You’re just like the rest of them, he muttered under his breath as the seal walked by. Always wanting more. Always clinging.
Needy. My mouth went dry. My face stiffened with the familiar flush of shame.
I didn’t ask what triggered it, I rarely did anymore. When we got home he slammed the door and went straight for the liquor cabinet. I followed him with measured steps, poured him another drink and handed it to him with a smile I had practiced to perfection.
You know, I said gently, maybe we should sign something. Just in case. You always joke about leaving.
Why not make it official? He laughed. A deep, careless laugh. You really think I need a prenup to protect my fantasy football winnings? He scribbled his name on a napkin beside him.
There. Go get it notarized if you’re that scared. Then he passed out on the couch.
He forgot about that napkin by morning. But I didn’t. I had it notarized within 24 hours.
Jenny helped. She didn’t ask questions, just looked at me with quiet understanding and handed me a pen. I folded that document and slid it into a fireproof envelope.
Stored it in the back of a filing cabinet beneath a folder labeled, Tax Receipts 2020. Then I emailed a scanned copy to a private email Jenny had set up for me years ago. Just in case.
That night I cooked dinner like normal. I asked Brandon about his day. I laughed at his impressions of his co-workers.
I cleared the dishes and wiped down the counters while he scrolled on his phone. He didn’t notice the way I had started looking at him. Not with fear, not with anger.
But with calculation. Over the next few weeks, something shifted in me. Not visibly.
Not dramatically. But I started keeping a journal. Not the pretty kind with quotes on the cover, but a plain spiral notebook I tucked beneath my side of the mattress.
In it I logged his comments. His moods. The date he came home at 1.15 AM reeking of perfume and tequila.
I wasn’t planning anything yet. Not consciously. But that night at his company’s New Year kickoff party, when he told a crowd of new hires, my wife’s hobby is overspending, I didn’t cry.
I excused myself to the restroom looked at my reflection and thought, he thinks I’m soft. Breakable. He wasn’t wrong.
I had been. But I was learning. A few months later while folding laundry I found a receipt in his jeans.
Two wine glasses, an expensive hotel room and strawberries from room service. Dated Valentine’s Day. We’d spent it apart.
He’d claimed he was out of town for work. I didn’t confront him. I scanned it.
Stored it. Logged it. It became a quiet pattern.
A private ritual. Evidence, not emotions. At dinner one evening he said, if we ever split you’ll be crawling back.
You can’t even fix the Wi-Fi without me. I nodded, poured him another glass of wine and said, that’s true. I no longer believed it.
There’s a particular kind of silence that grows in households like ours. It’s not peaceful. It’s tight like a thread pulled through too many stitches waiting to snap.
Every room echoed with conversations we never had. Every smile I wore came with a side of nausea. Then one night I woke to a nightmare.
His voice in my dream echoing, you’ll have nothing. I sat up sweating heart pounding. And something in me whispered, that’s not true anymore.