Chapter 6 - The Weight of Regret
I sat entirely still, looking down at the man who had once been my whole world, waiting for some lingering spark of grief, anger, or betrayal to flare up inside me.
Instead, I felt nothing.
Just a profound, dead silence. The realization hit me with crystalline clarity: grief requires a bond, but what Grant and I had shared had been hollowed out long before I caught him in that bathtub. He hadn't just broken our vows; he had revealed that the man I loved was nothing more than a convenient projection of my own imagination—a comforting fiction I had chosen to believe in because the alternative was too painful to contemplate.
"Get up, Grant," I said, my voice cutting through the murmurs of the café with absolute authority. "You're making a scene, and quite frankly, your desperation is as unappealing as your betrayal."
Grant froze, his knees hovering inches from the floor. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and bloodshot, searching my face for a single crack of emotion, a microscopic hint of the woman who used to worry over his bad days and celebrate his small victories.
He found nothing. Just the polished, impenetrable glass of a woman who had already closed the ledger.
Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself back to his feet, wiping his damp cheek with the sleeve of his hoodie.
"How can you be so cold?" he whispered, his voice shaking with a mixture of residual anger and utter defeat. "Twelve years, Meredith. Twelve years down the drain like it meant nothing to you."
"No, Grant," I corrected softly, picking up my tablet and sliding it into my briefcase. "Twelve years meant a great deal to me. Which is why I am not going to let you spend the rest of my life dragging me down into the mud with you. You made your bed—quite literally. Now you get to lie in it. Without my money, without my name, and without my forgiveness."
I stood up, smoothing down my tailored skirt, and looked him dead in the eye one final time.
"My lawyers will mail the finalized divorce papers to your temporary address by Friday afternoon. Don't call me again. Don't email me. If you cross my path again, I’ll have a restraining order waiting for you before you can even open your mouth."
May you like
Without waiting for a reply, I turned my back on him, walked past the stunned waiters, and stepped out through the glass doors into the crisp Seattle afternoon.
The sun was breaking through the gray clouds, bathing the city skyline in a sharp, brilliant golden light.
