," I whispered. "We were happy. At least, I thought we were happy."

"You were happy." His voice was cold, clinical. "You were living in your perfect little fantasy world where I was your Prince Charming and you were my devoted princess. But that's all it was, Claire. A fantasy."

The words hit me like ice water. "That's not true. We had good times. We laughed together, we…”

"When?" The question cut through my protests like a knife. "When was the last time we laughed together? When was the last time we had a real conversation about anything other than what you needed from me?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. When was the last time? I tried to think, tried to remember, but all I could think back to were conversations about his work, his stress, and his needs.

Had I really become so focused on taking care of him that I had forgotten how to just be with him?

"You see?" Richard's smile was cruel. "You can't even remember, can you? Because it never happened. Not really. You were so busy trying to be the perfect wife that you forgot to be a real person."

"I was trying to make you happy," I protested, tears starting to blur my vision. "I was trying to be what you needed."

"What I needed was a partner, not a servant." He leaned back in the chair, his expression disgusted.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to come home to someone who has no thoughts, no opinions, no life outside of waiting for you? Someone who asks what you want for dinner instead of just making a decision? Someone who can't even choose a movie without checking with you first?"

Each word was a hammer blow to my already shattered heart. Was that really what I had become? Had I been so afraid of losing him that I had lost myself instead?

"I loved you," I whispered.

"No." The word was sharp, final. "You were obsessed with me. There's a difference."

Obsessed. The word hung in the air between us like poison.

"Love is supposed to make you stronger, Claire. It's supposed to inspire you to be the best version of yourself. But you used it as an excuse to disappear completely."

I stared at him, this man I had given everything to, and tried to find some trace of compassion in his face. Some hint that he understood how much his words were destroying me.

There was nothing. Just cold, cruel honesty delivered without a trace of mercy.

"Monica loves me," he continued, "but she doesn't need me to breathe. She has her career, her own dreams, and her own identity. When she laughs, it's because something is actually funny, not because she thinks it's what I want to hear."

Monica. Even now, lying in a hospital bed with my marriage in ruins, I had to hear about how wonderful Monica was.

"She was my friend," I said, my voice breaking. "She was supposed to be my friend."

"She tried to be." Richard's tone was matter-of-fact. "But you made it impossible. Do you know what she told me? She said talking to you was like talking to a ghost. Like there was nobody really there anymore."

The words cut deeper than any physical pain I had ever felt. Monica had said that about me? The woman who had held me while I cried, who had listened to my fears and insecurities, who had told me I was a good wife and that Richard was lucky to have me?

"She said you used to be different," Richard continued. "In college, before we got married. She said you used to have opinions, dreams, a personalities. What happened to that woman, Claire?"

What happened to her? She had fallen in love. She had gotten married. She had tried so hard to be the perfect wife that she had forgotten how to be anything else.

"I changed for you," I whispered. "I became what I thought you wanted."

"I never asked you to disappear." For the first time since he had walked into this room, Richard's voice held a hint of emotion. But it was not regret or sadness.

It was frustration.

"I fell in love with Claire Winfred, the woman who challenged me in debates, who had her own opinions about everything, who made me work to win her over. But that woman died the day we got married, didn't she?"

Had she? I tried to remember who I had been before Richard, but it felt like looking at someone else's life. I had been studying for my master's degree in art history.

I had wanted to work in a museum, and maybe run my gallery someday. I had friends, interests, and dreams that had nothing to do with any man.

But then I had fallen in love, and somehow all of that had seemed less important than making Richard happy. Making our marriage work.

Being the wife I thought he needed.

"You disgust me," Richard said, and the words hit me like a physical blow. "You absolutely disgust me."

I gasped, my hand flying to my chest. "Richard, please…”

"Do you want to know the truth? The real truth?" He leaned forward again, his eyes boring into mine.

"I've been sickened by you for months. Every time you touched me, every time you looked at me with those desperate, needy eyes, I felt sick. But I stayed because I felt sorry for you. Because I thought maybe you would figure out how to be a real person again."

Sickened. He had been sickened by my touch, by my love, by me.

"But you never did, did you? You just got worse. More clingy. More pathetic. More suffocating."

The room was spinning again, but this time it was not from physical pain. This time it was from the organized trashing of everything I had believed about myself, about our marriage, about love itself.

"Monica makes me feel alive," he continued, his voice softening for the first time. "When I'm with her, I remember who I used to be before I got trapped in this nightmare of a marriage. She makes me laugh. She challenges me. She makes me want to be better."

"And I made you want to be worse?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.

"You made me want to disappear." Richard stood up, straightening his tie with the same careful accuracy he used for everything. "Every day I stayed married to you, I felt myself dying a little more inside."

I could not breathe. I could not think. I could not do anything but lie there and let him destroy what was left of my soul.

"I'm doing you a favor, Claire," he said, his voice almost gentle now. "I'm setting you free to find out who you really are. Maybe someday you'll thank me for this."

Thank him? Thank him for ripping my heart out and telling me I was too pathetic to love.

"I need you to understand something," Richard continued, moving toward the door. "This is not just about the affair. This is not just about Monica. This is about the fact that our marriage was already dead. It's been dead for a long time. We were just too cowardly to bury it."

He paused with his hand on the door handle.

"One more thing," he said without turning around. "Monica's pregnant."

The words hit me like a cargo train. Pregnant. Monica was pregnant with Richard's baby. The baby I had been hoping for, praying for, dreaming about for three years.

"How long?" I whispered.

"Two months." Richard's voice was steady, matter-of-fact. "We're telling people after the wedding."

Two months.

She had been pregnant when she helped me plan our anniversary dinner. She had been carrying Richard's child when she sat in my living room and listened to me worry about our marriage.

She had been growing his baby inside her while she comforted me and told me everything would be okay.

"Claire?" Richard's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Are you all right?"

All right? Was I all right?

My husband had just told me I disgusted him. He had told me our entire marriage was a lie. He had told me he had been sickened by my touch for months.

And now he was telling me that my best friend was pregnant with his child.

Was I all right?

I started to laugh.

It came out as a broken, hysterical sound that did not seem to belong to me. I laughed until tears streamed down my face until my sides ached worse than the surgical incisions until I could not breathe.

"Claire." Richard stepped back into the room, and for the first time since this conversation started, he looked worried. "Claire, stop. You're scaring me."

Scaring him? That was rich. He had just finished telling me I was the most pathetic, disgusting, suffocating woman alive, and now he was scared because I was laughing?

"I'm sorry," I gasped between fits of laughter. "I'm just trying to figure out how I'm supposed to thank you for this favor you're doing me."

"Claire…”

"No, really," I continued, my laughter taking on an edge that made even me nervous. "You've given me such a gift. You've shown me exactly how pathetic I am. How worthless. How completely unlovable."

"That's not what I…”

"Isn't it?" I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

"You've made it very clear, Richard. I'm disgusting. I'm suffocating. I'm so nauseous that my own husband couldn't stand to touch me. And my best friend? She's carrying your baby while I'm lying here like the pathetic fool I am."

The laughter died in my throat, replaced by something harder. Something colder.

"But you know what the funny thing is?" I looked directly into his eyes, and for the first time in this entire conversation, he was the one who looked away first.

"Someday you're going to realize what you threw away. Someday you're going to miss having someone who loved you unconditionally."

"Claire…”

"Get out." The words came out quiet but firm. "Get out of my room. Get out of my life. And Richard?"

He turned back to look at me.

"Don't ever come back."

The door closed behind him with a soft click, and I was alone.

Alone with the machines beeping around me. Alone with the divorce papers that made our separation official. Alone with the knowledge that the man I had loved more than life itself thought I was disgusting.

But as I lay there in that sterile hospital room, something began to change inside me. The heartbreak was still there, raw and agonizing. But underneath it, something else was growing.

Anger.

Not the hot, explosive kind that burns out quickly. This was something cooler, more dangerous. This was the kind of anger that was planned. That waits. That remembers every cruel word and files it away for later use.

Richard thought I was pathetic? He thought I was weak?

He was about to find out just how wrong he was.