I Want A Divorce

Imogene Scott

There comes a moment in your life when you feel nothing is okay and nothing will ever be okay. For me, that moment is now.

My world is tilting and I’m unable to do anything about it. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but stare at my step sister, Fiona who I’ve always felt overshadowed by, my whole life.

She along with her mother, infiltrated my life when my mother died and completely replaced us in my father’s life. She’s doing it again. Stealing my family wasn’t enough, she’s trying to steal my husband too.

No, she’s already stolen him.

“Imogene…” Damien’s voice breaks the silence, but I can barely hear him.

My gaze is locked on my stepsister, and my lips part, but the words don’t come. They’re too tangled in the agony that claws at my chest, too drowned in the tears I refuse to let fall.

“Why?” It’s the only word I can manage, my voice breaking as I finally speak. I’m not even sure who I’m asking—Damien, Fiona, or myself?

Damien’s eyes is filled with anger but I turn and flee the room before he can lash out. He has no right to! I push into the hallway and run to the elevator.

Frantically clicking on the buttons on the elevator, the sob I’ve held inside comes pouring out, my body shaking. I lean against the cold, mirrored wall of the elevator, unable to keep myself from bending at the waist and letting the tears pour.

I fight back the sickness rising up my throat as I desperately fight to wipe the offensive image from my head. During these past five years, I thought I’ve endured all facets of pain from watching Damien with different women. As long as he didn’t love them, I could bear it. But I’ve been wrong. I’ve been so wrong.

Because nothing can compare with the pain of seeing the one you love, finally giving his heart to someone else. The heart you have spent so many years to win over.

This is what I get for loving a man who I knew was never going to love me. For putting up with his infidelity in hopes that he’ll finally come to his senses. For going against my father for this same man and getting ousted by him. For abandoning my dreams to help him pursue his.

For spending five years of my life pleasing and helping Damien accomplish his dreams while being his trophy wife. Everything I’ve done for the past years have been for Damien. I wanted him to genuinely love me. But this is how he’s going to repay me?

As soon as I get to the parking lot, I get into my black Ferrari and drive off. I just want to be alone in my room and cry or do whatever to get rid of this feeling.

When my car finally glides into the lawn of a penthouse in the heart of the great city of Los Angeles, I get out of my car and rush into our empty palatial living room.

My shoes clack on every stair, and when I finally get to my room, I slump onto the bed. A nauseating feeling craws up my spine and I have to grip my stomach to stop the feeling from ripping further through my guts.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours, I’m not sure how long I’ve been crying but it’s starting to get dark outside. I hear Damien’s car screech outside. He’s back. My fists clench beside me and I sit up on the bed.

One moment, he’s approaching the room. I can hear his footsteps and my heart thumps with every step. The next moment, he’s standing in front of me, his face red with anger and clutching a document tightly in his hand.

He throws it on the bed next to me.

“I want a divorce,” he finally says.

The words swirls around us like a cloud of poisonous fumes. Theoretically, I understand what they meant, but I can’t comprehend them. Pain, the likes of which I never knew was possible, pierce my heart.

Divorce means breaking up. Breaking up means separating. And separating is simply impossible. It’s something that’s happens to other people, not to us. I’ve endured so much all these years only to give up on us?

No way, no fucking way! Who cares if he’s in love with another woman? It doesn’t matter, we can make this work. I love him and I don’t care if he doesn’t feel the same way. I just don’t want him to leave. He’s the only one I have.

“What’s this about, Damien?” I ask calmly, my fingers curling tightly around the sheets beneath me.

Damien’s dark-blonde eyebrows becomes a hard line over his eyes. “I said I want a divorce, Imogene,” he repeats, watching me with no sign of guilt.

A tear rolls down my cheek, but Damien’s dark gaze doesn’t waver. I manage to ask the only plausible question. “Why?”

Again with the whys! Why can’t your dumb brain think of anything else, Imogene?

But Damien’s response breaks me.

“Our marriage has been a mistake from the start, Imogene. Frankly speaking, I tried to love you but I don’t think I ever will. I love Fiona. And maybe she might be able to give me the child you haven’t been able to in half a decade.”

Damien gives me a long, hard look. He’s never looked at me like this before. It’s pitying and parental. I don’t like it, but there’s something to the depth of it that makes me realize he’s not going to budge.

“Here’s the papers. You can sign them when you’re ready.”

He then storms out of the study and slams the door behind him. I continue to sit there, frozen. Against my better judgment, I let myself pretend that the last ten minutes has never happened.

I let myself pretend that Damien didn’t say those words to me. That all the pain and suffering I’m feeling at this moment had never been felt. And the bottomless black void that has replaced my heart is filled with light—the brightest light possible.

But this isn’t our reality. Reality comes crashing back, like a storm-whipped wave dropping onto a rain-lashed beach. The pain sliced, stabbed, and throbbed away at me until I can’t breathe. The pain has barely just began, moving to rip through my lungs until nothing is left. It travels with lightning speed through my body, taking all, until only pain remains.

I’ve wasted so many years of my life on him. Hoping and praying and this is the outcome. I allow myself to hate him, to despise him for taking advantage of me all these years without remorse, and with that comes blinding clarity.

I can’t do this. I can no longer stand the man who broke my heart to shreds and unleashed this soul shattering pain unto my soul. My sobs eventually slows, then subsides altogether, and before I can second-guess myself, I grab the pen on the nightstand and sign the divorce papers. Damien’s signature is already on it.

I push open the closet and pull out a suitcase, then grab what I need and toss them into it.

I don’t allow myself to think. If I do, I’ll chicken out, and I can’t afford to at this stage. I stare at the wedding ring around my finger and slowly pull it out before placing it on the dresser.

Then I finally walk out the door. Out of Damien Shawn’s life.