All Chapters of Chasing His Divorced Wife: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

ELARA'S POVSunday she woke up with a question, not about the book. About the ceremony.She lay there for a moment with it and then turned to look at Damien who was still asleep and thought about waking him and decided to let it sit until coffee existed.She made it. He appeared seven minutes later."You have a question," he said."How do you know?""You make coffee faster when something is on your mind."She looked at the machine."The ceremony," she said. "I want to say something myself."He poured his coffee."To me specifically," she said. "Not through Daniel. My own words.""Vows.""Not traditional vows. Just something true that I say directly to you." She held her cup. "Is that what you want too?""Yes," he said. "I've been thinking the same thing."She looked at him."Since when," she said."Since Daniel's dinner." He leaned against the counter. "He'll write the ceremony. But there should be something that's just ours. Not witnessed language. Personal language.""Do we write th

ELARA'S POVFriday morning Sophie reorganized the spice drawer.I heard it from the desk. The particular sound of someone finding a system that should have existed and installing it.I didn't say anything.Damien appeared in the desk doorway."She's in the spice drawer," he said."I know.""Should I—""Leave it." I looked at the screen. "Whatever she does will be better."He went back to the kitchen and I heard him pour coffee and then a pause and then Sophie explaining the alphabetical system she was installing.A longer pause.Then Damien said. "That's actually more logical.""I know," Sophie said.I smiled at the screen.At ten Sophie came to the desk."Walk," she said."I'm mid-chapter.""Stop mid-chapter. The chapter will be there."I looked at the screen.The woman in the house had found a second letter. One Thomas hadn't meant to leave. I needed to know what was in it."One hour," Sophie said. "Then you can come back and find out what's in the letter."I looked at her."How do

ELARA'S POVSophie left Saturday afternoon.She hugged Damien at the door the same way she'd arrived, without ceremony, and then held me for a long moment."May thirty-first," she said into my shoulder."Daniel's draft.""Call me after." She pulled back. "Same night.""Same night," I said.She picked up her bag and looked at the kitchen one last time."The spice drawer will thank me," she said."It already does," Damien said.She pointed at him. Not a gesture with words attached. Just acknowledgement.Then she was gone.The apartment settled back into its two-person quiet.I stood at the window and watched the cab disappear."Good visit," Damien said."Always." I turned. "She reorganized more than the spice drawer.""What else?""Something in me." I paused. "She does that. I don't always notice until she's gone."He was quiet."What did she reorganize," he said.I thought about it."The twenty-five story," I said. "She told it in front of you and I hadn't planned that.""Did it bother

ELARA'S POVTuesday the chapter broke open, not in a bad way. In the way chapters broke open when they'd been holding something that finally had room to arrive.I wrote for five hours straight.The woman with Thomas's letter. Her decision about the house. The variable Thomas hadn't seen.I didn't stop to eat. Damien left a plate beside the laptop at noon without saying anything and I ate it without looking up and kept writing.At three I stopped.I sat back and read what I had.Twenty-two pages. The longest single session of the book.I closed the laptop and went to find Damien.He was at the desk in the corner."Done," I said.He looked up."How many pages," he said."Twenty-two."He looked at me for a moment."What happened in them," he said.I sat on the couch."She decides to stay," I said."In the house.""Yes. But not because it keeps her. Because she decides to keep it." I paused. "That's the shift. She stops waiting for the house to do something and starts doing something hers

ELARA'S POVThursday she wrote chapter seven, not the long session of Tuesday. A shorter one, four hours, the kind that built carefully rather than broke open. The woman in the house, the morning after deciding to stay. What that decision looked like in daylight.At noon I closed the laptop.Damien was at the counter eating something he'd assembled quickly, reading something on his phone."Done," I said."Good session or building session.""Building. After the break open you have to build." I sat across from him. "The dramatic chapter is only as good as the quiet one that follows it.""What happens in the quiet one.""She makes coffee. She looks out the window. She notices things about the house she hadn't noticed before because she wasn't looking with staying eyes.""Staying eyes.""When you know you're leaving you look at things to remember them. When you know you're staying you look at them differently." I paused. "You start seeing what needs doing."He looked at me."Is that from