Grace POV
Grace's eyes opened to an empty bed.
The sheets beside her were still warm, which meant James had left maybe five minutes ago. She could feel the ghost of his warmth, the smell of his cologne fading into the pillow. On their anniversary. The third one.
She lay there for a second, just listening. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. No coffee smell coming from the kitchen. No James humming something he thought was good but absolutely wasn't. Just silence.
She'd planned this morning for two weeks.
The silk robe had cost more than she wanted to admit. It was pale blue and it made her feel like someone in a movie. Someone important. Someone worth noticing. She'd bought new sheets too. Egyptian cotton, the fancy kind. She'd even gotten her hair done yesterday, not that he'd asked why or noticed the difference today.
Grace pushed herself out of bed and wrapped the robe around her body. It felt stupid now. She felt stupid.
The kitchen was bright with morning light. James sat at the table with his phone pressed to his face. He was already dressed. Already leaving. His dark suit was perfect like always. His hair was perfect. Everything about him was exactly as it should be. Cold. Put together. Gone.
She didn't expect him to jump up when she entered. She didn't expect flowers or breakfast or any of that movie stuff. But she expected him to look at her. Just once.
"Morning," she said.
He nodded. His eyes stayed on the phone.
Grace walked to the kitchen counter and started making coffee she didn't want. Her hands felt clumsy, like they belonged to someone else. She was trying to look casual. Natural. Not desperate. Not like she'd spent the night in the bathroom taking deep breaths and telling herself this time would be different.
"Did you sleep okay?" she tried.
"Fine." He didn't ask how she slept.
She poured coffee into two cups. One for her. One for him. The coffee was black, the way he liked it. She'd learned a hundred small things about him over three years and apparently none of them mattered.
When she set the cup down in front of him, he glanced up for half a second. Not at her face. At the cup. Like she'd interrupted something important.
"Thanks," he said. Then back to the phone.
Grace sat down across from him. She'd practiced what to say. How to say it. They needed to talk about their marriage. About the distance. About the way he came home late every night and came to bed even later. About how he looked at her sometimes like she was a stranger who'd wandered into his life by accident.
She opened her mouth.
His phone buzzed.
She watched his face change. Just slightly. His jaw loosened. His eyes focused. He smiled. Actually smiled. A real smile, not the polite one he sometimes gave her at company dinners.
It was a text.
She could see the name at the top of the screen. Victoria.
Grace felt something crack inside her chest. A real physical sensation, like something breaking open.
"You have to be kidding me," she whispered.
James was already typing back. His thumbs moved fast. He was smiling the whole time. Actually engaged. Actually present in a way he hadn't been present with her in months.
"James."
He didn't hear her.
"James."
"What?" He didn't look up.
"It's 7 AM. Who are you texting?"
"Work stuff."
It was a lie. She knew it the way you know when someone's lying. Your body just knows. Your stomach knows. It tightens up and tells you everything.
"No, it's not."
He finally looked at her. There was something cold in his eyes. Something that said he didn't want to be questioned. He didn't want to explain. He didn't want her in this moment at all.
"What's the problem, Grace?"
The problem. The problem was Victoria. The problem was that Victoria was James's ex from university, the one who understood his world because she lived in it. The one he texted when Grace wasn't looking. The one whose name made his voice change.
The problem was that he'd signed up for a marriage with Grace and decided to live it with someone else in his pocket.
"The problem is..." Grace started, but her voice wasn't working right. It sounded small. Broken. "The problem is that you're texting your ex-girlfriend and smiling like I've never made you smile like that."
She expected him to deny it. To get defensive. To explain it away.
Instead he just went back to his phone. Like she wasn't worth the conversation. Like her pain was background noise.
Grace stood up. The chair scraped loud against the floor. She walked to the bedroom and her feet knew exactly where to go.
Under the bed, in a folder, hidden behind other folders where she'd put them three months ago when she finally accepted that this wasn't going to work.
The divorce papers.
She'd gotten them from a lawyer. She'd read them. Reread them. Left them there while she waited. While she hoped. While she prayed that maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe James would change.
But he wouldn't. He was never going to change.
Some people don't know how to love and they don't want to learn.
Grace pulled the envelope out and held it against her chest. Her heart was hitting too hard. The robe felt ridiculous now. The whole morning felt ridiculous. The whole marriage felt like a lie she'd been telling herself.
She walked back to the kitchen.
James was still texting. He was still smiling.
Grace didn't say anything. She didn't have words anymore. Words had failed her. Every conversation had failed her. Every attempt to reach him across the table, across the bed, across this life they'd supposedly built together had failed.
She walked to the table and slid the envelope across the surface.
It landed right next to his coffee cup.
James looked up. For the first time all morning, he actually focused on her. She watched his eyes move to the envelope. She watched him see what it was.
"What is this?"
Grace's voice came out different now. Steady. Clear. "I can't do this anymore."
"Grace, don't be dramatic. Whatever you're upset about right now—"
"I'm not upset." She felt strange. Calm. Like she'd been drowning and just decided to let go. "I'm done. I'm actually done."
James opened the envelope slowly, like it might explode. He pulled out the papers. She watched him scan the first page. She waited for him to read it. To really read it.
He set them down.
His phone buzzed again. Victoria.
And he picked it up instead of reading the rest of the papers.
That was the moment Grace knew for certain. That was the moment she understood that she'd never actually mattered to this man. Not once in three years. She was just something convenient. Something that looked good at parties. Something that didn't ask for much until she did and then he just... checked his phone.
"Sign them," Grace said.
He signed without reading the rest.
His pen moved across the bottom of the page without stopping. Without hesitation. Without a single second of thought about what he was signing away.
Then he handed the pen back to her.
Grace took it. She looked at the man she'd married and realized she didn't know him at all. She never had.
"Where are you going?" James asked. Not like he cared. Like he was making conversation.
Grace walked to the door and grabbed the bag she'd packed two days ago. She'd known. Somewhere deep down, she'd known this was coming.
"Singapore," she said. "My sister's there. I have a plane ticket for tonight."
She didn't wait for him to respond. She didn't wait for him to ask her to stay or tell her he'd change or promise her anything. She just left.
Behind her, she could hear his phone buzzing again.
Victoria.
Grace made it to the elevator before she felt it. The cramp in her stomach. The sudden nausea. She leaned against the wall and took a breath and realized something else was happening.
She'd bought a pregnancy test that morning. Just in case. Just to know.
She'd taken it while James was in the shower.
Two pink lines.
A baby.
His baby.
And he'd never even looked at her face.
Grace got in the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors closed and she saw her reflection in the polished metal. Pale. Shaking. Alone.
But also somehow free.
She pressed her hand to her stomach and whispered something she'd never said before.
"It's going to be you and me, baby. Just us. And that's going to be enough."