My Husband Called Me Disgusting

Chapter 2

His words hit me like plunging into ice water.

Everything suddenly made sense — the distance, the coldness, the strangeness of these past weeks. It wasn't exhaustion or work pressure. He was disgusted by me. He had a new flame, and he was done with his old love.

What he said cut through me like a blade driven into my chest, and for a moment I couldn't breathe.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at myself. Ten years had passed. I wasn't as young as I used to be, and I knew it. But I had given him everything I had in those ten years, every piece of my heart.

He wasn't unaware of what ten years meant to a woman. He simply didn't care. Worse, he'd thrown it in my face like a weapon.

Clara's name wasn't new to me. I'd first heard it about six months ago.

She was a new hire at Cole & Partners, let go after just three days on the job for making a critical error. When Nathaniel came across her, she was on her knees in the office, sobbing, begging HR and her supervisor for another chance. She said she couldn't afford to lose this job.

Nathaniel told me he'd admired her courage. He said it was rare to see someone so young willing to go that far to keep a position, and he'd decided to give her another chance.

I couldn't hold back a frown. "She was let go because she wasn't competent enough. But showing up and making a scene like that in front of everyone — isn't that just emotional blackmail? If everyone did that, how would any workplace function? If you can get forgiven for putting the wrong decimal point in a proposal just by getting on your knees, why bother doing the work at all? Everyone might as well skip the effort and go beg the client directly."

Nathaniel turned cold in a way I rarely saw from him. "You spend every day with dead bodies, Evelyn. Has it made you this heartless? You can't even feel a shred of empathy? Or maybe I've just made life too easy for you."

I found the whole reaction baffling. If mistakes could always be forgiven with enough tears, what was criminal law even for? Everyone convicted could just kneel before the judge and whoever held out longest would go free.

It turned into one of our rare arguments, and that night was the first time we ever gave each other the silent treatment.

Nathaniel eventually came around with apologies, but Clara Bennett's name had already lodged itself in my memory.

And now, six months later, she was his secretary.

Tears, it turned out, were more useful than competence.

Gradually, Nathaniel stopped telling me about his days. The small, constant stream of things he used to share with me dried up. Even the least expressive person can't stop talking when they're in love — that was how Nathaniel used to be with me. When that stops, it doesn't mean they've run out of things to say. It means you're no longer the person they want to say them to.

Every change had left its trail. I just hadn't wanted to see it.