He Comforted Another Boy, So I Divorced

Chapter 3

Ethan followed me outside and pulled open the car door for me.

"Don't make any decisions while you're upset. I'll come home tonight. We'll talk everything through, and we'll ask Cathy what she wants too."

His voice softened. It sounded just like the old days, when we'd argue and he'd be the first one to come over and make peace.

For one brief second, I almost said yes.

Then his phone rang.

I had no idea what Mia said on the other end, but Ethan turned away immediately.

"Luke fell and broke his front tooth. I need to go check on him."

Ethan didn't come home until 1 a.m.

I hadn't left a light on for him. He changed his shoes in the dark and accidentally knocked over a decoration on the shoe cabinet.

The noise woke me. I got up, sat down at the dining table, and pushed a stack of bills toward him.

Mia's apartment cost over 6,000 dollars a month in rent.

Her monthly living expenses, Luke's extracurricular activities, his school tuition, all of it had been paid out of Ethan's share of the dental clinic's profits.

8 years. Nearly a million spent.

Ethan's expression darkened when he saw the statements.

"I've had a long day, Stella. If this is about the money, I'll pay it back eventually."

"Pay it back as what?"

He was still pretending not to understand.

I picked up the tuition payment record sitting on top of the stack.

"I chose Cathy's current school before she even started first grade. Back then, you told me money was tight. You also said you didn't want Cathy thrown into an overly competitive environment when she was so young. But Ethan, Luke is in second grade now. You've already paid two years of tuition for him."

I looked straight at him. "So you knew about this school all along. You looked into it before I ever did, then you gave the spot to someone else's child!"

Ethan pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He glanced toward Cathy's bedroom and didn't light it.

"Don't wake Cathy."

He grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the balcony.

"Stella, think about this carefully. Have I really not done enough for you and this family?"

Just like that, Ethan threw the question back at me.

What he really meant was obvious. He wanted to remind me of everything he'd supposedly given up for me.

When Ethan finished grad school, he'd been accepted into one of the best universities overseas.

But at the time, my mother had just undergone surgery and was in a terrible emotional state. Then I unexpectedly got pregnant. I couldn't sleep night after night.

On the day I went in to terminate the pregnancy, Ethan grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the clinic.

Then, right in front of me, he tore up his study abroad paperwork sheet by sheet.

Years later, whenever we attended reunions and he saw the classmates he'd applied with thriving in their careers, he'd come home unusually quiet.

I'd asked him if he regretted staying. He always said no.

Looking back now, maybe all the regret he never admitted had been growing thorns inside our marriage for years.

"Have you always believed I was the one holding you back?"

Ethan looked at me, his expression complicated. "I never said that."

"So what did Mia say? That she understands you better? That she knows how to make all your problems disappear in bed?"

Mia knew everything about Ethan and me.

Back then, she was the one who kept telling me not to let him leave. And when I considered ending the pregnancy, she was also the one who secretly told Ethan so he could stop me.

The unlit cigarette snapped between Ethan's fingers. Only then did he speak again.

"You need to stop making Mia out to be some kind of villain. She understands me. She doesn't force me to admit that every choice I made was mine alone. And she doesn't keep reminding me that if I made the choice myself, then I don't get to regret it!"

It felt like someone had dropped a stone onto my chest. Every breath hurt more than the last.

In the end, that pregnancy hadn't made it.

When I woke up after the miscarriage procedure, the first thing I did was tell Ethan there might still be time for him to reapply.

He held me in his arms and shook his head. He said maybe our baby had known his father was about to leave him. Maybe that was why he hadn't stayed in this world.

He said he owed our child. He owed me. So he wasn't going anywhere.

Time had a cruel way of rewriting the past. At this point, I didn't even know which one of us remembered it wrong anymore.

When Ethan saw the tears in my eyes, his tone finally softened.

"Enough. We can talk about us later. Right now, let's deal with Cathy's school. I still think going back to her old school would be better for Cathy."

I didn't want to hear another word.

Cathy hadn't created this mess. The adults had.

And if Ethan were truly capable of being a good father, Cathy never would have been put in a position where she had to swallow her hurt and step aside in the first place.

I turned around. Then I slipped my wedding ring off my finger and placed it on top of the stack of bills.

Ethan followed me back inside. "Stella, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

I walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

I didn't answer.