Chapter 5

"Sara," Milton muttered, his voice low and too close, his breath brushing against my ear like an unwelcome ghost. He draped his coat over me, an attempt at warmth that felt more like a shackle. "Why didn’t you respond to my messages?"

I didn’t bother turning around. Instead, I glanced at my phone, the screen glowing with his latest message: [What flavor of dessert do you usually like?]

A bitter laugh threatened to escape as I stared at the words on my phone. I had asked him for desserts once, back in the early days of our marriage. His response still echoed in my mind, sharp and cruel, like a slap across my spirit:

"Desserts? You want me to buy desserts for you? Don’t make me sick with this childish crap!"

Now, the same man was pretending to care, clutching a small box of desserts in his hands as if it were a peace offering. How laughable. The very sight of it made my stomach turn, a mix of sweet nostalgia and bitter resentment churning violently within me.

I ignored the sweet scent wafting from the box, its sugary aroma a stark contrast to the bitterness coating my tongue.

Instead, I kept my eyes fixed on the stack of papers in front of me, focusing on the mundane details of my work as if they could shield me from the chaos swirling around us.

I could feel his confusion hanging in the air, a palpable shift that weighed down the space between us. His voice broke the silence again, soft but edged with uncertainty. “Sara, I don’t understand. I thought... I thought you’d appreciate this.”

"I get a stomachache from desserts now," I replied, dismissive, my tone as flat as I could make it.

Then, his voice dropped, colder than before. “Let’s go home together after,” he muttered, the command hanging between us like a guillotine poised to drop.

Barely thirty seconds after he walked away, Milton’s phone lit up on my desk. The brightness pierced through my cloud of thoughts, and I glanced at the screen—Alice’s name flashed like a neon sign, a mocking reminder of his betrayal.

The message blinked at me, tauntingly innocent:

[Nobody sends a bunch of roses made of desserts all at once?]

I shifted my gaze back to the computer, my face blank, fingers moving mechanically across the keys.

Each stroke felt like a countdown to liberation, a farewell to the life I had been suffocating in.

We got home a little after six. The moment I stepped out of the car, a fire ignited within me. I marched straight to the bedroom, my heart racing as I grabbed my suitcase and began to pack. Clothes, shoes, memories—it all went in without a second thought, each item a testament to the years wasted in a loveless marriage.

When Milton walked in, freshly showered and towel-drying his hair, he froze. His eyes drifted to my vanity, the half-empty surface betraying what I had been doing—packing my life away.

He frowned, but it wasn’t the concern of a husband; it was mild curiosity, like noticing a chair out of place in a meticulously organized room.

"Hey," he said, his tone casual, "I’m going on a business trip to Milan next month. If you want anything, just make a list, and I’ll grab it for you."

"Nah. I don’t want anything. Thanks anyway."

In a few days, I’d be gone. No gifts, no gestures could fix that now.

Suddenly, the air in the room shifted, thickening with tension. Milton tossed the towel onto the bed with a force that echoed my frustration, his eyes narrowing into cold, sharp slits as he bore down on me.

"So, what?" he snapped, his voice hardening, cutting through the silence like a knife. "You’re upset because I bought you the desserts?"

But before I could muster a single word, he scoffed, dismissing me as if I were a fly buzzing around his head.

"Sara, you’re out of line," he said, his words dripping with disgust, as if I were some inconvenient piece of furniture he was too weary to move.

Before I could respond, he turned on his heel and stormed into his own bedroom, slamming the door with a force that reverberated through the walls, making them tremble like the remnants of our crumbling marriage.

Seven years. Seven long, excruciating years of this twisted dance.

He was always the first to retreat, the master of silent treatments and emotional lockouts, delivering his punishments without a word.

Each time, I had bent, humbled myself, and tried to patch the fractures in our relationship.

But this time , I felt a shift deep within me—a steel resolve solidifying with each breath. I raised an eyebrow, unfazed by his childish display, and turned off the bedside lamp with a decisive click, plunging the room into darkness.