“You said he makes you feel alive.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Cole replied. “It isn’t.”
For the first time, Claire seemed uncertain.
Then she straightened her shoulders.
“I want a divorce.”
Cole had imagined many possible endings to their marriage over the years. He had imagined arguments, counseling, even the slow realization that they had become strangers.
He hadn’t imagined that the end would arrive wearing a bathrobe, standing beside a kitchen island, and sounding irritated that he wasn’t making a scene.
He looked at her.
“Okay.”
Claire blinked.
“Okay?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“That’s it? Fourteen years, and you’re just going to let me walk away?”
Cole’s voice remained quiet.
“You’ve already started walking.”
She stared at him as if he had slapped her.
Then she whispered the sentence that finally broke something between them.
“Sometimes I feel like I married a corpse.”
Cole didn’t answer.
