Thirty Days of Stranger

The divorce papers hit the glass desktop with a sharp, heavy thud. At that exact moment, I was halfway through marking up the late-stage proposals for Bianca Bennett's company's Westside Project.

The visual feed floating across my field of vision suddenly exploded with new commentary.

[Cue the desperate clinging! There’s no chance he gives up his ticket to the easy life.]

[Living like royalty for all these years, only to be tossed onto the curb? Yeah, right.]

[Get the popcorn ready. He’s about to start sobbing, begging the teen female lead not to dump him.]

I flipped straight to the final signature page.

[The spouse hereby voluntarily waives all claims to marital property.]

I slid the paper right back across the desk.

"I’m not signing this."

My wife, Bianca Bennett, shot me a dark look.

I met her gaze dead-on. "You don't have the authority to end a marriage on behalf of twenty-eight-year-old Bianca."

The stream stalled for a solid beat.

[Wait, what? He’s not begging?]

[Hold up, 'twenty-eight-year-old Bianca'? Does this dude actually know about the soul swap?]

[Oh, I get it. He’s stalling to stash away her cash before she boots him!]

Bianca slammed both hands down onto the desk, the tips of her ears flushed bright scarlet.

"I’m Bianca! The house is mine, the company is mine, and the money is mine!" she snapped, "Ten years from now, my future self must’ve completely lost her mind and married you. You really think I’m not allowed to fix that mistake?"

I stared at the face I knew better than my own, realizing with a chill that she felt like a total stranger.

The real, twenty-eight-year-old Bianca almost never lost her temper. In our six years of marriage, she never forgot my chronic stomach issues, or that I hated mint.

No matter how late her business dinners ran, she always crept into the bedroom and turned on only the dim bedside lamp, knowing how light a sleeper I was.

The single time she had ever raised her voice at me was when I burned my hand on the steam while making her hangover soup. She had grabbed my wrist, yanked it under cold running water, and looked angrier than I felt.

However, this eighteen-year-old version standing in front of me was pure, unfiltered venom.

My fingers twitched, curling inward into tight fists.

It was fine.

The soul swap only lasted thirty days.

Just fifteen more days, and the real Bianca would come back.

"When the real Bianca returns, if she wants out, I’ll sign without a fight," I said, keeping my voice steady, "But we divide joint assets according to the law. Every single cent I'm entitled to, I take."

Bianca blinked, momentarily caught off guard by my response.

Her first love, Connor Harper, stepped out from behind her, his hand reaching forward to gently tug on her sleeve.

"Bianca, come on," he said softly, looking at her, “Elliot has been by your side for so many years. You should at least give him something to walk away with."

The phrase “He’s been by your side for so many years” hit me wrong, painting me as nothing more than a high-maintenance boy toy she had kept on a leash for six years.

Connor paused, lowering his tone into something almost performatively gentle. "Besides, I’m with you because of who you are, not your bank account."

I shifted my gaze to him.

His brow line and eyes were, in fact, terrifyingly close to mine.

A memory surfaced, unbidden—our very first blind date, six years ago, when Bianca had stared at me for two full seconds before speaking. A detail I had brushed off back then now felt like a barbed needle twisting beneath my skin.

Bianca ate up every word he said.

"Five million dollars," she declared, looking down at me as if she were bestowing life-changing charity, "Consider it emotional damage compensation. That ought to be more than enough."

The feed went completely wild.

[Don't hate on her, she's not trying to flex! At eighteen, five million sounds like infinite cash!]