Part 1 — The Test

I picked up the pen and signed my name on the divorce papers without hesitation. Julian’s face went white.
“Wait—what are you doing?” he stammered.
“Exactly what you asked me to do,” I said calmly, sliding the signed documents back across the table. “Your attorney can proceed with filing.”

He stared at the papers like I’d just set them on fire. The folder sat between our half-eaten plates of pasta, steam still curling off the sauce like the room hadn’t just shifted on its axis.

“Elodie, hold on,” he managed. “I thought—we’d talk about this first.”

“You brought divorce papers to dinner, Julian,” I said. “What exactly did you think would happen?”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again. No words. In seven years of marriage, I’d seen him angry, tired, stressed, amused, affectionate—but never truly speechless.

“You’re supposed to fight for us,” he finally whispered.

And that’s when I understood. This wasn’t about divorce. This was a test.

Some sick, performative experiment he and his friends had cooked up. A loyalty check with legal documents. A trap he was positive I’d avoid by crying, begging, crawling across the table if I had to.

My name is Elodie Brennan. I’m twenty-nine, a city planner, and someone who doesn’t play games with contracts, courts, or the state of my marriage. The man sitting across from me, my husband of seven years and partner for nine, had just risked everything we’d built on someone else’s bright idea of “relationship strength.”

Because I don’t beg. I don’t audition for my own marriage. And I definitely don’t reward manipulation.

He didn’t know yet that his closest friend had already reached the end of his own guilt—and was about to show me everything. Every message. Every plan. Every step of the trap they’d laid.

By the time Julian saw what he’d really done, it would be too late.

But to get to that night—to this table, these papers, his face gone gray while my signature dried in blue ink—you have to go back. Back to when I believed our marriage was unshakable. Back to the version of Julian who would’ve laughed anyone out of the room for suggesting something like this.

---

We met nine years ago at a community art gallery opening, one of those Thursday night events where half the people pretend they “see the commentary on late-stage capitalism” in a canvas that looks like someone lost a fight with a bucket of paint.

My coworker Rachel had dragged me out after three consecutive weekends spent buried in zoning maps and traffic flow models.
“You’re starting to talk in acronyms,” she’d said. “You need wine and strangers.”

The gallery smelled like cheap merlot and fresh drywall. Plastic cups, curated playlists, people frowning thoughtfully at abstract shapes. I stopped in front of a massive painting: swirls of blue and gray bleeding into each other, aggressive strokes in some areas, soft smudges in others.

“Urban isolation,” I murmured to myself. “The way cities crowd people together and still leave them lonely.”

“That,” a voice beside me said, “or somebody dropped a gallon of paint, panicked, and decided to charge twelve grand.”

I turned. Tall guy, dark hair, button-down shirt rolled at the sleeves. Laugh lines that looked earned, not posed.

I snorted. “Bold move assuming this isn’t at least fifteen grand.”

He grinned. “You’re right. The lighting in here adds three thousand easy.”

We spent the next hour wandering the gallery together, making up increasingly ridiculous interpretations. He insisted one piece captured “the existential crisis of refrigerator magnets.” I argued another represented “the emotional journey of a forgotten grocery list.”

By the time the staff started herding people out, my cheeks hurt from laughing. In the parking lot, under a flickering streetlight, we exchanged numbers like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He texted me that same night. Coffee turned into another coffee, which turned into dinner, which turned into him carrying my leftover pasta three blocks while insisting it was “structurally unsound” for me to walk and box-juggle at the same time.

What hooked me wasn’t some grand gesture. It was the total lack of games. No three-day waiting period to text. No weird tests about who would call first. If he wanted to see me, he said so. If I was busy, I told him. Communication was easy. Honest. Straightforward.

Maybe that’s why later, when everything went sideways, it all felt so surreal. I’d married the man who used to text, “Stuck in a boring meeting but thinking of you,” not the one who would sit across from me holding divorce papers like a prop.

---

Two years after we met, he proposed on a foggy Oregon beach. We’d driven down to the coast on a random Saturday with nothing planned beyond “get out of the city and eat something fried.”

I noticed him fidgeting with his jacket pocket as we walked. He kept shoving his hand in, taking it out, checking the sky like he’d scheduled the sun to do something specific.

When we found a quiet stretch of sand, he stopped. The waves were rolling in soft and slow, fog curling over the water like a blanket. He pulled out a small box with hands that were only slightly shaking.

The speech he’d practiced broke halfway through. His voice cracked like a teenager’s.
“Elodie, I—I love you. You’re my favorite person. Will you—”
“Yes,” I blurted, before he could finish, which made him laugh and almost drop the ring.

The ring was simple, exactly my taste—clean lines, nothing gaudy or oversized. It looked like something I would’ve picked for myself if I’d been the one shopping. That mattered to me more than I realized at the time.

Our wedding seven months later was small and warm. Close family, a handful of friends, a rented event space with exposed brick and string lights. No ice sculptures, no doves, no fifteen-tier cake. He cried during his vows. Mine made people laugh. It felt like us.

Marriage didn’t slam into us like a new identity. It just settled over the life we already had, adding legal language to what we’d already chosen. We rented a loft downtown with big windows and exposed pipes and just enough creaks to be charming.

Weekend mornings, we tried brunch recipes we had no business attempting. Shakshuka, soufflés, ridiculous cinnamon roll casseroles I’d bookmarked at 2 a.m. on Pinterest. We burned things more than we nailed them, ended up on the floor eating takeout out of cartons while a smoke detector blinked accusingly from the counter, battery removed.

We talked about kids—eventually. Not now, not next year, but someday. When work calmed down. When we moved or didn’t. When we “felt ready,” which I suspect is something people say when they know that day will never actually arrive in a neat little package.

I’m direct by default. At work as a city planner, ambiguity gets people hurt. You can’t build a bridge on vibes and wishful thinking. Foundations either hold or they don’t.

I brought that same mindset home. You tell the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. You say what you mean, not what you think will get the best reaction. You don’t test someone’s love if you actually believe they love you.

I thought Julian was wired the same way. Thoughtful, grounded, steady. The kind of man who rolled his eyes at couples who posted dramatic breakup quotes on social media only to get back together a week later.

Looking back now, I see the flaw: he wasn’t steady. Not really. He just hadn’t met the right storm yet.

---

Julian absorbed whatever the loudest voice in the room was saying. That didn’t bother me at first because, for a long time, the loudest voices around him were good ones—his dad, his manager, Claire, a few decent coworkers. He’d go to a conference, come home excited about some productivity system, buy a planner, color-code it, and then forget about it in two weeks.

It was annoying in the way a gym membership in January is annoying. Enthusiastic, harmless, temporary.

The shift started about six months before the night of the papers.

He’d come home from work and… vanish. Not physically—he was on the couch, in a chair, standing in the kitchen—but mentally, he was somewhere else.

He’d scroll his phone for twenty minutes straight, expression blank, thumb moving in that rhythmic, numb way that doesn’t look like relaxing so much as being programmed.

“Everything okay?” I’d ask from the kitchen, chopping vegetables or rinsing rice.

“Yeah,” he’d say without looking up. “Just tired. Work stuff.”

It was the pauses that bothered me. He paused before answering basic questions.
“How was your day?”
“It was… fine. Just meetings.”
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t… care. Whatever.”

It felt like talking to someone through bad reception—you’d ask something and then wait for the delayed, slightly distorted reply.

I told myself it was a phase. Work stress. A project going badly. The natural ebb in any marriage where you’re sharing space more than moments. We’d get past it. We always did.

---

His sister, Claire, came over one Saturday afternoon around that time. Claire is three years younger than Julian and infinitely better at reading him than anyone else.

We sat at our kitchen island drinking coffee. She wrapped both hands around her mug like she was bracing herself.

“So,” she said casually, “Marcus is back in town. He’s throwing this big thirty-fifth birthday thing next month.”

“Julian mentioned,” I said. “He seems excited.”

Claire stirred her coffee even though she hadn’t added anything to it. “Did he mention who else is back?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Some of his old college crew. Including Derek.”

The name meant nothing to me then, just a syllable. Claire’s tone gave it weight.

“You don’t like him?” I asked.

She gave a humorless laugh. “Derek’s the kind of guy who thinks he’s the main character in a movie no one else is watching. He brings out the worst in Julian. Always has.”

“College was ten years ago,” I said. “People grow up.”

“Sometimes,” Claire said. “Sometimes they just get better at hiding their crazy.”

I shrugged it off. Julian was thirty-three, not some nineteen-year-old frat pledge. If some old friend started spouting nonsense, he’d roll his eyes and move on.

That was my first mistake.

---

Marcus’s birthday party was on a warm Saturday night in early September, the kind of evening the city likes to pretend it has all the time. Rooftop bar, skyline view, Edison bulbs strung over reclaimed wood tables.

We brought cupcakes from the bakery down the street—overpriced but pretty—and made our way through the crowd. Marcus hugged Julian, hugged me, introduced us to people over the roar of music and clinking glasses.

It took about ten minutes for Julian to drift toward a group near the railing. I followed a minute later, just in time to hear a laugh that cut across the rooftop like a microphone test.

That was Derek.

Broad shoulders, expensive watch, designer stubble, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Next to him was Connor, thinner, quieter, the kind of guy who seemed permanently half a step behind the conversation.

Julian waved me over. “This is my wife, Elodie,” he said, hand on my back. “El, this is Derek and Connor. We were inseparable in college.”

Derek looked me up and down in a way that felt like an appraisal, not a greeting.
“So this is Elodie,” he said. “Julian never stops talking about you.”

“Hopefully in complete sentences,” I said.

He smirked, but there was something sharp under it. “Depends on the topic.”

Before I could reply, he launched into what sounded like a monologue he’d delivered a hundred times in a hundred bars.

According to Derek, modern relationships were “soft.” Men were “losing ground.” Women were “too comfortable.” He dropped phrases like “asserting dominance” and “maintaining frame” like he’d swallowed a podcast.

Connor nodded along, echoing Derek’s points with small comments and nervous laughs.

I’m not easily rattled, but what made my stomach shift wasn’t Derek’s content. I’ve heard garden-variety misogyny before. It was Julian’s face.

He looked… impressed. Engaged. Like Derek was saying something profound and world-altering instead of repackaged internet garbage.

He kept glancing at Derek like he was trying to absorb the posture, the tone, the certainty.

I felt something cold settle under my ribs.

Derek glanced at me. “Your wife’s got a sharp tongue,” he said to Julian, like I wasn’t standing right there. “You sure you can handle that?”

Julian laughed, a little awkwardly. “She’s just protective. It’s fine.”

“‘Protective,’” Derek repeated, rolling the word around like gum. “That’s one way to spin it.”

I met his eyes. “It was interesting meeting you both,” I said, and let it be obvious that “interesting” was not a compliment. Then I walked away.

The rest of the night blurred. Small talk, birthday toasts, people posing for photos. Every time I glanced for Julian, Derek was there, right at his shoulder. Talking. Leaning in. Performing.

On the drive home, Julian stared out the passenger window, fingers drumming on his thigh.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just tired.”

When we got home, he went straight to the bedroom and closed the door. Not slammed—just closed, quiet and final.

I stood in the kitchen with two empty cupcake boxes and the first tremors of dread. Something had shifted on that rooftop. I just didn’t know yet how deep it would go.

---

After that night, Julian’s schedule changed like someone had rearranged his life while I was at work.

“Poker night on Tuesdays,” he said casually, rinsing a mug. “The guys are getting together again.”

“Nice,” I replied. Friends are good.

“Happy hour Thursdays now too. Work’s been intense. It’s good to blow off steam with them.”

Weekends that used to be ours started disappearing. Golf outings. “Quick beers” that lasted until midnight.

“It’s just good to reconnect,” he said when I mentioned how often he was gone. “I haven’t had a solid group like this in years.”

The Julian who came home from those hangouts wasn’t the one who left. He smelled like whiskey and cigar smoke. He checked his phone before he kissed me hello—if he remembered to kiss me at all.

He laughed at things in the group chat that I never saw. Sometimes he’d walk into another room with his phone, shut the door, and emerge later with a look in his eyes that was both wired and distant.

One Wednesday I planned a whole evening around a documentary we’d been waiting to watch. I ordered Thai, queued up the movie, turned off my work notifications like it was an event.

“Hey,” I said when he walked in. “It finally dropped. Ready?”

He didn’t even take off his shoes. “I’m not really in the mood.”

“We’ve been talking about this for a month.”

He shrugged without looking up from his phone. “I’m not obligated to entertain you, Elodie.”

The sentence landed like a slap. Not because of the meaning—because of the phrasing. The cold, detached, almost rehearsed phrasing.

“That sounds familiar,” I said. “Did Derek write that for you?”

He stiffened. “I’m allowed to set boundaries.”

“That’s not a boundary. That’s a script.”

His jaw clenched. Without another word, he grabbed his phone and disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door just a little too carefully.

I ate pad thai alone on the couch while his muffled laughter drifted from behind the door. The credits rolled on a documentary I didn’t remember watching.

The next morning, he stood at the counter making coffee, staring at the machine like he was hypnotized.

“You know,” he said to the wall, “men are really undervalued in modern marriages.”

I froze. “Excuse me?”

He still didn’t look at me. “Women expect everything and give nothing back.”

My mouth actually fell open. “Who told you to say that?”

He whipped around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means those aren’t your words,” I said. “You don’t talk like that. Derek does.”

He folded his arms. “So now I’m not allowed to have my own opinions?”

“You are,” I said. “I just prefer when they’re actually yours.”

Something flickered across his face—anger, shame, both. He grabbed his jacket and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frames on the wall.

My phone rang twenty minutes later. Rachel.
“Hey,” she said. “Michelle told me she saw you and Julian at Marcus’s party. She said Julian seemed… different. Everything okay?”

“Who else said that?” I asked.

“Just… be careful, L. Some guys turn into different people when they want to impress the wrong friends.”

“He’s thirty-three, not sixteen,” I said. “He’s not that impressionable.”

The words tasted wrong in my mouth even as I said them.

---

The test started with four words: “Let me see your phone.”

He said it like someone asking for the salt. Casual. Controlled.

I was on the couch reading when he walked in and stopped in front of me.

“Why?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“I just want to check something.”

“What?”

He gave a little half-laugh. “If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

If the situation hadn’t felt so off, I might’ve joked about it. Instead, I unlocked my phone and handed it to him. I had nothing to hide, and I wanted him to see that.

He sat on the edge of the coffee table and went through everything. Texts, call logs, photos, email previews. He spent fifteen minutes combing through the most boring evidence of my extremely ordinary life.

Group chats about brunch. My sister complaining about her boss. Work emails about land-use codes. Screenshots of recipes I’d never make.

When he finally handed it back, he looked… disappointed.

“Find what you were looking for?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just making sure.”

Four days later, he asked again. Same tone, same posture in the doorway.
“Let me see your phone.”

“No,” I said.

His eyes widened. “Why not? What are you hiding?”

“Privacy,” I said. “That’s never been optional.”

“Wow,” he said slowly. “Your true colors are really showing.”

“Make sure you report back to Derek that I failed his little evaluation,” I said.

He didn’t deny it. Didn’t even bother to pretend this was spontaneous insecurity. He just turned away, phone already in hand, thumbs flying.

A few nights later, I found the notebook in his gym bag, looking for my car keys. I wasn’t snooping. The bag was unzipped, sitting open on the counter.

The page I flipped to was a list. His handwriting.

Phone — failed

Public jealousy test — pending

Financial dependency question — pending

Transformation hypothetical — pending

My blood ran cold.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t “I’m feeling insecure, I need reassurance.” This was a plan. A written checklist of tests he wanted to run on me like I was a lab rat.

I snapped a photo with my phone, closed the notebook, put everything back exactly where it had been, and stood in the kitchen with my heart pounding.

Who writes “public jealousy test — pending” about their wife?

Apparently my husband.

---

The next morning, he hit me with the “transformation hypothetical” over scrambled eggs.

“Would you still love me if I lost my job?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, not looking up from my plate. “We’d figure it out.”

“What if I gained fifty pounds?”

“Then I’d buy more sweatpants and we’d complain about our backs together.”

He frowned. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

I sighed. “I don’t love you because of your job or your waist size, Julian.”

He hesitated, then went for it. “Would you still love me if I turned into a tree?”

“A tree?”

“Yeah. Don’t overthink it. Just answer.”

“Like… full mythological oak or decorative ficus?” I asked. “Because if you went full Tolkien overnight, I’d assume Derek convinced you it was a power move and call an arborist.”

He stared at me like I’d spoken another language. “You’re making jokes.”

“You’re asking if I’d love you as a plant,” I said. “It’s either jokes or calling a psychiatrist.”

He shut down, face smoothing into that flat, unreadable expression. He grabbed his plate, dumped the rest of his eggs in the trash, and walked away.

Every answer was wrong now. Too flippant. Not emotional enough. Not dramatic enough. I could feel him measuring my responses against some invisible rubric, waiting for the grand, overwrought declarations Derek had probably told him a “real woman” would make.

One Saturday, he suggested we go to the farmers market. It had been our ritual once. We hadn’t gone in months.

I let myself hope. Stupidly. Maybe he was trying to reset things, go back to something that was ours.

We were standing at a produce stall, picking out heirloom tomatoes, when he suddenly raised his voice.

“She’s attractive,” he said, pointing across the aisle at a woman selling honey.

Without looking up, I said, “Yeah. So are these tomatoes. What’s your point?”

He waited. I could feel him staring at me, hovering in that silence where some women might say, “Excuse me? Why would you say that?”

I put another tomato in the basket.

“Did you hear me?” he said louder. “She’s attractive.”

“Julian,” I said calmly, “I’m not going to compete with a person who sells honey for a living at ten a.m. on a Saturday. If you want honey, we can buy honey.”

A couple by the lettuce snorted and tried to pretend they hadn’t. The vendor behind the table focused very hard on arranging carrots he’d already arranged twice.

“You don’t even care if I notice other women,” Julian practically shouted.

“Not particularly,” I said. “You noticed me once too. It turned out fine—until Derek.”

His face went red. He stood there, jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle twitch in his cheek.

I paid for our produce. He stood a few feet away, radiating fury. The drive home was silent, his hands strangling the steering wheel, phone buzzing in the cup holder every few minutes.

As soon as we got inside, he went straight to the bedroom. Through the door, I could hear the low rumble of his voice, then another voice—Derek’s—sharp and confident.

I stood in the kitchen holding a bunch of parsley and realized my husband was debriefing our marriage like it was a game level he’d failed.

---

The “serious talk” came that evening.

He sat across from me on the couch, hands clasped like he was giving a TED Talk to an audience of one.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I don’t think we’re compatible anymore.”

The words should’ve felt like a bomb. Instead, they landed like a confirmation email. Yes, your suspicion has been received and processed.

“What specifically changed?” I asked.

He blinked. “What?”

“You said we’re not compatible. Okay. What changed?”

He floundered, reaching for lines that weren’t coming. “You don’t… fight for us. You don’t care. You’re emotionally distant.”

“That’s not an answer,” I said. “That’s a script. Tell me what actually happened.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he snapped. “You never prioritize my emotional needs.”

“Julian, I’ve been asking you what’s wrong for months. You keep giving me podcast quotes instead of answers.”

His eyes flashed. “I need someone who fights for me. Who proves their commitment.”

Every phrase was Derek. Every single one. I’d heard enough fragments over the past weeks to recognize the phrasing.

“Have you thought about couples therapy?” I asked. “We can talk to someone neutral.”

He actually scoffed. “Therapy won’t fix this. Women only suggest therapy when they want to control the narrative.”

Something went perfectly still inside me.

“That’s not your belief,” I said quietly. “That’s Derek’s. You used to believe therapy was ‘like a tune-up for your brain,’ remember?”

He stood abruptly. “I’ve already talked to a lawyer,” he said, voice shaking just a little. “I have the paperwork ready.”

The room tilted. “When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

While I was making his coffee and sitting beside him on the couch and asking about his day, he’d been shopping for attorneys.

“Does Derek know?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“He… helped me find the attorney,” Julian admitted. “He said I needed to protect myself.”

Of course he did.

“Have your lawyer send me the papers,” I said, standing.

“That’s it?” Julian demanded. “You’re not going to fight this?”

“There’s nothing to fight,” I said. “You made your choice two weeks ago.”

He looked stunned, like my calm was the most vicious thing I’d done all night.

Three days later, he slid the folder across the dinner table between our plates like it was the check.

“What’s this?” I asked, even though my chest already knew.

“Just… look at it,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

I opened it. Neat legal language stared back at me. Petition for dissolution. Proposed division of assets. No children. Boxes already checked. Lines already filled in.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“It’s what’s best for both of us,” he said. “I need to prioritize my growth. I can’t do that while being undervalued.”

“Give me one example,” I said. “One concrete way I’ve undervalued you.”

He stared at me, mouth opening and closing without sound. When nothing came, he defaulted back to the script.

“You don’t fight for us,” he said. “If you really loved me, you’d be begging me right now not to go through with this.”

There it was. The test. The final boss level in Derek’s little game.

He wanted a scene. Tears. Hands grabbing at his wrists. A sobbed, “Don’t leave, I’ll do anything.” He wanted a movie moment that would reassure him he was worth chasing.

Instead, I picked up the pen lying neatly beside my water glass.

“Elodie?” he said, voice cracking.

I initialed where the yellow tags told me to. I read enough to confirm there was nothing insane buried in legalese. I signed the last page with a hand that didn’t shake.

Then I closed the folder and slid it back across the table.

“Your attorney can proceed,” I said.

He stared at me like I’d just detonated something. “You’re being heartless.”

“No,” I said. “I’m being honest. There’s a difference.”

He flinched.

I took my plate to the sink, rinsed it, put it in the dishwasher, and went to our bedroom. I packed a small overnight bag—clothes, toiletries, my laptop—and texted Claire.

Can I stay with you tonight?

Her response came almost immediately.
Door’s open. Are you okay?

Not yet, I wrote back. But I will be.

I walked through the living room with my bag on my shoulder. Julian was on the phone, pacing, voice tight and high. I heard Derek’s name. Heard the word “signed.” Heard, “That’s not what you said would happen.”

I didn’t say goodbye.

I left the loft we’d once decorated together and drove across the river to Claire’s apartment. I didn’t play music. I didn’t cry.

The city lights blurred past while I realized something simple and terrible: my husband had just turned our marriage into a multiple-choice test. And I had chosen “None of the above.”

---

Claire’s apartment was small and soft and full of plants. She hugged me like she already knew everything.

“He gave you the papers?” she asked.

“He did,” I said. “So I signed them.”

She nodded, not surprised at either part. “Tea?”

“Please.”

We sat on her couch, mugs cupped in our hands. She didn’t push. She waited.

“He thought I’d refuse,” I said finally. “He thought if I loved him, I’d cry and beg and refuse to sign.”

“That sounds like Derek,” she said flatly. “Invent a test, declare any answer that doesn’t match his prediction ‘proof’ that the woman failed.”

“I saw his notebook,” I added. “He has a list. Phone test. Public jealousy test. Some ‘transformation hypothetical.’ Like he was grading me.”

Claire swore under her breath. “I told Julian years ago Derek was poison. He never listened.”

My phone started vibrating on the coffee table around eleven. Julian.

I stared at his name for a full ring before I answered.

His voice was wrecked. “I made a terrible mistake.”

I said nothing.

“I didn’t mean it,” he rushed on. “I wasn’t actually going to go through with the divorce, it was—it was supposed to be a test.”

There it was. Said out loud.

“Derek said if you really loved me, you’d refuse to sign,” Julian continued. “That you’d fight for us. That you’d prove it.”

“You brought me legal documents as a loyalty quiz,” I said. My voice sounded very far away, even to me.

“I love you,” he said, words tumbling out. “I love you, El. I just—he said this would make us stronger. I didn’t think you’d actually sign. I just wanted you to prove—”

He broke on the word, dissolving into harsh, gasping sobs. Apologies spilled out between breaths. Explanations. Excuses. Derek’s name over and over like a shield and an indictment.

I listened. I let him exhaust every possible version of “I didn’t mean it” he could find.

When the silence finally came, he whispered, “Please. Please say something.”

I took a breath.

“Goodbye, Julian,” I said.

Then I ended the call.

Claire appeared in the doorway, eyes questioning.

“You okay?” she asked.

“For the first time in a long time,” I said, “I know exactly where I stand.”

She came to sit beside me. “He called me yesterday,” she admitted. “Asked if I could talk you into giving him another chance.”

“What’d you say?”

“That he made his choice,” she said. “And now he has to live with it. I love him—he’s my brother. But what he did to you was cruel, and I’m not helping him clean it up.”

Something in my chest loosened.

I went to sleep on her couch that night under a throw blanket that smelled like her laundry detergent, and for the first time in months, I didn’t lie awake waiting for the next test.

The next test had already been graded. And I was done taking them.

Part 2 — Evidence

The next morning, my phone woke me before Claire’s alarm did.

I was still half-wrapped in her throw blanket, face buried in the couch cushion, when the vibration started. One buzz. Then another. Then a relentless chain of them, like my phone was trying to crawl off the coffee table.

Claire was in the kitchen pouring coffee. “Your phone’s having a seizure,” she called. “You might want to put it out of its misery.”

I rolled over, squinting at the screen. Fifteen unread messages. Six missed calls. Three voicemails. All from different people.

The first text was from Michelle, a coworker who usually messaged me only about zoning board drama or last-minute lunch plans.

Hey, heard you and Julian are going through something. I’m so sorry. Just wanted to say I’m here if you need anything. ❤️

“Heard you and Julian are going through something.”

The phrasing was too careful, too… coached.

The next one was from our mutual friend Thomas:

Just checking in. I know things are tough. If you ever want to talk, you know I’ve got your back.

Another from a college friend I hadn’t seen in over a year:

Stay strong. You deserve better than what I heard you were dealing with.

What they’d “heard.”

I scrolled, reading variations of the same thing. Everyone suddenly “just checking in.” Everyone oddly vague. No one saying what they’d actually been told.

Then I opened the message from Michelle that gave away the script.

I heard you were emotionally distant. Didn’t realize it was that serious. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.

Emotionally distant.

I laughed out loud. It wasn’t the nice, light sound I’d once shared with Julian over bad brunch experiments. It was sharp and disbelieving, and it made Claire poke her head into the living room, eyebrows raised.

“What?” she asked.

“Derek’s doing PR,” I said, holding up my phone. “Apparently, I’m emotionally distant. That’s the official diagnosis.”

Her eyes darkened. “Let me guess—Julian’s the wounded hero who ‘tried everything’ and his cruel, cold wife just wouldn’t fight for him?”

“Something like that.”

I thought about how to respond to the flood of concerned messages, then decided I didn’t owe anyone a novel. They weren’t asking for my side. They were sniffing around the edges of gossip they’d already heard.

So I wrote one answer and copied it, over and over:

Julian initiated divorce as a test.
I signed.
That’s the whole story.

I sent it to everyone who’d reached out. Some responses came back fast—apologies, backtracking, actual concern now that they had details. A few people followed up with, “Wait, what do you mean a test?” Others went quiet.

I filed that silence away under one word: noted.

Claire slid a mug of coffee into my hands and sat across from me at the small kitchen table. “So Derek’s already running damage control.”

“Of course he is,” I said. “Can’t have people thinking his ‘brilliant strategy’ got someone dumped by their own wife in under ten minutes.”

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m… pissed,” I admitted. “But I’m also really clear. Julian wanted a test. He got a result. Now he has to live with it.”

Claire nodded, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I’m just glad you didn’t give him the performance they were all waiting for.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

I took a long drink of coffee and opened my email. If Julian could weaponize legal documents, then I could too.

By noon, I had a consult scheduled with a divorce attorney Claire recommended.

Margaret Pritchard’s office was on the twentieth floor of a downtown glass box that reflected the whole city back at itself. Inside, everything was cool, neutral, composed—the kind of place where people came to dismantle their lives in an orderly fashion.

She was in her fifties, sharp in a navy blazer, her hair streaked with gray in a way that made her look more formidable, not less. She shook my hand once, firmly, and gestured to a chair opposite her desk.

“Tell me everything,” she said. “And don’t leave out anything that seems ‘too small.’ The small things are usually where the strategy hides.”

So I did. I laid out the whole mess in chronological order, like presenting a case study: the rooftop party, Derek’s rhetoric, the personality shift, the notebook with tests, the phone demands, the jealousy stunt at the farmers market, the lawyer, the papers at dinner.

I watched her face as I talked. It didn’t change much, but her pen moved faster at certain points: “notebook w/ list,” “influenced by friend,” “divorce as test.”

When I finished, she sat back, pen resting on the pad.

“This is one of the more… creative situations I’ve seen,” she said. “But not the strangest. People do profoundly stupid things when they mistake manipulation for strength.”

“Tell me about it,” I said dryly.

“The good news,” she continued, “is that you’re in a strong position. No kids. Joint property that can be divided cleanly. You’ve documented a lot already. The bad news—if you want to call it that—is that your husband is likely going to panic when he realizes you’re actually following through.”

“He’s already panicking,” I said. “He called last night sobbing. Said it was all a test. That Derek told him I’d refuse to sign.”

She nodded, unsurprised. “Men like Derek love tests they assume they control. They don’t usually plan for the subject of the experiment to walk out of the lab.”

I liked her immediately.

“I don’t want revenge,” I said. “I don’t want to ‘teach him a lesson.’ I just want… out. Cleanly.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since you walked in here,” she replied. “Here’s what we’ll do: we’ll file our own petition. We won’t contest anything reasonable. We’ll make sure the division of assets is fair. We’ll set clear boundaries.”

“And if he keeps calling?” I asked. “Showing up?”

“That’s harassment,” she said simply. “We warn his attorney first. If it continues, we escalate. You don’t have to manage his remorse. That’s his job, not yours.”

Something in me exhaled. For weeks, I’d been managing everything—his moods, his tests, his spirals. Handing that over, even in theory, felt like setting down a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying.

We went through practicalities. Income. Savings. The loft. The car we shared. She took notes like she was building a blueprint—which, in a way, she was.

“Any questions for me?” she asked as our meeting wrapped.

“Yeah,” I said. “Am I crazy for not being more… devastated?”

“Do you want the lawyer answer or the human answer?” she asked.

“Both.”

“The lawyer answer,” she said, “is that people respond to shock in different ways. You’re in action mode right now. It’s normal. The human answer is: you’re not crazy. He destroyed your trust, not your love of yourself. You’re allowed to feel clear about walking away from that.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Once we file,” she added, “you’ll get more reactions. Friends, family, maybe even from Derek if he’s as invested as you say. When they try to rewrite the story, remember this: you’re the only one who was actually in your marriage. Their narratives don’t outrank your reality.”

I left her office with a folder under my arm and something like relief in my chest. A plan. A professional who wasn’t Derek. A path forward that didn’t involve tests.

It was a start.

Julian didn’t call that day. He didn’t text. Didn’t show up outside Claire’s building.

For about twelve hours, it was quiet.

Then, the next morning, my phone buzzed with a number I didn’t recognize.

Hi Elodie. It’s Connor.
I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything. But I need to talk to you. It’s important. Please.

I stared at the screen.

Connor: Derek’s echo. The guy who’d nodded along to every toxic speech on that rooftop. The one whose name I’d silently slotted into the “enabler” column and left there.

Claire glanced over my shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“Connor,” I said. “Apparently he’s grown a conscience.”

“Or Derek threw him under the bus,” she said. “Either way, he’s spooked.”

I reread the message. There was no defensiveness in it. No, “You misunderstood,” or “It’s not what you think.” Just raw guilt leaking between the lines.

I typed back:

Where?

He replied so fast he might’ve been waiting with the message drafted.

You pick. Somewhere neutral. Anywhere you feel safe. I’ll be there.

We settled on a coffee shop across town, in a neighborhood Julian and I had never really gone to. Neutral territory.

“Want me to come?” Claire asked.

“No,” I said. “If Derek actually sent him, I’d rather he underestimate me.”

She smiled, a little vicious. “That’s my girl.”

The coffee shop smelled like espresso and cinnamon and somebody’s attempt at gluten-free baking. Exposed brick, big windows, laptop people scattered at tables.

Connor was already there, in the back corner, hunched over a mug he clearly hadn’t touched. Up close, he looked wrecked—dark circles under his eyes, rough stubble, a hoodie that had seen better days.

He stood as I approached, hands twitchy. “Thank you for meeting me,” he said. “I… didn’t think you’d come.”

“Say what you need to say,” I replied, sitting.

“I’m not here to defend anyone,” he said quickly. “Least of all Derek. I just—I can’t keep holding this. You deserve to know the truth.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then tell it.”

He fumbled for his phone, unlocked it with fingers that weren’t steady, scrolled, swallowed.

“Derek manipulated all of us,” he said. “Me. Julian. The other guys. He doesn’t ‘have friends’—he has an audience. He hates it when people are happy in ways he isn’t. Your marriage… scared him.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Our marriage scared him?”

“He called it ‘complacent comfort,’” Connor said. “But I could tell it bothered him that you and Julian actually liked each other. That you didn’t play games. He said it made men weak.”

On the screen, he pulled up a message thread and turned the phone toward me.

It was a text from him to Julian, weeks before the divorce papers.

J, this is insane. Derek is pushing you toward something destructive. This isn’t strength. This isn’t leadership. You’re letting him turn your marriage into a war game. He’s projecting his own failures onto you and you’re letting him rewrite your reality.

I blinked. Read it again.

“You tried to warn him,” I said quietly.

Connor’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. Not hard enough, apparently.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

Connor scrolled to the reply.

You don’t get it. Derek understands relationships in a way you don’t. You’ve always been scared to test women. I need to trust the process. You’re just jealous of my growth.

I actually felt a little nauseous. “Trust the process,” I repeated. “Like this was a diet plan.”

Connor rubbed a hand over his face. “He started using that phrase for everything. ‘Trust the process, man. You’ve never pushed your girlfriends. That’s why they all left.’”

He moved to another thread: the group chat. A handful of names at the top—Derek’s, Julian’s, his, a few other guys from the rooftop party.

The messages were exactly as bad as I expected and somehow worse.

Derek:

If your woman never has to fight for you, she doesn’t value you. You need to see if she’ll bleed for the relationship.

Start small. Phone checks, jealousy triggers. See if she gets possessive. If she doesn’t, she’s already checked out.

Final step: divorce papers. If she refuses to sign and begs you to reconsider, she’s worth keeping. If she signs easily, she was using you.

Connor showed me his responses in the chat—anxious pushback that Derek mocked into silence.

Dude, this is messed up. Marriage isn’t a game.

Derek:

That’s what weak men say. Women test you all the time. This is just leveling the field.

When Connor tried again, Derek went for the throat.

You sound brainwashed by feminist propaganda. No wonder your ex walked.

Connor’s jaw tightened. “I left the chat after that,” he said. “But Julian stayed. He kept meeting Derek. Kept asking him what to do next.”

My stomach felt like it was full of ice.

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I swear. I’m not hoping you get back together. I just—I can’t keep letting Derek control the narrative. He’s telling everyone you were cold, manipulative. That you didn’t ‘fight for your man.’ He’s painting you as the villain in a movie he wrote.”

I thought of the texts from friends that morning. Emotionally distant. Not fighting.

“I figured,” I said.

“There’s more,” he said. “You need to see how far it went.”

He pulled up another thread—direct messages between Derek and Julian.

The earlier ones were the worst, because they showed Julian’s doubt before it got buried.

Julian:

I don’t know, man. This feels extreme. What if she actually signs? I don’t want to lose her. I love her.

Derek:

Doubt means you’re still weak. Women push men all the time. You’re just doing it consciously. She won’t sign. Trust me. She’s a woman—she’s attached to the security. She’ll panic and prove herself.

Julian:

She’s not like that. She’s logical. What if she calls my bluff?

Derek:

Then you know she never really loved you. Better to find out now.

Message after message, Julian’s hesitation showed up, and Derek crushed it on contact.

Don’t listen to Claire, she’s biased.
Therapy is a trap.
If she suggests counseling, it’s because she wants a referee she can manipulate.
If she doesn’t cry when you hand her the papers, that tells you everything.

I handed the phone back carefully, like it might explode.

“Thanks,” I said. My voice sounded steady. It surprised me. “For showing me this. For trying to warn him.”

Connor swallowed. “It doesn’t change anything, I know. You’re doing the right thing. He has to live with what he chose.”

“It doesn’t change my decision, no,” I agreed. “But it helps to know I wasn’t imagining the script. That there really was someone feeding him lines.”

“How did you do it?” he blurted. “Sign the papers like that? No fight, no scene?”

“Because the second I realized it was a test,” I said, “I knew the marriage was already dead. You don’t test people you trust. You don’t manipulate people you respect. Julian didn’t want a partner. He wanted proof on demand.”

Connor stared at his hands. “He’s been a wreck since,” he said quietly. “Cut Derek off a few days ago. Not that Derek cares—he’s too busy reinventing himself online. But Julian… he’s starting to see it. What he threw away.”

Sympathy flickered in my chest and burnt out just as fast.

“I hope he figures himself out,” I said. “But that’s not my job anymore.”

Connor nodded. “It shouldn’t have been in the first place.”

I stood. “Take care of yourself, Connor. Maybe get a therapist who isn’t a guy on a podcast.”

He gave a short, almost startled laugh. “Already did,” he said. “Turns out actual professionals don’t think ‘public jealousy tests’ are a great strategy.”

“Wild,” I said. “Who could’ve guessed?”

Back at Claire’s, I forwarded the screenshots to Margaret with a brief note:

Attaching messages between Julian & Derek. Not sure if they’re legally relevant, but they matter to me.

Her response came an hour later.

Legally: they don’t change the paperwork much.
Strategically: they matter. They reinforce your case if he tries to argue that you blindsided him or acted irrationally. They show premeditation—on his friend’s part, at least. Keep all of them.

I screenshotted everything and backed it up in three different places. I wasn’t giving Derek the satisfaction of rewriting the past.

Julian, meanwhile, started a new phase: contrition mixed with denial.

He called again that night. I let it go to voicemail. His message pinged my notifications a minute later.

“El, please. I know I screwed up. I talked to Connor. He showed me what he showed you, didn’t he? Derek twisted everything. I see that now. Please just… talk to me. We can fix this. We can go to therapy if that’s what you want. I’ll do whatever you say.”

The whiplash would’ve been funny if the stakes weren’t my life.

Therapy is manipulation when I suggest it. Therapy is salvation when his support system collapses.

I didn’t respond.

The next day, he escalated to physical proximity.

When I left the city planning office at five, he was standing across the street, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, looking like a man in a movie who’d been standing there the whole time.

“Elodie!” he called, crossing as soon as he saw me. “Please. Just five minutes.”

I kept walking toward my car. “We don’t have anything to talk about,” I said. “Speak to your attorney. Mine will speak to yours.”

“That’s cold,” he said, hurt flashing across his face. “You’re really just going to shut me out completely?”

“You handed me divorce papers,” I said. “At dinner. You shut this down first.”

He reached toward my arm. I stepped back just out of reach.

“Don’t,” I said. “Do not touch me.”

Something in his eyes broke a little at that. Good. Something in me had shattered weeks ago.

“I love you,” he said. “I know I went about this all wrong, but I was scared. I needed proof—”

“No,” I cut in. “You needed drama. You needed me to humiliate myself so you could feel worth fighting for. I’m not doing that. Not now. Not ever.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. I walked past him, got in my car, and drove away.

The next morning, he was outside my gym at 7 a.m.

By the end of the week, he’d appeared outside Claire’s building twice—standing on the sidewalk, head tipped back to look up at her sixth-floor windows like he could will me to the balcony I didn’t have.

Every time, I ignored him. Every time, my heart thudded a little faster—not from fear, but from anger at how easily he’d slipped from “respecting my space” to hovering near it like a ghost.

I documented it all. Dates, times, locations. Photos snapped from my car of him leaning against his, parked across the street. Screenshots of texts from friends: “Julian was outside your office again today—are you okay?”

Then I sent it all to Margaret.

She replied within a couple of hours.

I’ll send a formal notice to his attorney. This stops now. If it doesn’t, we’ll pursue a restraining order. I’m glad you documented everything. Keep doing that if he continues.

The letter worked like flipping a switch.

Within days, the sightings stopped. No more cars idling near Claire’s building. No more shadow outside my gym. No more surprise sidewalk confessionals.

The voicemails slowed, then ceased. The texts trickled, then dried up completely.

It was as if once the consequences shifted from emotional (“you’re upsetting me”) to legal (“you could get a court order”), he finally understood a boundary.

It told me everything I needed to know about what he’d truly been afraid of. Not losing me. Losing control.

While Julian was retreating, Derek was doubling down.

Connor sent me screenshots one evening with the note: You’re gonna want to see this.

Derek had written a long public post on his social media platform of choice. It was one of those text-heavy, faux-inspirational images over a grayscale background that insecure men love.

The caption:

Modern relationships are a joke. Men give everything, women give nothing. When a man finally decides to test his partner’s loyalty, he gets painted as the villain. I watched a good man get abandoned by a cold wife who refused to fight for him. This is what happens when weak men let women control the narrative.

There was more—paragraphs of self-pitying nonsense about “female manipulation” and “beta males guarding the gates.” But he never used my name. Didn’t have to. Everyone who knew us could read between the lines.

The comments, however, did not go the way he anticipated.

People we knew—people who’d seen the notebook, the messages, the fallout—started firing back.

“Didn’t you encourage him to file for divorce as some sick test?”

“You literally told him to weaponize legal documents. That’s not loyalty, that’s abuse.”

“Maybe stop giving relationship advice when you’re twice divorced and can’t keep a girlfriend for more than six months.”

Someone had gone into the archives and screencapped his old posts. Ones where he’d bragged about dumping women for “failing tests.” About “never letting women see you vulnerable.” About “keeping them on their toes.”

They pasted those under his fresh martyrdom.

“This you?”

“You talked like this for years and now you’re shocked it blew up in your face?”

“Dude, you didn’t lose respect. You lost your audience.”

Watching Derek get dragged in his own comment section didn’t undo anything he’d done. It didn’t restore my marriage or rewind months of stress. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel… satisfying.

He deleted the post within three hours. Screenshots, of course, lived on.

Connor texted again later that week.

He’s spiraling.
Julian blocked him.
Marcus barely talks to him.
Even his latest girlfriend bailed.

Good, I thought. Let his own chaos keep him company.

Julian, meanwhile, was quieter than he’d been since this started.

No more text avalanches. No more calls in the middle of the night. No more standing outside buildings like an unpaid extra in a rom-com.

The divorce process, guided by Margaret, moved forward with a calm efficiency that felt almost obscene compared to the drama that had preceded it.

Paperwork. Asset lists. Numbers in boxes. It was all so… normal.

I found a new apartment a few neighborhoods over. Smaller than the loft, but airy, with big windows and a small balcony just big enough for a chair and a plant.

Claire and Rachel helped me move. We hauled boxes and cursed the stairs and ordered pizza and drank cheap champagne on the floor when we were done.

Standing in that empty living room, looking at my mismatched furniture and bare walls, I felt something I hadn’t felt in months.

Possibility.

I wasn’t done with the process. There was still court ahead, signatures, final decrees. Derek was still out there, somewhere, regenerating his ego. Julian was still processing his regret in whatever way he processed anything—late, and with other people’s words.

But for the first time since he’d slid that folder across the dinner table, I wasn’t bracing for the next test.

There wouldn’t be one.

I’d taken myself out of the experiment.

Part 3 — Aftermath

The divorce moved forward in slow, tidy steps. Paperwork. Inventory lists. E-signatures. I’d expected it to feel like getting dragged behind a truck. Instead, it felt like… administration. Like closing out a project at work that had already failed months ago, and now everyone was just doing the paperwork to admit it.

While Margaret handled filings and deadlines, real life kept rolling. At the office, I finalized a zoning proposal that had been circling City Council for almost a year. It finally passed. My inbox filled with “Nice work” emails from people who would’ve happily thrown me under the bus if it hadn’t. I went home to my small new apartment, stared at the blank walls, and realized from now on I got to decide exactly what went on them.

Derek, of course, refused to stay in the background.

Connor sent me another series of screenshots one evening with a simple caption: You’re gonna laugh at this. I opened them with a careful, detached curiosity, like looking at a venomous snake through thick glass.

Derek had rebranded. Again.

His social media was suddenly full of glossy couple photos with a woman named Stephanie. She had that polished, competent look of someone who could probably run a small country better than most politicians. Her smile was wide but not fake. In every picture, Derek looked at her like she’d descended from the clouds to personally validate his existence.

The captions made me snort.

“Finally found a woman who matches my energy.”
“She challenges me to grow every day.”
“Real masculinity is about listening more than you speak.”

This from the man who’d spent months lecturing Julian about “never letting women gain emotional leverage,” now posting soft-focus photos of himself holding hands and talking about “emotional maturity.”

The comments were merciless.

“This the same guy who said men should never show vulnerability?”
“Didn’t you coach a married man into fake-divorcing his wife?”
“Blink twice if you’re in witness protection from your own bad takes.”

Derek replied to some of them at first, accusing people of “twisting his words” and “taking old content out of context.” But the screenshots were right there, side by side. His old macho garbage. His new “evolved” persona. The inconsistency spoke for itself.

I felt a flicker of satisfaction. Then I let it go. Derek’s hypocrisy was entertaining, but it wasn’t my problem anymore. He was a man permanently auditioning for a role in a movie that kept getting canceled.

Three weeks later, Connor texted again.

Stephanie dumped him.
He scrubbed every picture of her.
He’s back to being “lone wolf alpha” online. It’s pathetic.

I checked out of morbid curiosity. Sure enough, every trace of Stephanie was gone. In their place: quotes about “never needing anyone,” about “standing alone,” about “betrayal waking up the beast inside you.”

He bounced between roles with whiplash speed—martyr, guru, lover, lone warrior. The only constant was that nothing was ever his fault.

For the first time, I felt something other than anger toward him. It wasn’t compassion. It wasn’t forgiveness. It was something closer to clinical detachment. Derek wasn’t a mastermind. He was just… empty. And dangerous because of how desperately he needed to feel full.

Julian stayed quieter now, but he didn’t disappear completely.

He found new ways to orbit my life without breaching the legal lines Margaret had put in place. He sent packages to mutual friends—books he thought I’d like, a scarf I’d admired once in a store window, printed photos from vacations we’d taken. He always pushed them through someone else.

“Can you give this to El?” he’d ask them. “Tell her I’m thinking of her. Tell her I’m sorry.”

Most of my friends sent me screenshots of his messages instead of the gifts. “Do you want this?” they’d ask.

“Keep it,” I said every time. “Donate it. I don’t care what you do with it. I just don’t want it.”

The more he tried to flood my life with nostalgia, the more dead it all felt. Those memories were real, but they belonged to a version of us that didn’t exist anymore. It was like someone mailing me souvenirs from a country that had been wiped off the map.

I kept sending updates to Margaret. She logged them, added them to a slowly growing file, and sent another formal letter to Julian’s attorney when his behavior started creeping toward the edge of acceptable again. The second letter was sharper than the first. The phrase “future request for a restraining order” showed up twice.

That did it.

After that, the packages stopped. So did the “accidental” sightings and the attempts to recruit mutual friends as go-betweens. He retreated all the way into his own regret.

One afternoon, I got a message from Marcus. We hadn’t talked much since the birthday rooftop that started all of this.

Hey Elodie. Any chance you’d be okay chatting for a few minutes? I owe you a real apology.

We met at the Saturday farmers market. The same one where Julian had tried to bait me into a public jealousy meltdown over a honey vendor. The weather was warm and bright. People wandered between stalls holding iced coffees and cloth bags full of produce.

I was inspecting heirloom tomatoes when I saw Marcus hovering nearby, looking like a man approaching a courtroom instead of a grocery stand. He gave a small wave.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Thanks for meeting me.”

“I like tomatoes,” I said. “You got lucky.”

He huffed a laugh, nerves cracking a little. “I, uh… I brought Derek back into Julian’s life,” he said without preamble. “That’s on me. I knew Derek was messy, but I didn’t realize how much worse he’d gotten. I thought it’d be fun, you know? Old crew, nostalgia, dumb college stories. I didn’t think he’d… do this.”

I studied his face. He didn’t look defensive. Just wrecked.

“You couldn’t have predicted all of it,” I said. “Derek’s very good at hiding what he is until he’s deep in your head.”

Marcus nodded slowly. “Julian’s paying for it,” he said quietly. “He’s… not doing great. He cut Derek off completely about a month ago. Deleted his number, blocked him everywhere.”

“About time,” I said.

“He’s in therapy now,” Marcus added. “Like, actual therapy. Not Derek’s ‘men’s circle’ nonsense. He’s starting to get it. What he did. What he let happen.” He hesitated. “He knows he lost you. For good. I think it finally hit.”

Something tugged at my chest. Not longing, not regret. Just sadness—for time wasted, for a man who’d been handed something good and decided to stress test it until it broke.

“I hope he figures himself out,” I said. “I really do. But that doesn’t change anything between us.”

“I know,” Marcus said. “I’m not here to convince you otherwise. I just… wanted you to hear from someone who isn’t in Derek’s cult that you’re not crazy. Or cold. Or whatever story he tried to spin. Everyone who’s paying attention knows what really happened.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That’s more than I can say for some people.”

We said goodbye near the apples. He walked away looking lighter, like he’d been carrying that apology around for weeks and finally could set it down.

That night, a new text came in from an unknown number.

It’s me. New phone.
I am sorry.

Three words. Two spaces. A period.

I stared at them for a long time.

Some part of me wanted to answer. Not to reconcile. Just to acknowledge. To say, “I know. I see that you’re trying.” To give him the smallest crumb of closure.

But then I thought about the notebook. The list of tests. Public jealousy pending. My phone, his phone, my boundaries, his games. The divorce papers laid out between our dinner plates like a puzzle he was sure he’d already solved.

I didn’t owe him my forgiveness. I didn’t owe him my time. I didn’t owe him anything.

I deleted the message.

He never texted again.

---

The court date landed on a Tuesday morning in late spring. One of those too-bright days where the sky is aggressively blue and birds are singing in trees outside buildings where people are ending their marriages.

The courthouse was a squat, unimpressive structure that smelled like old paper and faint bleach. Claire waited with me in the lobby until Margaret arrived, then squeezed my hand and left, giving me one last look that said, You’ve got this, and also, If he tries anything, I will absolutely tackle him in front of a judge.

Julian was in the hallway outside the courtroom, sitting on a bench, hands laced between his knees. He wore the same suit he’d worn at our wedding. I didn’t know if that was intentional or if it was just the only one he had that still fit, but either way, it didn’t land the way he probably hoped it would.

He looked smaller somehow. Not literally—he was still the same height, same shoulders—but deflated. Like someone who’d been inflated by other people’s opinions for so long he didn’t know how to stand without them.

We sat at opposite ends of the bench. Margaret leaned toward me, murmured last-minute procedural details. Julian’s attorney did the same with him. Across the gap between us, he kept glancing over like he wanted to speak but had forgotten how.

Finally, he whispered, “El.”

I looked at him.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said. “We could… ask for more time. Work on things. I’m not listening to Derek anymore. I blocked him. I started therapy. I understand now how messed up it was. If you give me one more chance—”

“No,” I said, calm and even. “We do have to do this.”

His throat worked. “I never thought it would actually end this way,” he said. “I thought you’d stop it before it got this far.”

“That was the problem,” I said quietly. “You thought I’d stop the thing you started. When I didn’t, you blamed me for not saving you from your own choice.”

He flinched.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he asked.

It was a fair question, even if it was too late to matter. I thought about it for a moment.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “But I don’t trust you. And without trust, there’s nothing left to build on. That’s what you broke. Not my love, not my dignity—my trust. I can’t forgive that and still stay. Leaving is the only honest thing I can do.”

He blinked hard, eyes shining.

“Brennan versus Brennan,” the clerk called from the courtroom doorway.

We stood. Walked inside. Sat at separate tables like strangers who’d happened to pick the same line at the DMV.

The judge was brisk and efficient. She went over the paperwork, confirmed the division of assets, made sure there were no contested items, no hidden accounts, no children to protect. We each answered a few questions confirming we were entering this dissolution willingly. My voice didn’t shake. His barely did.

“Very well,” the judge said at last. She signed the final order. “The marriage is dissolved.”

Just like that. Nine years together, seven years married, ended in less than twenty minutes.

We walked out into the hallway. People moved around us—other couples, attorneys, court staff, all going about their business. Life didn’t even pause. Why would it?

“Goodbye, Elodie,” Julian said softly.

“Goodbye, Julian,” I said.

There were no last-minute pleas. No dramatic hugs. No half-whispered, “What if we’re making a mistake?” Just two people who used to know each other, choosing to walk in opposite directions.

Outside, the sunlight was almost obnoxiously warm. I texted Claire: Done.

She replied immediately: Two blocks away. Wine and carbs ready.

We met at a little Italian place nearby. She hugged me hard enough to knock my breath for a second, then sat me down, ordered us both pasta and a bottle of wine without asking.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Free,” I said. And it was the only word that fit.

We didn’t spend lunch dissecting the hearing. We talked about her latest work project. The plant in her apartment she’d accidentally murdered. A weird guy on her commute who sang loudly along to whatever was in his headphones. I told her about the zoning proposal that had finally passed. About the neighbor in my building who constantly burnt toast.

Normal things. Life things. No tests, no traps, no third-party strategists treating my heart like a group project.

When we stepped back onto the sidewalk, I realized something simple: my life had not ended in that courtroom. It had just… pivoted. Quietly. Firmly.

I went back to my new apartment that afternoon. Sat cross-legged on my still-unmade bed and let the silence wrap around me. The walls were bare. The closet half-full. My toothbrush stood alone in a cup.

There was absence everywhere. But it felt more like space than void. Space I could build into. Space that was mine.

Three months passed.

In that time, Derek managed to set himself on fire socially at least two more times. Connor gave me periodic updates out of grim fascination. Derek tried to launch a “men’s coaching” program; the launch post got ratioed into oblivion by people quoting his greatest hits. He went dark for a while after that. I stopped asking about him. Let his chaos recede into background noise.

Julian stayed gone. Every once in a while I’d think about him—passing thoughts triggered by a restaurant we’d liked or a song we’d danced to in the kitchen. The memories hurt less each time. They softened. They stopped feeling like glass under my feet and more like photos in an old album I didn’t need to open anymore.

Six months to the day after the divorce was finalized, I hosted two people in my small apartment for the first time. Claire and Rachel came over with wine and takeout and a framed print of a city map they’d had made for me.

“It’s your kingdom,” Rachel said, hanging it above my couch. “Your rules. Your zoning.”

“You are such a nerd,” I said, but my eyes stung in a way I pretended was from the tape fumes.

We ordered tacos, poured wine into mismatched glasses, and played an aggressively terrible playlist Rachel had made in college. We sat on the floor amid half-assembled bookshelves and a coffee table I’d sworn I could build myself.

At some point, I realized I was laughing. Really laughing. The kind that makes your ribs ache and your face hurt.

There was no script in my head. No mental notebook of tests. No quiet, choked part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I wasn’t being measured. Evaluated. Graded.

I was just… me. In a room with two women who loved me without needing proof.

Later, after they left, I stood on my tiny balcony with a blanket around my shoulders and looked out at the city. Light spilled from apartment windows. Cars hummed by below. Somewhere, a dog barked. Somewhere else, a couple was probably fighting over something that mattered—or didn’t.

I thought about the girl at the art gallery nine years ago, arguing with a stranger about refrigerator magnet metaphors. I thought about the woman at a dinner table signing divorce papers while her husband watched his test explode in his face. I thought about every quiet decision in between.

I hadn’t been perfect. I’d missed signs. Dismissed instincts. Trusted someone who didn’t deserve it in the end. But when the line finally appeared—when Julian shoved divorce across the table as a loyalty exam—I’d stepped exactly where I needed to. Away.

I didn’t beg. I didn’t bargain. I didn’t perform my pain for an audience of men who thought love was only real if it came with spectacle.

I chose myself. Not in the Instagram-quote way. In the actual, practical, paperwork-filed, keys-turned-in, boxes-moved kind of way.

People like Derek think the ultimate win is making someone crawl back after you’ve broken them. They build entire philosophies around testing, prodding, provoking, making love jump through hoops like a circus animal just to earn the right to exist.

But that night at the dinner table, I’d realized something they’ll probably never understand: if you truly believe someone loves you, you don’t need to weaponize divorce to make sure. And if you do, you don’t deserve the love you’re testing.

The greatest revenge wasn’t exposing Derek. Or watching his following turn on him. Or hearing through the grapevine that Julian was miserable. Those things were… footnotes.

The real revenge was this: a life that felt light when they weren’t in it. A home that felt peaceful because no one was keeping score inside it. A future that didn’t involve answering multiple-choice questions about whether I would still love someone if they became a tree.

I finished my wine, went back inside, and shut the balcony door. My apartment was still a little echoey. Still a little bare. Still in progress.

So was I.

But the foundation was solid. No tests. No manipulation. No games masquerading as romance.

Just me, and the people I chose, and the people who chose me back without needing proof written in tears.

I turned off the lights, the city glow still sneaking in around the edges of the curtains, and felt something I hadn’t fully let myself name until then.

Not just freedom. Not just relief.

Peace.

THE END.