Page 47 of Pretend You Love Me

I sit in the armchair across from him rather than beside him on the couch, the distance that means “this is not a casual conversation” a fact that Daniel notices immediately. His eyes flick up briefly, registering my position and sitting upright to attention.

“I spoke to my lawyer today,” I say.

Daniel sets his phone face-down on the table and his face seems to shut down.

“Okay,” he says, his voice pitched low. “And?”

“And the divorce is moving forward,” I continue, keeping my tone even. “Clara has sent me a list of lawyers for you to look at.” I pause, watching as he absorbs what I am saying “You need to get your own solicitor. And you need to leave the house.”

Daniel seems to take a shaky breath. “What?” he says, the word coming out slightly uneven. “Leave? Our home? Where am I supposed to go?”

“There are two options,” I tell him, keeping my voice even. “You can stay with your parents, or you can find somewhere else. But you can’t stay here. Not anymore.”

The anger arrives quickly, Daniel’s entire body turning from casual to tense in a single, fluid motion. “You can’t kick me out,” he says, his voice tightening. “You had no right to do this without talking to me first. This is my home too. These are decisions that affect both of us.”

“I’ve been talking to you for weeks,” I tell him.

He stares at me for a long moment, before his whole body sags visibly.

“Where am I supposed to go?” he asks, already reaching for a different approach. “Have you even thought about what this does to the twins? Have you thought about this at all?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I tell him. “Over and over until it drove me crazy. But there is no trust left between us. I can’t do this with you Daniel.” I pause, watching his face as he seems to hear the finality in my tone. “And yes, I’ve thought about where you should go. Your parents have a spare room.”

Finally, he stands. The movement is careful, deliberate, the type of control people use when they’re trying very hard not to break apart in front of someone else.

“Fine,” he says quietly, jaw tight. “I’ll go tonight.”

For a second, neither of us moves. Then Daniel turns toward the hallway and begins gathering pieces of himself from around the house. His phone charger from beside the couch. His jacket from the hook near the door. His watch from the kitchen bench. Keys from the bowl by the stairs. Small things. Ordinary things. But standing there watching him collect them feels strangely unreal, like witnessing the slow dismantling of a life we built so carefully neither of us ever imagined we’d have to take it apart.

I lean one hand against the banister, more for grounding than balance, and watch him move through rooms that still carry the feel of us. The twins’ bottles drying beside the sink. His coffee mug is still on the counter from this morning. The throw blanket folded over the couch where we once sat shoulder-to-shoulder choosing baby names and arguing over whether Milo sounded like “a cartoon sidekick or a future jazz musician.”

God.

For months I thought this moment would destroy me. I thought I would collapse when it finally happened. Sob. Beg. Panic. Feel something catastrophic split open inside my chest the second he walked out the door. Instead, standing here in the quiet hallway while Daniel packs an overnight bag with trembling hands, all I feel is…

Sad. Not shattered or hysterical. Just deeply, painfully sad for both of us. For the version of him I loved. For the version of me that trusted him so completely. For the marriage that existed before we quietly started bleeding out inside it. In the hallway, Daniel pauses with the bag hanging heavily from one hand and looks back at me. His face is unfamiliar suddenly. Not because I don’t recognise him. Because I do. Too clearly. The shame. The exhaustion. The awful dawning realization that there are some things a person cannot charm or explain or apologise their way back from.

For one strange second, he looks less like my husband and more like a man standing in the wreckage of his own choices trying to understand how the fire got this big. And against all logic, against all reason, I feel something close to mercy move quietly through me. Not forgiveness. Not even close. Just… closure. The terrible kind. The kind that arrives when you finally stop waiting for someone to become who you needed them to be.

He opens his mouth slightly like he might say something else. An apology. A promise. One final attempt to hold onto us. But whatever he sees on my face seems to change his mind. So instead, he nods once. Small. Defeated and so entirely human.

Then he turns toward the front door. The lock clicks softly behind him. Not the dramatic or cinematic moment that I had built it up to be. Just the ordinary sound of a man leaving the home he broke.

I stand perfectly still in the hallway listening to his footsteps fade down the path, then the car door opening, engine starting, tyres rolling slowly down the street. And then… nothing.

The silence that follows is so complete it almost feels alive. The house settles around me with soft creaks and distant hums. The refrigerator is running. Pipes shifting. The baby monitor crackling faintly upstairs. I look down at my hands.

They’re steady. Not shaking. Not reaching for him. Not trying to hold together something already gone.

From upstairs, Milo makes a small restless sound through the monitor, followed by Maisie’s softer sleepy sigh. Life continues.

I close my eyes for one brief second and let the feeling move through me fully this time. The grief. The relief. The anger. The love. The exhaustion. The strange, terrifying lightness underneath all of it. Then I push myself away from the banister and turn toward the stairs. Not healed.

But no longer trapped in the hope that he might still become someone different.

And what surprises me more than anything is that all I feel right now, is peace.

Seventeen