We always used to blow up at each other over things like this.

But this time, I said nothing.

"Got it."

Claude glanced at me with a flicker of surprise, but it wasn't long before his phone rang.

It was Rita Vance, rushing him.

He threw on a jacket and bolted out the door without so much as a goodbye.

It was always like this. The second Rita called, he'd drop every plan he'd ever made with me.

He'd left me alone in a hospital bed with a hundred-and-four-degree fever and didn't show his face for an entire week.

Even in bed, he'd shove me aside to answer her calls, pull his pants on, and say he had to go "meet a client."

And whenever I got upset, it was always the same line: It's for work. You're being petty. You're jealous. You're making a big deal out of nothing.

I tossed my phone onto the couch and walked out to the balcony for some air.

The breeze brushed my cheeks, but it did nothing to quiet the storm inside me.

Sitting in my inbox was an offer from a company overseas. My supervisor had put in a referral for me.

I'd been on the fence about accepting it. Now, it seemed like the only option left.

"I'll take the offer. I'll come in tomorrow to handle my resignation."

"I fully support this! Marlene, with your talent, you were always too good for this place."

My supervisor replied almost instantly. I stared at the words on the screen, feeling strangely hollow.

Click. The front door opened.

"The reunion's over already?"

Claude strolled in humming a tune, the faint smell of alcohol trailing behind him.

He walked toward me with a grin, but the moment his eyes landed on the hospital admission slip on the table, his expression froze.

"Claude, don't you think you owe me an explanation?"

His footsteps halted at the entrance to the living room. His gaze drifted to the slip on the coffee table.

"You went through my things?"

That was the first thing out of his mouth. Not an explanation. Not an apology.

An accusation, dripping with indignation.

His cold stare seeped into me, freezing me from the inside out. I drew a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm.

"Yeah. I went through your things."

"And if I hadn't, I never would have known you went behind my back to get a vasectomy."

Even as I spoke, I could hear the tremor in my own voice.

I swallowed the hurt and the rage, holding myself together by sheer willpower as I faced him.

"I'm busy with work. I'm at a critical point in my career. I don't want kids right now."

Claude's voice was level. Flat. Not a trace of emotion.

Meanwhile, I was the one falling apart like a lunatic.

"Something this big, and you didn't think you needed to discuss it with me?"

I jabbed my finger at the slip. "Claude, if pregnancy and childbirth are my career risk to bear, then what was the point of getting a vasectomy behind my back? What was it really for?"

My voice climbed higher with every word, sharp with fury. All it earned me was the stone wall of his expression.

He snatched the slip off the table with a look of pure irritation. "Marlene, having a baby isn't something you women get to decide on your own."

"If I want one, I'll have one. If I don't, nobody's forcing me."

The words landed, and then, right in front of me, he tore the slip to shreds.

Scraps of paper drifted to the floor. I sat there as if standing on a sheet of ice, trembling from head to toe.

My eyes burned. I turned my head away, the pain too much to look at him.

"Claude, I want a divorce."

The vast living room sank into silence.

The thought had crossed my mind more times than I could count.

But saying it out loud? That was the first time.

"Over this? You're asking for a divorce over this?"

"Marlene, are things really so bad that you have to blow everything up? Don't you think I've been working hard for this family too?"

"For this family?"

I cut him off, stood up, and looked down at him.

"Claude Delgado, do you dare say you were really doing this for our family?!"

"If you were doing it for our family, would you have abandoned me over and over again?"

Claude stared at me in disbelief, his mouth hanging open, unable to form a single word.

Claude and I had been classmates in college. He was handsome, top of his class, charming, talented — the center of everyone's attention.

That he chose me out of all the girls vying for him was something I never expected.

Everyone said I'd hit the jackpot, that I was the luckiest girl alive to have caught Claude Delgado's eye.

Even I believed that.

I'd asked him more than once why he picked me. He always smiled and said, "Because you're good."

"I can tell — you genuinely care about me."

For four years, I gave Claude everything he asked for and never dared ask for too much in return.

When we got married, his family's demands were steep, but my parents and I did our best to meet every one of them.

Marrying him was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me.

But everything changed three years ago, when Claude got laid off.

"Marlene, what if I came to work at your company?"

"We could commute together, and then we could really focus on trying for a baby."

To get Claude a position, I spent weeks drinking with my supervisor after hours, pushing myself until I nearly ended up hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.

I finally secured him a spot — team lead in the sales department.

"Most of the client work is handled by Ms. Vance herself, so you won't be too busy. It's a pretty easy gig."

At first, Claude really wasn't busy.

We exercised together to prepare for conception, drank herbal supplements together to get our bodies in shape.

But it wasn't long before I discovered the drinking.

One night, he stumbled through the door reeking of alcohol. Again.

"Claude, no smoking and no drinking while we're trying to conceive — weren't those your rules?"

I swallowed my frustration and tried to talk to him calmly.

"When Ms. Vance pours you a drink, you don't say no."

"Marlene, stop making something out of nothing. I never said I didn't want a kid."

His cold indifference cut through me.

Sure enough, a few days later his test results came back: critically low sperm motility.

Starting from the year before last, Claude was out with Rita every single day.

They never bothered to keep up appearances in front of anyone. Everything that happened at those dinner tables made its way through the office word for word.

"Marlene, your husband..."

Even my supervisor had hinted at it more than once. But I chose to believe Claude.

Ten years together. I refused to believe he would do something like that to me.

So I kept making excuses for him, covering for him.

But the more it happened, the colder my heart grew.

"Marley, this one's on me."

"I had no idea Claude was trying for a baby. If I'd known, I never would have let him sit at the table."

To show her remorse, Rita handed Claude a check for ten thousand dollars on the spot.

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

"Marley, I'm sorry."

"I really didn't know it would turn out like this."

I looked up at him, perfectly calm. "Claude, can you please stop drinking?"

Claude pulled me into his arms. "Marlene, I'll be more careful from now on."

He said I'll be more careful. Not I'll stop.

Looking back, that was when I should have known. Claude had already started crossing lines in his mind.

After that, the subject of children became something neither of us dared to touch.

"Marlene, you think I don't want kids?"

"If I didn't want them, why would I have gone through IVF with you?!"

That actually made me laugh.

"Claude, name one time you showed up."

"Every single time, you either said something came up or you'd leave the moment your number was called."

IVF had been Claude's idea. He said he wanted the most efficient path to pregnancy.

But after that first consultation where he paid the fee, he never showed up again. Not once.

If he hadn't brought it up, I would've almost forgotten.

"So now you're dredging up ancient history?!"

"Fine! You want a divorce? You got one!"

Claude's face went rigid, anger burning behind his eyes. He flung his arm as he turned to leave, and his watch clattered to the floor.

That watch. I recognized it.

A gift from Rita. A reward, she'd called it, for helping close a deal.

Over the years, Rita had given him plenty of these so-called bonuses. Designer things, luxury brands I'd never even heard of before.

Claude loved every single one of them. I, on the other hand, felt a twist in my stomach each time I saw something new.

Every argument ended the same way: unresolved, dissolving into nothing.

Claude shot me one cold look, bent down to pick up the bracelet from the floor. "Don't come crawling back to me, Marlene."

The door slammed so hard the windows rattled.

I stared at that door, and it felt like someone had wrapped plastic around my lungs. I couldn't breathe.

I drew in a long, shaky breath, walked out to the balcony, and made a phone call.

"I need you to draft a divorce agreement for me."

"Yeah. I'm getting divorced."

"How's your brother's apartment search going? I could sell him mine at a discount."

"I accepted the overseas offer. I leave next week."

Silence on the other end. Then, after a long pause, a sigh.

"You and Claude... how did it get this bad?"

The words carried genuine regret. A few more concerned questions, and the call ended.

How, indeed.

Ten years together. Even I couldn't pinpoint the moment we'd gone so wrong.

If Rita had been an invisible splinter, a dull ache I could never quite locate, then Claude's secret vasectomy was a knife laid open against my flesh.

The next day, I went to the office and completed my exit paperwork.

My supervisor watched me with a look of pride, and though there was reluctance in her eyes, there was more warmth than sadness.

Over the following days, Claude didn't come home.

Which suited me fine. I hired movers and started packing.

"Ma'am, these are all high-end items. We're not comfortable wrapping them ourselves. Would you rather handle these?"

One of the movers wiped the sweat from his forehead and gestured toward Claude's walk-in closet: rows of limited-edition bags, designer clothes, watches lined up like trophies.

Starting around last year, Rita had begun buying Claude things constantly, always under the guise of work.

Most of it was expensive. Obscenely so.

That was what had started the rumors at the company.

I'd brought it up with Claude before. Told him it didn't look right.

At first, he'd still bother explaining. "It's nothing. Ms. Vance just wants me to look the part for client meetings."

"Marlene, stop overthinking."

But the gifts kept multiplying, and eventually, I stopped asking.

Sometimes, people are too afraid to get close to the truth.

My cowardice, in the end, was laid bare the moment the truth surfaced anyway.

"It's fine. Wrap them however you want. You won't be held responsible."

I waved them off, went back to the bedroom, and finished packing my own things. Then I handed the moving company Rita's home address.

"Next week, deliver all of that to this address. When you arrive, call this number."

Claude was at Rita's place. I knew because of a location tag on social media.

Thanks, boss, for giving me the time off.

The tag pointed to an upscale residential complex. Rita's second home.

I'd been there once. Claude had gotten blackout drunk, and Rita had called me to come pick him up.

Claude had posted quite a few updates after that. Eventually, I muted him. I didn't read a single one.

The truth was, those office rumors had always been a thorn buried in my chest.