Lily POV
The words hit me like a slap across the face, harder than any of the actual slaps he had given me over the years.
"I want a divorce, Lily. I'm not feeling you anymore. You irritate me. Every part of you irritates me, and I don't love you anymore. I just want to be done with this relationship."
Alex stood there in our living room, his hands in his pockets, looking at me like I was nothing more than a piece of furniture he was tired of seeing. The same mouth that had once whispered sweet promises to me was now delivering the cruelest words I had ever heard.
My heart stopped. Actually stopped. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but stare at this man I had loved for seven years, married for good seven years.
"What?" The word came out as barely a whisper. "Alex, what are you saying?"
He rolled his eyes, that familiar look of disgust crossing his face. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be, Lily. You heard me perfectly fine. I'm done. We're done."
"But... but why? What did I do wrong?" My voice was shaking now, and I hated how weak I sounded. "We can work through this. We can go to counseling, we can.."
"Counseling?" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You think counseling is going to fix how much you annoy me? How you chew too loud, how you leave your hair in the drain, how you cry at every stupid movie? How you're always so... so pathetic?"
Each word was like a knife twisting in my chest. This was the man who had promised to love me through sickness and health, for better or worse. The man who had held me when I cried, who had told me I was beautiful even on my worst days. At least, that's what I thought he had been.
"Alex, please," I begged, tears already starting to fall. "We can fix this. I can change. Tell me what you want me to change, and I'll do it."
His face twisted with something ugly. "There it is. That right there. The begging. The desperation. Do you know how disgusting that is? How can I love someone who has no self-respect?"
I flinched as if he had hit me. Maybe it would have hurt less if he had.
"I have self-respect," I whispered, but even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true. How could I have self-respect when I had let him treat me like this for years?
"No, you don't." He stepped closer, and I instinctively took a step back. "You never have. That's why I picked you up from that pathetic little apartment, remember? You had nothing. You were nothing. And I made you into something."
"I wasn't nothing," I said, but my voice was so quiet I wasn't sure he heard me.
"Yes, you were. You were living paycheck to paycheck, wearing the same three outfits to work, eating ramen for dinner every night. And I saved you. I gave you this house, these clothes, this life. And this is how you repay me? By being a constant disappointment?"
The tears were flowing freely now, and I couldn't stop them. "I've tried to be a good wife to you. I cook your meals, I clean the house, I work full-time to help with the bills.."
"And you do it all wrong!" He shouted, making me jump. "The food is always too bland or too spicy, the house is never clean enough, and don't even get me started on how you embarrass me in front of my friends and colleagues."
"How do I embarrass you?" I asked, genuinely confused.
"By being yourself!" He spat. "By being this weak, sniveling woman who can't hold a proper conversation. Do you know what my friends say about you? They wonder what I see in you. They think I settled."
My legs felt weak. I reached for the back of the couch to steady myself. "Alex, you're being cruel. This isn't you."
"This is exactly me, Lily. This is who I've always been. You were just too stupid to see it." He ran his hands through his hair, and for a moment, he looked almost sad. "I thought I could love you. I really did. But you're just... you're not enough. You'll never be enough."
"Please don't do this," I sobbed. "I love you. I've always loved you. Even when you... even when you hurt me, I still loved you."
"When I hurt you?" He laughed again. "Everything I did was to try to make you better. To make you worthy of being my wife. But you're hopeless. You're broken, and I can't fix you."
"I'm not broken," I said, but my voice broke on the words.
"Look at yourself," he said with disgust. "You're crying like a child. You're pathetic. And I'm tired of pretending I can stand to be around you."
He turned to leave, but I grabbed his arm. "Alex, wait. Please. We can talk about this. We can work it out."
He yanked his arm away so roughly that I stumbled backward. "Don't touch me. And don't follow me. I'm going to stay at my brother's place tonight. I'll be back tomorrow to get my things."
"Where does this leave us?" I asked desperately. "What about our marriage? What about our vows?"
He paused at the doorway and looked back at me one last time. "Our marriage was a mistake. Those vows were lies. And you..." He shook his head. "You were the biggest mistake of my life."
The front door slammed shut behind him, and I collapsed onto the couch, my whole body shaking with sobs. The silence in the house was deafening. Five years of marriage, seven years of loving this man, and it was over. Just like that.
I looked around our living room, at the pictures on the wall of us smiling and happy, at the throw pillows I had carefully chosen to match the curtains, at the life we had built together. Had it all been a lie? Had he been pretending to love me this whole time?
My phone buzzed with a text message. For a moment, my heart leaped, thinking it might be Alex apologizing, taking back everything he had said. But it was just a notification from my credit card company about a payment due.
I sat there in the dark, wondering what I was supposed to do now. How do you rebuild your life when the person who was supposed to love you most in the world has just told you that you're not worth loving?
The worst part was that a small voice in my head was whispering that maybe he was right. Maybe I was pathetic. Maybe I was nothing without him. Maybe it was time to find out who I really was without Alex telling me…
