Chapter 14
Aaron stood there frozen, staring at the crown I had left behind.
I was gone, but she’d deliberately left behind the one thing that symbolized my status as Mrs. Mackey–his wife, in name and in title. The message couldn’t have been clearer.
A chill ran down his spine, paralyzing him as if someone had poured ice water through his veins. It took him a long time to move and when he finally did, he reached for the crown with shaking
hands.
But before he could even examine it, something underneath caught his eye–something in red.
His breath hitched.
It was a divorce certificate.
His eyes widened in disbelief as he dropped to his knees, legs giving out beneath him. The paper fell open in his shaking hands–and there it was, plain as day: his name, my name, our signatures… stamped and sealed.
“No… No, this can’t be real…”
We’d signed the divorce agreement, sure. But we never filed it. We never went to court. There wasn’t supposed to be an actual divorce certificate.
He opened the document with a snap and his eyes locked on his own photo–expressionless, cold. The official seal was pressed into the page like a dagger in his chest and a bitter, metallic taste flooded his throat.
It was real.
It was official.
And I had done it.
Was it because of Nancy? Because he said he’d fake a wedding just to keep the baby?
But that was a life–or–death situation–he didn’t even want that child anymore. He chose me. He was going to walk away from it all for me.
Why couldn’t I see that?
Why would I still go through with this?
He clenched the divorce certificate so hard it crumpled in his fist, knuckles going white, then slammed his other fist into the floor with a bone–jarring thud. Blood bloomed beneath his hand, trailing down his wrist and dripping onto the hardwood.
He glared down at the crimson stain, pupils blown wide, vision swimming red.
No. He wouldn’t accept this.
This divorce wasn’t real.
He and me were meant to be. For better or worse. In this life and the next.
We were not over.
***
The next morning, sunlight poured into the room–but Aaron hadn’t slept a single minute.
4:43 am
The moment he confirmed the civil office was open, he jumped in his car and sped across towr like a man possessed.
“I need information about my wife,” he told the clerk, voice taut and brimming with restrained fury. “We signed a divorce agreement, but I never put it to process. How the hell did she get a finalized certificate?”
The clerk flinched under his glare, tapping away at her keyboard nervously. She took one glance at his bloodshot eyes, his clenched jaw and didn’t dare waste a second.
After a few minutes, she looked up, face pale.
‘Mr. Mackey, according to our records, your wife filed for it and has since immigrated. We car provide you with the footage from that day. But we can’t change the outcome. That’s the most we can do.”
The words hit Aaron like a punch to the chest. For a moment, everything around him faded to white noise. He’d thought that even if I had walked away from their marriage, I’d at least still be somewhere in the country. Somewhere reachable. Somewhere he could drive to, beg me to come back, fall to his knees if he had to.
But now… not just gone from his life–I’d gone from the very land they once shared.
His eyes glazed over with confusion and disbelief.
Was what he did really that unforgivable? So terrible that I would rather leave everything behind -my home, my friends, my whole life–just to escape him?
n our world, everyone did what he did. It wasn’t right, but it was normal. And he’d already ealized his mistake. He was ready to fix it. So why couldn’t I give him one more chance?
With trembling hands, Aaron took the surveillance footage the staff had copied for him and >rought it home. He watched it over and over again like he was hypnotized.
Me in that video looked like a woman on a mission–calm, resolute, unshakable. After I got the livorce papers, she didn’t even glance back.
Not once.
143 am
Chapter 15
