Semua Bab Never What It Was: Bab 1 - Bab 8

I bought replacement gifts and went to my parents' house for the holiday alone. They both found it strange."Where's Linnea? Didn't she say she was coming today?""Is everything all right between you two?"I smiled. "Sorry. Her office called her in for last-minute overtime."They both nodded. "Work comes first."However, I was staring at my phone, at a social media post from my wife's ex-boyfriend, Grant Tierney.There was a caption and a carousel of photos.The caption read, "The holiday surprise she put together for me. She really went all out."The gourmet gift box I had spent weeks researching had been unwrapped, everything arranged and plated exquisitely. He had already gone through all of it.In one of the photos, a pair of hands was arranging the contents. The fingers were slender and delicate, with a small scar across the right thumb.I recognized them immediately. They belonged to my wife, Linnea Fairchild.I also noticed that the wedding ring was gone from her left

However, the very next second, Linnea's expression shifted to blame."I didn't remember, so why didn't you say something?"And even if you can't eat seafood, there's still the beef carpaccio."Still, I had never eaten anything raw. Linnea used to know that. At some point, she had forgotten everything.I suddenly could not see the point of sitting there any longer. I stood up and left.Behind me, Grant's voice was full of concern. "Is Theo upset?"Linnea's barely lowered voice did nothing to hide her irritation. "He just has to kill the mood no matter what. Ignore him. Let's eat."I walked out of the restaurant alone and took a cab home.This time, there was no room left for denial. I sent my resignation to my company first, then started packing.The study was where I began. Linnea's work could only be done at her office, so this room had always been mine. The books, the sketches, the notebooks. All of it mine.I was halfway through when Linnea came home.The smile on her fac

Linnea stared at the divorce agreement in front of her, stunned. The entire room went silent.Grant was the first to react. He shot to his feet, panic written all over his face as he looked at Linnea. "Linnie, Theo must have gotten the wrong idea. Just explain things to him!"He turned to me. "Theo, everyone just had a little too much to drink. They were only joking around. Please don't take it seriously."I watched Linnea's face. The shock and the tension that had been there a moment ago shifted, reshaped by Grant's words, into something harder, full of irritation and anger.She held it back long enough to speak. "Theo, I have colleagues and friends here tonight. My parents are here. People had a few drinks and made some jokes. If it bothered you, you could have just said so. You didn't have to pull this stunt and humiliate everyone."Her parents smiled tightly and tried to smooth things over."Theo, some of the girls were out of line just now, but you shouldn't jump straight

On the third day of my trip, Mom called."Linnea showed up at our door. Your father wouldn't let her in."She was perfectly pleasant about it, too. Showed up with armfuls of gifts, saying she wanted to apologize to you."You'd never guess she was capable of pulling all that nonsense."If you hadn't told us everything before you left, your father and I never would have suspected a thing. We probably would have invited her right in."She was right.Someone else in my position might have hidden the details out of embarrassment or out of fear of being pitied. They might have kept things vague and said the relationship simply was not working.However, that was not who I was. None of it had been my fault, so why should I act like I had something to be ashamed of? Why should I have to worry about what people thought? After all, the person who had actually done all of it was not worried.I reminded my parents, "She only went to you because I've been ignoring her calls and messages."I