Page 34 of October
The words sliced through the space between us like a blade. Even the crickets seemed to hush, as if the whole world was pausing to bear witness. She turned her face away, jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles working. Her chest rose and fell with effort, and when she finally exhaled, it was slow and heavy, like she was bleeding out everything she hadn't said all these years. A quiet kind of collapse. When she looked at me again, her voice was quieter—but it carried more weight than anything she'd ever said.
"You've been neglecting me for so long, Thomas. Maybe since the beginning," she said, each word deliberate, like she was dragging them out from somewhere deep. "Sure, you provided. You brought home money. Paid the bills. Took care of what needed to be taken care of. You even brought flowers sometimes, or jewelry—gifts you didn't really pick so much as purchase. Like I was another checkbox on your to-do list."
Her voice trembled, but she held steady. "But emotionally? You've never really been there. Not fully. Nothere—with me."
She tapped her chest, right over her heart.
"Physically, sure. You were in the house. At dinner. On the couch. But your mind? Your heart? Always somewhere else. Somewhere I couldn't reach. Somewhere I wasn't invited."
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I had no defense. Because I knew what she meant.
"And I kept telling myself it was enough," she continued, eyes beginning to glisten. "I told myself that's just who you are. That men like you love quietly. That providing meant caring. That your silence wasn't rejection, just stress or distraction. But over time, that silence got louder than any fight we ever had. It filled every corner of our home. It followed me into bed. It made me feel like a ghost in my own marriage."
Her voice cracked again, raw now, and her hands clenched at her sides.
"Do you know what it's like to sit across from someone you love and feel invisible? To scream on the inside while smiling on the outside because you don't want the kids to notice? To beg someone with your eyes to just see you, and watch them look right through you? When you were constantly seeingher"
Tears slipped down her cheek, and she didn't bother to wipe them away. She just let them fall, like she was done hiding them.
"I waited, Thomas. I waited for you to come back to me. I waited through late nights and missed dinners, through work trips and vague apologies, through Laura's name showing up more times than mine in your calendar. I waited until waiting became who I was."
She took one final step back, like she was pulling herself out of the wreckage.
"Sometimes I wondered if I had to actually disappear for you to notice I was gone."
The silence that followed was deafening. I wanted to say something. Anything. But all the words I'd left unsaid for years now piled up and choked me, useless.
"You neglected me," she continued. "And then... you betrayed me."
"I never had any affairs," I said quickly. "I never eventouchedanother woman."
She tilted her head, blinking slow like she was choosing not to scream. "You think betrayal only happens between sheets?"
My mouth opened, but she cut me off again.
"You know, a part of me—the part that's loved you for years—understandswhere you're coming from. It does. But that part is buried. Under every time I sat beside you and felt alone. Under every moment I watched you prioritize work, or Laura, or your pride—over me."
Her voice broke again, but she didn't cry this time.
"Every time you chose her over your children. Every time you saw how I was hurting and looked away.Thatis betrayal too."
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. "I begged you for months, Thomas. Begged you to come back to me. But maybe you were never really here at all."
I just stood there. Watching her. Hearing her, but only hearing buzzing in my head.
"I'm tired," she whispered. "And even the kids—especially Jimmy—see it.I don't want to teach them that this is what love looks like. That this is what a marriage should be."
I couldn't say a word. I was choking on everything I'd never said when it would have mattered.
She turned around and went back inside, leaving the door closed behind her like a full stop at the end of everything. I didn't move. Couldn't.
Divorce.
Betrayed.
Neglected.
The words looped in my head like sirens, but nothing felt real. My hands hung useless at my sides. My legs might as well have been carved from stone. Eventually, I turned. I don't remember walking to the car. I don't remember driving. I must've been running on muscle memory. When I looked up again, I was in a park, somewhere not far, but far enough from everything that had just collapsed. I sat on a bench, staring at nothing. Just breathing.
