Divorce Me, Look Who Wants Me Back Now

Chapter 1: Our Contract Has Ended

Hailey's POV

Pregnant.

I stared at the two pink lines until they blurred, melting into each other, my eyes burning as I blinked too hard. The word felt unreal, too big to fit inside the quiet bathroom.

The test slipped from my fingers and hit the counter as my legs nearly gave out. I leaned forward, shaking so badly I couldn’t trust my grip on anything. I grabbed the edge of the sink, knuckles turning white, and forced myself to look at my reflection. My face looked pale, stunned, like I’d walked into a life that wasn’t mine yet.

A baby. Our baby.

I pressed a hand to my still-flat stomach, half expecting to feel something different, some kind of sign. For the first time in weeks, the constant ache in my chest loosened. I felt something else instead, small, fragile, but warm. Hope. Maybe this was the universe throwing me a lifeline. Maybe this would finally make Floyd see me, really see me, not as an obligation or a clause in a contract.

Maybe love could grow where contracts were planted.

I grabbed my phone, fingers hovering over his name. No. This wasn’t something you sent in a text or left in a voicemail. This kind of news needed eye contact. It needed silence afterward.

I found him in his study, exactly where I knew he’d be. Papers spread neatly across the desk, pen moving steadily in his hand. He didn’t look up when I walked in. Just kept signing, focused, controlled. That same look that used to make me feel safe.

Now it made me feel invisible.

"We need to talk." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

He set his pen down slowly. When he finally looked up and our eyes met, his face was completely blank, and I realized instantly that something was wrong.

"Actually," he said, opening his desk drawer, "I was going to call you in."

He slid a folder across the desk toward me.

My stomach twisted before I touched it, I knew what was inside without needing to open it.

Divorce Papers.

The papers felt impossible heavy in my hands. It shattered everything we've built for three years like it never existed.

"What...." The word got stuck in my throat. "What is this?"

"It's been three years, Hailey." His voice sounded detached,cold like he wasn't destroying my entire world. "Our contract specified we'd revisit the arrangement after three years. I'm choosing not to renew."

The floor felt like it disappeared under me. I grabbed his desks, my nails digging into the table.

"Just like that?" My voice cracked, tears swelling up. "You're just....done?"

"It was always temporary, Hailey." He leaned back. "You knew that right from the start."

"I knew what we agreed to." The words ripped out of me. "But I thought things changed. I changed. We changed."

" No" the word felt a knife to my chest." We didn't."

The left my lungs in rush. Pain moved through my chest, I was suffocating, my ribs caving in. I gasped, one hand flying to my heart hoping it could make the feeling die down.

"Is this about her?" The question came out before I could think. "About Kimberley?"

His whole body stiffened.

"This has nothing to do with her." His voice dropped to something dangerous. "Don't bring her into this."

"Why not? She's already here, isn't she?" I laughed, but it came out broken. "God, I've been so stupid. All those weeks of you coming home late, shifting away, forgetting everything about me, it was all because of your precious first love finally came back, and I'm suddenly invisible."

"It's not like that." His voice was rough.

"Then what is it like?" I slammed my hands on the desk. "Explain it to me Floyd, because from where I'm standing you're choosing her over what we had!"

He stood suddenly, his chair scrapping the floor. "You don't understand..."

"Then make me understand!" Tears were streaming down my face now. "Tell me why she's worth throwing everything away. Tell me why three years of marriage, fake or not, meant less than someone who left you!"

"Because I love her!" The words exploded out of him. "I never stopped loving her. Not for a single day."

The silence that followed was deadly. I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

"And me?" My voice was barely above a whisper. "What was I?"

He looked away. "You knew what you were. We had a good arrangement."

"An arrangement." I wiped my face with my shaking hands. "Is that you called three years of me falling in love with you? An arrangement?"

His eyes snapped back to mine. "You knew the terms, Hailey."

"The terms didn't include you doing everything for me that you used to do for her!" My voice was rising now, but I didn't care. "The pills, the meals, every single sweet thing I thought belonged to us, was just you reliving your greatest hits with someone else! I was living in her shadows, wearing her routines like hand-me-down clothes, and I didn't even know!"

" That's not..." He ran a hand through his hair. "It wasn't like that."

"Then what was it like?" I stepped closer. "Tell me one thing, just one, that actually belonged to me. One moment, one gesture, one routine that you created just for me."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, his jaw tightening as he looked away. The silence stretched between us, thick and unmistakable. It was answer enough.

“That’s what I thought,” I said quietly. “Give me a pen.”

The silence was answer enough, again.

He blinked, finally looking at me. “What?”

“The papers.” I reached across the desk and grabbed his pen, my grip firm, my hands steady in a way that surprised even me. “Sign them. Now.”

“Hailey, you don’t have to do this right away,” he said, his voice careful, almost gentle.

“Yes. I do.” I bent over the desk and signed my name in sharp, violent strokes, pressing hard enough to dent the paper. “Because I’m done. Done being your backup plan. Done living as her shadow. Done pretending any of this was ever real.”

I straightened and threw the pen down. It bounced once, twice, clattering across his desk before rolling to a stop.

“There,” I said. My voice came out cold, stripped of everything soft. “You’re free. Go be with your first love. Go back to her.”

I turned toward the door. Every step felt wrong, like my body was moving through broken glass, but I didn’t slow down. I didn’t look back.

I walked out. The door closed behind me with a final, quiet click.

Outside, I made it three steps before my legs gave out. I collapsed against the wall, sliding down until I hit the concrete, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.

The sobs came hard and ugly, ripping out of me without warning. I pressed both hands against my stomach, instinctive, protective, holding onto the tiny life he would never know about.

And somewhere inside the house, my husband, no, my ex-husband, was probably already reaching for his phone, already dialing her number.