“There’s no need to take everything so seriously,” he continued, slipping back into the patronizing tone I knew too well. “Once you apologize to Claire, things will go back to normal. You just don’t understand—being from where you came from, manners were… lacking. I’ve been trying to guide you. For your own good.”
I set my fork down slowly. For years, I had let those words pierce me like truths, wearing them as proof that I was never enough. I thought if I worked harder, loved more, bent further, maybe one day I’d deserve him.
But now, sitting across from him, the truth was a knife pressed clean and sharp to my chest: he never wanted me. He never loved me. It had always been Claire.
The lilies glowed from the counter, white petals opening wide to the light. To Matthew, they were peace offerings.
To me, they were funeral flowers—for the death of a marriage I had once believed was unshakable.
The next morning, sunlight spilled through the curtains, merciless in its brightness. The golden light should have been warm, but instead it pressed down on me like a weight, unyielding and cold.