Page 53 of All My Love

It’s just hurting the both of us.

I pull out the envelope and hand it to him with no words. He accepts, opening the silver fasteners, pulling out the stack of papers, and staring at them for long, long minutes.

I should leave.

I should turn and leave before he can argue, but instead, I stay, dissecting the look on his face as it moves from confused to sad to angry.

“What the fuck are these?” he asks, waving the yellow envelope the papers came in.

“Divorce papers,” I reply, doing my best to keep my voice neutral, no emotion there.

When he looks at me next, I see it all there. The hurt, the confusion, the frustration, the regret.

But no anger.

He’s not mad. It makes my stomach churn because I can handle anger. I can handle him being mad that I’m severing this tie, but sad? Disappointed? That’s a harder pill to swallow.

“Got that. I’m asking why the fuck you’re giving them to me.”

“So we can cut the bullshit, Riggins. We?—”

“Riggs,” he says through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“You call me Riggs. Not Riggins.”

“Are you really nitpicking this bullshit?”

He steps closer, and I take a step back, my back hitting the wall, leaving four feet between us.

“You always call me Riggs. My Stella always calls me Riggs.”

My jaw goes tight.

“Well, newsflash,babe, I’m not your Stella anymore. You don’t know me anymore.”

“No, I don’t know this weird robot version, but I knowyou. I know you to your core, Stella. And I don’t know what happened?—”

“What happened? Are you insane?” That takes him back, his head moving with my fierce reaction, but all of my bottled-up feelings are bubbling to the surface, pushing back the well-composed neutral version of me.

“Stella—”

“I said, are you insane? You don’t know exactly what happened?”

He shakes his head. “No, because you refuse to talk to me about anything!”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in the words. “Fine. You want to know what happened? I asked you—no, I begged you to slow down with the drinking, and you agreed. Promised me the world and told me things would get easier. But you didn’t, did you? You just got sneaky with it. Do you know that I can’t even smell mint mouthwash without wondering if that person has a drinking problem they’re covering up?” I can see that hits the mark, guilt suffusing his face.

“We woke up that morning, and you didn’t remember marrying me, Riggins. We got married, and I woke up happy as could be, and you didn’t even fucking remember.”

“You didn’t say anything! You?—”

“Don’t with this bullshit, Riggins. Because what bride wants to remind her husband the next morning they got fucking married!” I shake my head and take a deep breath to try and regulate myself. “I had to get away. So I did.”

“Stella…”

“And then you never came after me.” His brow furrows, confused, and he opens his mouth to argue, but I’m on a roll, speaking over him. “And now here you are, back in my life, raking up shit.”

---