All Chapters of My Divorced Husband Is Never Coming Back: Chapter 51 - Chapter 57

Clara's povProfessor Daniel hadn't given me an answer to my question about Randy's forgiveness, had just looked at me with that carefully neutral expression and suggested gently that perhaps I should speak to a legal professional about the implications of the divorce papers before doing anything else, and I'd left his office feeling more unmoored than when I'd arrived.The drive home passed in a blur, the city streets moving past my windows like scenery in a film I wasn't fully watching, my hands performing the mechanical actions of driving while my mind was somewhere else entirely, somewhere dark and retrospective and uncomfortably honest.Throughout the drive home, guilt wrapped around me like a heavy cloth, pressing against my skin and making every breath feel slightly labored, and memories of how badly I'd treated Randy flipped through my mind with the relentless persistence of a slideshow that couldn't be paused or stopped.I saw myself signing the divorce papers without reading

Kyle's povThe sting on my cheek where Clara's hand had connected was sharp and unexpected, radiating outward from the point of impact with a heat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room, I kept my hand pressed there while my mind raced to calculate how badly this situation was deteriorating and what I needed to do to salvage it.Fuck, how the heck did she find out about that, the thought went off in my head like an alarm bell, immediate and urgent, because the medication thing was supposed to be a secret that stayed buried, Randy was too much of a doormat to ever expose it and Clara was too wrapped up in me to ever question the story I'd given her.But somehow she'd learned the truth, and now she was looking at me with an expression that mixed hurt with anger with something that looked uncomfortably like clarity, like she was seeing me properly for the first time and didn't particularly like what she was seeing.I made sure to keep my face as neutral as possible despi

Clara's pov Morning light filtered through the curtains with an insistence that couldn't be ignored, pulling me from sleep that had been more like unconsciousness than actual rest, the kind of deep blackness that comes after emotional exhaustion and too much alcohol.I woke with a head that was surprisingly clear despite the amount of drinks I'd consumed the night before, my body apparently having processed the alcohol efficiently enough that I wasn't experiencing the pounding headache and nausea that should have accompanied that level of consumption.The clarity felt almost unnatural, like my system had decided that today required full mental capacity and had prioritized sobriety over the usual consequences of overindulgence, and I was grateful for it even as I lay there staring at the ceiling and trying to gather the motivation to face another day.This was day four already of Randy's absence, the number registering in my consciousness with a weight that accumulated with each passi

Samuel's povI stared quietly at my daughter, watching her hold those worn shoes in her hands with an expression that mixed grief with dawning understanding, and so many thoughts swirled through my brain with enough force and complexity that organizing them into coherent commentary felt nearly impossible.Clara had been my little girl once, before wealth and social status and the toxic influences of people like Kyle had shaped her into someone I sometimes didn't recognize, and seeing her finally begin to understand what she'd lost created a complicated mixture of sympathy and frustration in my chest."Look at how old and totally bad these shoes are," Clara said, her voice breaking slightly as she examined every detail of the worn leather. "He could have thrown them out a long time ago, but he didn't."I smiled at her observation, though it came out as a sad smile rather than anything approaching happiness, because yes, Randy could have and probably should have replaced these shoes yea