01 Divorce and Heartbreak

(Winona)

It’s been two months since I saw my husband Jayden. I’m almost positive  he’s coming to ask me for a divorce right now but I’m not giving up.

Three years ago, after a car accident, he lost his memory, and I lay in a coma for a year. When I woke up, all I wanted to do was see him again. All I wanted was for us to be the couple we once were. 

When I found him, it was like a knife straight through my heart. Not only didn’t he remember me, but he loved another woman, Ashlyn. My heart pounds and tears swell in my eyes as I listen to the husband I love speak to me over a call like he hates me more than anything else in the world.

“Despite what you did, I’m coming there,” he seethes over the phone. “I want this over once and for all and I’m coming back to see that happens. I’ll be there at dinner time.”

He believes I drugged him into sleeping with me two months ago. “I did nothing. This is all a mistake, if only you could remember how much we loved each other…” I beg. 

“Don’t start with these lies again,” he roars.

My hands shake as I hold my cell phone away from my ear. My heart breaks all over again but I’m determined to help him remember me. One day he will. Please let him remember me.

“I’m not lying to you, I swear. I love you.” My voice fades because I’ve almost given up hope on us. I let out a small sob despite myself.

“Don’t start on fake tears. You’re pathetic. I know what you’re trying to do. Mother warned me you’d do this.”

His mother always hated me. She never wanted him to marry me. I wasn’t good enough. My family had no status or money. She’d forbidden him to marry me and said she’d cut him from the will and the family billions if he did. 

But Jayden said he didn’t care about what she said. He loved me and even if we had to start with nothing, we’d build our own world together. I was more important to him than money or his family who constantly hated anyone not in their financial league.

“Jayden. We went to Vegas. We got married. Then we had the accident on the way back. Getting married was your idea, not mine.” 

“I don’t care what you say. So, we got married but you tricked me into it.”

“No. That’s not true. You loved me then we had an accident and everything changed.”

“Liar!” he roars again. “I have all the proof I need. There’s nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.” Then the call is disconnected.

In these two years, I never gave up on our love. It was too real, too deep, too passionate. But right now, I’m doubting everything. His family is powerful. Ashlyn has the family background they want. She’s lying to him as well.

Tears pour down my face. Perhaps I should just walk away. God knows I’d tried everything to get him to remember. To trigger something in his head to make him at least question the story his family had given him. 

I took him to many places that were meaningful to us, but all he showed was boredom and sometimes contempt. 

The last time I’d tried, he became very agitated. “I told you I don’t remember you. Why can’t you just give up? I just want a peaceful life, to be happy with the woman I love, Ashlyn. But you keep trying to convince me I loved you. How could I ever love someone like you?” 

The look in his eyes that day made me realize he truly believed everything they’d said to him.

He only saw me as an obstacle, a wife he didn’t want anymore. But I got so close to helping him see what we used to be. So close.  

Two months ago we got drunk together, and we slept together for the first time in two years. It was amazing and I thought I’d finally won him back. 

But the next morning, Jayden was angrier than ever. He was convinced that it was just another scheme to win him back. I was still hopeful that one day he’d realize I was innocent. 

But today he’s coming home and I’ve prepared all his favorite dishes and I’m sitting here waiting at the dinner table. 

I hear him come in the front door. I stand up. 

Maybe, here, he might remember what we had. How he loved the way I cooked for him. 

But he walks into our home with the woman he fell in love with when I was in coma. 

He glances over the laden table and shakes his head. “You truly are delusional. Did you think I was here to have dinner with you?” He spits the words out like venom. 

“Did you really think I could ever be with you again? You may have gotten me into bed with you once, but I won’t be slumming anytime soon again. You’re pathetic.” 

Behind him I notice Ashlyn with a shocked look on her face. She didn’t know we’d slept together obviously. 

He stares at me with no emotions in his eyes and hands me a document. “Sign this.”

I take it and look at the heading. Divorce papers. “No. I don’t want a divorce. Just give us a chance.”

“Ashlyn and I want to get engaged. Sign the damn papers!”

This hits me so hard I want to vomit. I rush out to the kitchen sink and I vomit. It’s awful. When I’m done, I use a paper towel to wipe my mouth and go back to the dining room.

“You can pretend to be sick all you want. I’m not falling for that. Just sign the divorce.”

Ashlyn just looks at me blankly but I see something flash over her face like worry or fear. Maybe hearing I’d been with Jayden recently has her rattled.

“Can’t you see they are lying to you. Ashlyn, your mother. Your mother always hated you being with me. But you didn’t care. You were ready to walk away with nothing.”

“Walk away from what my father built up? Walk away from what is rightfully mine? Now I know you’re crazy. I would never do that. Sign these papers now and you I will see that you have money for life. That’s all you ever wanted anyway. Now you can have it. Just let me walk away.”

“It was never about the money for me.”

“That’s not true. I have proof. If you don’t sign now I will see that you never have anything. I’ll ban you in this city, in this whole country. You’re conniving and evil. Just let me go, take the money and go and find some other man to scheme. I promise I wont get in your way,” He snaps. 

The fury on his face almost scares me.

I grip the divorce papers and sigh.  

He glares at me and pushes a pen at me because he can tell I’ve given up.  

“I can honestly say one thing.” 

His voice is quiet now and my heart skips a beat in hope. Maybe he has something nice to say as I take the pen.

“I wish I never met you.”  

“Me too.”

Heartbroken and hurt, I signed the papers.