Chapter 4 - The Ultimatum
When I unlocked the front door at seven p.m., the house was dark. There was no smell of dinner cooking, no gentle hum of conversation from the kitchen. Sophie was sitting at the dining room table, a single desk lamp casting a harsh, yellow circle of light over her paperwork. She was surrounded by corporate communication briefs and financial spreadsheets, her laptop open, its screen glowing against her tired face.
She didn't look up when I walked in. She kept typing, her fingers hammering the keyboard with sharp, rhythmic strokes.
"You left work early," she said, her voice devoid of inflection.
I tossed my keys onto the entryway tray. The metallic clatter sounded like a gunshot in the quiet house. "I had things to take care of."
"Like what?" She stopped typing and turned her head to look at me, her eyes rimmed with red. She had been crying, or she was close to it. "Like hiding from your life? Because Marissa called me today. She said you contacted her."
I froze in the doorway, unzipping my jacket. "I didn't contact her. I just... I wanted to know what she told you."
"She told me you interrogated her about the planning emails," Sophie said, standing up from the table. Her voice rose, sharp and brittle. "Are you out of your mind, Ethan? Do you realize how humiliating that is for me? You're going behind my back to my vendors, investigating me like I'm a suspect in a crime investigation!"
"I wasn't investigating you, Sophie! I was trying to figure out why my wife lied to my face!"
"I didn't lie!" she screamed, taking two aggressive steps toward me. "I forgot! There were fifty moving parts in that wedding! Between the florist, the caterer, the DJ, and the seating chart, do you honestly expect me to remember every single warning a wedding planner gave me about a five-minute garter gag?"
"It wasn't just a gag to Marissa!" I yelled back, my patience finally snapping like an over-tensioned cable. "She told me she warned you it was polarizing! She warned you that grooms hate it! And you didn't just forget—you chose it because you thought it would be funny to watch me squirm!"
The room went dead silent. The accusation hung in the air between us like a physical object, heavy and jagged.
Sophie stared at me, her chest heaving. For a long moment, I thought she would deny it again. I thought she would scream, or throw something, or run upstairs to slam another door. But instead, her shoulders slumped. The anger drained out of her face, leaving behind a cold, desolate expression that scared me more than her rage.
"Fine," she whispered. Her voice was terrifyingly calm now. "You want the truth? You want to know why I picked it?"
I didn't answer. I just stood there in the doorway, waiting.
"Because everyone always says you're too stiff," she said, the words slipping out like poison from a wound. "My friends, my family, even my dad. They think you're a machine. They think you have no sense of humor, that you're impossible to rattle. I wanted a moment where you let go. I wanted everyone to see that you could laugh at yourself. I wanted you to be... fun."
The words hit me square in the chest, knocking the wind out of me. *You're too stiff. I wanted you to be fun.*
"So you humiliated me," I said, my voice barely a murmur. "To prove to your friends that your husband isn't a robot."
"I didn't think it was a humiliation!" she cried, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "I thought it was a harmless joke! But you can't take a joke, Ethan. You take everything so damn seriously. You've been like this since the day I met you—measuring, calculating, guarding your little world so nothing can touch you!"
"And you decided to break into that world with a blindfold and a room full of laughing strangers," I said, stepping back toward the front door.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice cracking as I reached for the handle.
"I need space, Sophie," I said, looking at her for what felt like the first time. "I can't look at you right now. I can't even be in this house."
"If you walk out that door tonight, Ethan," she said, her voice dropping to an icy whisper, "don't bother coming back."
May you like
I paused, my hand on the brass knob. The threat hung in the cool evening air. Without a word, I turned the handle, stepped outside into the drizzle, and closed the door behind me.
***
