"Claire, are you absolutely sure about this?"

Maya was a lawyer; she’d seen every kind of marital betrayal and bitter fallout imaginable.

But when she looked at me, she hesitated.

"I mean, it's ten years of your life. We all saw how good he was to you. Can't you two just talk it out?"

She knew everything.

She knew how ridiculously proud Ethan was when I first agreed to go out with him.

She knew about his over-the-moon joy after he proposed, and about the huge, spectacular wedding he threw for us.

All our friends used to joke about it. "Ethan always said if he couldn't marry Claire, he'd stay single for life!"

"You have no idea, Claire. The day you said yes, he was so happy he practically hugged a random golden retriever on the street."

"He was so worked up he couldn't sleep, he called us all in the middle of the night to start planning the wedding, saying he was going to make you the happiest bride in the world!"

Thinking about it now just left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Who could have possibly predicted what would come later?

It was just ten long years, and the love had slowly worn away.

He had even said it himself, in French, right in front of me, without a care in the world.

"Claire? I got tired of her ages ago."

"Besides, I'm speaking French. She has no clue. And even if she did, what could she possibly do about it?"

He was right.

At the time, I didn't understand the words.

But the look on his face made me deeply uncomfortable.

The smile that never reached his eyes didn't feel like love.

On pure instinct, I memorized the sounds of the French words and looked them up later.

The meaning sent my heart plunging into a frozen lake.

Before I even realized it, tears were falling onto the paper in front of me.

"Claire, don't cry."

"If he really cheated on you, then we'll divorce him!"

Maya wrapped her arms around my shoulders, her eyes full of pain for me. "I have never seen you cry this much."

I looked at her with red, swollen eyes, but I didn't say a word.

She understood everything.

The moment I got home, Ethan's phone rang.

But it was Chloe's voice on the other end. "Claire? Mr. Hayes drank a little too much tonight, so he's sleeping it off at my place."

In the background, I could hear Ethan's syrupy voice. "Baby, who are you calling on my phone?"

I stayed silent, taking a slow, steadying breath.

Chloe continued, her voice a picture of false innocence. "Don't get the wrong idea, Claire. I was going to bring him home, but he just wouldn't leave..."

"And honestly, you can't blame him. His work requires me to be with him all the time. After all, you're just a housewife, you can't really help him, can you?"

How thoughtful of her to call and remind me, to stake her claim so blatantly.

The old me would have flown off the handle, demanding an explanation from Ethan.

And he would have just called me sensitive and paranoid, asking why I couldn't give him any freedom.

Now, watching the same scene play out again...

I just laughed, completely indifferent. "Whatever."

The second I hung up the phone, a dull, heavy ache pulsed in my chest.

Tears fell, one by one, onto my phone screen.

The weight of it all felt like it was crushing me, making it hard to breathe.

I could have exposed everything, right to his face.

But I still didn't want to bring us to that point.

Making a scene would be ugly for both of us.

Our love had been a raging fire, but its end was as quiet and tasteless as lukewarm water.

I left the divorce papers on the most obvious spot on the table.

Next to them, I left a letter.

Then, in the dead of night, I left without a sound.

I didn't tell a single soul where I was going.