LOGINShare
40
Last Updated:
2024-12-07 22:23:16
Related chapters
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 41
Tiffany I was reeling in shock. Rejection did that to me. Never had I put my hands on Dave, and yet he didn’t want me. Far be it from me, I thought to myself, to let this weigh me down. But still, it caused me to recoil in shame. I stared at myself in the mirror the morning after, and even after splashing water on my face several times and taking a hot shower, I still felt disgusting. It was as though my skin had been pried open, and I was staring at a skinless version of myself. “Damn it,” I said, biting my lip. Of course, it was nothing to be worried about, I thought. Dave had problems here and there, but never this bad. “I need to talk to someone,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled out my phone from the pocket of my bathrobe and dialed Mom’s number. “Mom,” I barked into the phone, stifling a sob that suddenly rose from within. “What is it?” As usual, her question was straight to the point. The woman could stand unshaken, never missing a beat in her emotionlessness, but she a
Last Updated : 2024-12-07Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 42
IrisThe morning was still and quiet, the kind of peace that wrapped around you like a warm blanket. Orchard lay beside me, his broad shoulders rising and falling in a steady rhythm. His face was so calm and relaxed. Even in sleep, I was so assured he had my back.I moved as quietly as I could, slipping out from under the covers and letting my feet touch the cool wooden floor. A soft chill ran up my spine, but I didn’t mind it. The house had this way of reminding me where I was, of how different life had become since moving in with Orchard and being his wife.Reaching for my robe, I pulled it on, the silk gliding against my skin. I tied the sash loosely around my waist and walked over to the window, drawn by the faint sounds of life stirring outside. Pulling the curtain back just enough, I peered down at the street below.It was alive in that gentle, understated way mornings often are. A couple jogged by, their matching neon shoes flashing as they moved in sync. A man walked his dog,
Last Updated : 2024-12-09Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 43
Iris“No biggie.” That was the phrase Orchard's mom had used. It was such a phrase I would have expected coming out of the mouth of a 16- or 17-year-old or, heck, even one of my age mates—probably someone still living in the past of their teenage years. Not Orchard's mom. She had waved me off. "I barely even got attached to that vase in the first place," she said."Heaven knows how it got there. I'm guessing it was his father thinking it was a funny joke to suddenly bring it in. After all, it’s nothing but the color of puke. Honestly, it beats me as to why it's still here," she said, waving me off. "I don’t understand how Orchard can handle that puke-colored vase in his living room. But who am I anyway? It’s his house," she said. Now that one, I thought, was funny. I chuckled under my breath, somehow nervous about laughing out loud. She turned back to her son and did something that made him smile, before turning back to me and doing the same. "She thinks you’re beautiful," Orcha
Last Updated : 2024-12-09Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 44
IrisShe smiled, nodding at me. "It’s a company," she said. "Well, I bought it and decided that the best place to move it to was here. After looking at quite a lot of demographics, after looking at quite a lot of data, I decided here was the best bet. I’m not looking for so much," she said. "I’m not trying to make billions of dollars every year. I just want to be comfortable. And this is one of the places for that." “Yeah, only people who have so much money talk like that.” I thought to myself as Orchard’s mum spoke. Then I realized she had stopped talking and all eyes were now on me."The business, yes?" I jumped to my question. "We are an interior design company." I cocked my head to one side. "I know at least one other interior designs company," I said. "Their stocks are quite high." "Oh yes, I’m aware," she said. "But you see, we’ve already launched, and on our launch day, the other competition had their stocks blown out of the park," she said with a wide smile across her
Last Updated : 2024-12-09Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 45
DaveGet up and grind. No shit, that was the name of the song I was listening to. I hated it. The song at least had some important lines: Money ain't going to make itself. And so, sitting around in my house wasn’t going to make much for me. Coupled with that, I had too limited a time to cough up Ivan’s money. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, my mind running amok as I genuinely tried to think of at least one solution. You needed money to make money, but where the fuck was I going to get money from? “Fuck,” I spat out as I drove towards Dad’s office. It was his call that woke me up. “Get over here now,” he said, and that was it. I hated it when he used that condescending tone with me, as though I was a child that needed to be told what to do. “Oh, fuck it,” I muttered as I drove into the underground parking lot of his office building. The place held too many bad memories for me, but who’s dad wasn’t a wicked piece of shit? I chuckled to myself as I stepped out of t
Last Updated : 2024-12-09Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 46
DaveThe Uncle Roger I remembered was big. He was larger than life. He seemed to fill up every space he walked into, which was probably why my mind believed him to be a fat man. My mind believed that he would have gorged himself on the excesses of life, spilling out in all areas, building himself on general lines. But here I was, shocked and surprised that even the mansion I had once imagined as a child was nothing more than an actual house. I hopped out of the car, clicking my tongue just slightly, feeling a little bit of disapproval rise up within me. *It’s not my money,* I told myself as I stepped further towards the house. Roger himself was seated on the front porch. The front porch was a large balcony-style area with even a small dining space, coupled with one of those benches that swung back and forth when you sat on it. I remembered sitting on those when I was a child. "The only reason why I’m looking at you here and not sending you away is because of the fond memories, b
Last Updated : 2024-12-10Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 47
TiffanyConversations with Mom were draining, I noticed. So draining, in fact, that instead of feeling elated and glad that someone listened to me, I felt as though so much had left my body—so much had left my mind. My mind felt raw, it felt unfiltered, it felt so strange. By the time I reached the office, I simply plopped down on one of my couches and hoped to God that my misery would soon be put out and this drawing competition would just disappear. Which I was thinking, I thought to myself as my door opened."Hey."I propped up when I heard Dave's voice."Hi," I said, raising my eyebrow in question. Dave genuinely looked as if he wanted to talk, but frankly, it was draining in itself."You're not going to believe it," he said."You are not going to believe it!" He pointed at me theatrically—typical theater kid."Then tell me so I can believe it," I said, genuinely hating that I had to play into his theatrics."I found the owner of the company," he said. "It was tough, it was hard,
Last Updated : 2024-12-10Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 48
IrisIt was strange being put on the spot like that. The fact that I felt her eyes boring holes into my skull, she waited with her arms folded across her chest genuinely caused heart palpitations. "Well?" she really used an eyebrow."I answer that right now, I’m afraid," I said, strangely blurting out. "But I do know I have feelings for Orchard.”"But isn't it so weird? The woman married to your son after years is unsure of whether or not she loves him 100%?" I chuckled at myself. "Feelings," Orchard's mom said. "Are fickle," she said. "Believe me, I know. I know that feelings can vary. Sometimes tricky," she said, "but I know that really will be fine. At least we're thinking of the worst possible. I'm sure you'll be hard," she said. "After all, I didn’t pick a whisk to run my own company, now did I?""Why me?" I found myself blurting out."Why not you?" she shot back at me with an ignoring smile. "I've looked into you," she said, after a short awkward silence. "Trust me, I'm not r
Last Updated : 2024-12-11
Latest chapter
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 118
Tiffany I watched Dave. Not because I was beginning to quite enjoy stalking, but just watching him, and I knew that he was hiding something. They say every woman knows when a man is doing something like that, and I was no stranger to this. After all, I had been on the receiving end. "Let’s just try one more time," I told myself as I crawled into bed beside him and reached him. "Not right now," he said, confirming my suspicions. Until now, he was practically hanging off the edge. I wanted to spite him just a little bit. I felt like it, and he would deserve it in some ways. But somehow, even as I watched him shift within me, I told myself to just let it go. I hugged myself into a ball. It was a strange thing, I thought. Admitting it was even stranger. But my sister didn’t even really get the nicest things, men included. If not for me, Dave would still be with her. And probably, if you thought about it really deeply, if not for me, in the next few months, Orchard would still be
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 117
Iris My dad placed a hand on my leg, squeezing—a strange kind of contact, I decided. When was the last time he ever touched me? When was the last time I felt the warmth of his hand or the worry in his voice? "I'll be fine," I said. "You know what? Just… let's drop it," I added, using the opportunity to wiggle myself out of his grasp. At that instance, my phone buzzed. Reacting to the activity, my hand dove into my bag, and I pulled it out. It was my mother-in-law. "Iris," she wrote. "I found this really funny article online, and a few of my friends were talking about it the other day, you know, about your mother. I believe Chameleia was her name or something like that? Yeah, they mentioned how she was quite popular... I know this might sound weird—I mean, she was your mom—but they say your mom was sort of like a prostitute. I just wanted to confirm and tell them off, you know, tell them that it wasn’t true. But I already did! I already told them it was impossible, someone like
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 116
Iris "You see, your grandfather on your mother’s side died young, but not before making my marriage to your mother a pain every step of the way. When we started the company, he didn’t see us as those who cared much. In fact, he didn’t. She begged him for support, but he gave nothing, so we had to look for money on our own to start. "She would be the one talking to people because, Lord knows, I was bad at that. But she was pleasant, you know. You have the same smile," he said suddenly, catching me off guard. "She could convince anyone to do anything, and so she was the one mostly going out, looking for investors. We made quite a team," he said. "Until, you know, the decline started, and everything seemed as though it was all rubbish." He stayed silent suddenly, breathing in and out heavily. This is my moment, I thought. I needed to tell him about Dave. "Dad," I said, calling him what I used to way back when I was younger and when our relationship was less rocky. "Dave," I said
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 115
IrisThis was the last place I wanted to be, especially after the events of the past few days, but I needed to pay my respect. Being normal of a graveyard, there wasn’t much activity. But I found a familiar car just as he reached the parking lot. Then again, it could also just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I waved it off. The closer I got to Mom’s grave, the more I felt a rather impending feeling, something strange was going to happen. As if the thing with Dave wasn’t bad enough, whatever fate was about to throw at me again, I didn’t think I was much ready for it. I reached Mom’s grave and nearly screamed out loud. Of course, I mean, everything wasn’t fine. It wasn’t just the flowers, though. The entire place had been unearthed, looked on, touched. In fact, the only problem had arrived in the person in front of it. It was the hunched figure of my own father. “What are you doing here?” I asked, too angry to hide my disdain. He stood, glaring. “I wouldn’t see you in
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 114
IrisI sat still in front of my mirror, staring at my reflection. My breath, strangely enough, came out in short pants as though I had been running for my life—but I had, in my dreams, that is. I had been running from him, eager to get away—Dave, that is. Granted, it was quite satisfactory seeing him get beat up like that, but the way he crawled across the battlefield, reaching for me, was a little too much. My husband, however, had been as comforting as possible, pulling me into a hug and keeping me still through the night with my head placed on his chest, listening to his heartbeat until I was lulled by it to sleep. "Work today?" I heard him ask someone behind me. My eyes finally went out of focus, away from my reflection, and found him standing in front of the long floor-to-ceiling window with his arms folded across his chest. "No. Today is…" I turned away from him and looked down at the top of my vanity. Somehow, my words felt caught in my throat as an inexplicable feeling
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 113
Orchard I didn't know why my mind kept going back to Iris. But it did. If not for Richard in front of me constantly reminding me of stuff, I would’ve, of course, forgotten. But I did, didn't I? Or was it yesterday? "Focus," Robert snapped his fingers in front of me. "Your nice little weekend getaway cost us too much." "What now?" "Sozo," Robert replied. "Some idiot is causing some trouble. I don’t know who. Looks like Russians for some lotteries and—" Suddenly, it hit me at that point. There was a Russian at my mom's party. Did that have anything to do with it? "Can I take a break?" "No," Richard and Robert answered at the same time. "Do you two have a strange fetish for watching me work myself to death?" Richard raised his eyebrows. "You’re not dead, and you’re not going to die. At least not unless you’re Hades yourself. Well, last time I checked, you’re not it, Golden Boy." Just as I was about to hit him with a retort, a phone call snapped me out of it—from an u
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 112
Iris"Don't look at me like that. I mean it," he said. "I still love you." Suddenly, I found myself chuckling. I was definitely being pranked. The sheer humor was underhanded, perhaps much needed, and, if anything, low but understandable. After all, it would seem Dave was still very interested in pranking me. "Funny," I said, catching my breath as finally my mind was taken off the attempted kidnap. "I'm not lying. I'm not joking. I'm not trying to be funny." Dave grabbed me roughly by the arm. In that moment, I felt the same feeling of revulsion, almost as though Dave stunk. He stung to the point where my body recoiled, and I had no choice but to scoot further into the bed. "Don't touch me," I said, holding up a hand. "You've lost your right," I said. "Long ago, you lost that right. If I need to remind you of why and how you lost it, then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought." "I'm not an idiot," he stated harshly. "Is it wrong for a man to change his mind?" His
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 111
Iris"Only a matter of time now," my mother-in-law had muttered when she came back a few days ago, and those words seemed to echo in my mind. But instead of leaving me breathlessly shy, I simply blushed and turned my eyes away from hers. Even remembering it now, in the car, was bad enough. "How was work?" his voice came to me over the phone. "Same old, same old," I mumbled. "Can’t wait to get home and pull off these shoes," I said, wiggling my toes in my heels despite how impossible it was. "Can’t wait to take off the shoes and other things too," I said with a smile as suggestive as I could, even though he couldn’t see me. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?" His question was slow, his voice low, sparking easy memories. I smiled. "It’s easy enough to guess what you’re thinking," I said when suddenly the smile fell. I hadn’t told him about Dave and meeting him. That was bad enough. That alone had caused no small amount of guilt to eat away at me. But it wasn’t as though I’
Let Me Go, Ex Husband! 110
Tiffany As fun as the trip was, it came to an end a little too quickly, but only one question had remained resounding several times in my mind, even as I slept after we came back. "Give the company to me," Dave had said. "Transfer your rights as acting president. Of course, I understand your father is the CEO." "Can we stop?" I interrupted him, grabbing his hand. "We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves." His face fell. Did I make a mistake talking? Should I have just let him continue? "It's okay," he said. But of course, I knew it wasn’t okay. I knew by the way he looked at me that he wasn’t happy. Dave was pissed about something, and it was my fault. Even after we had gotten back home, things were strangely strained between the both of us. It was like a rubber band that had grown slack several times over, and we were trying our best to shrink it back to size. I simply decided to let it wait, thinking maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. "Can we talk?" Dave suddenly
