Chapter 2: Shattered Pieces ( Mia’s POV)
1566 Words
The divorce papers sat on Mia’s desk like an accusation.
She’d been staring at them for over an hour now, the words blurring together until they stopped making sense. Irreconcilable differences. Division of assets. Petition for dissolution of marriage. Legal jargon she could recite in her sleep, terms she’d used a hundred times for other people’s broken marriages.
But this wasn’t someone else’s marriage. This was hers.
Mia pushed the papers away, her hands trembling slightly. The office felt too quiet, the silence pressing against her eardrums. Outside, the city hummed with life, car horns, distant sirens, the muffled chatter of people living their normal lives. But in here, everything felt suspended. Frozen.
Her phone sat beside the papers, dark and silent. She’d turned off notifications an hour ago, unable to handle the constant buzzing. But even in its silence, she could feel its weight. Could imagine Elijah’s name lighting up the screen again, another text, another plea.
“I need you.”
The audacity of those words still burned.
Mia stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. She crossed to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The city stretched out below her, glittering and indifferent. Somewhere down there, people were falling in love. Getting engaged. Building lives together.
And here she was, forty-three floors up, watching her own life crumble.
The memory hit her without warning, Elijah on their first anniversary, spinning her around their tiny apartment kitchen, laughing as he nearly knocked over a bottle of wine. “We’re going to have everything someday, Mia. The penthouse, the life, all of it. But this ”he’d kissed her then, soft and sure, ”this is all I really need.”
When had that changed? When had she stopped being enough?
Her phone buzzed on the desk, the vibration loud in the quiet room.
Mia closed her eyes, her jaw tightening. She should ignore it. Should let it go to voicemail. But her feet carried her back to the desk anyway, and before she could stop herself, she was looking at the screen.
Elijah.
Her thumb hovered over the decline button. Every rational part of her brain screamed to press it, to end this before he could hurt her again. But that traitorous part of her heart, the part that still remembered what they used to be, made her answer.
“Hello.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
“Mia.” The relief in his voice was immediate, raw. “Thank God. I thought you weren’t going to pick up.”
She didn’t respond. Couldn’t. The sound of his voice, thick with emotion, almost breaking, was doing something dangerous to her resolve.
“Mia, please,” he continued, filling the silence. “I know you’re angry. I know I don’t deserve your help. But I need you. I can’t do this without you.”
Her free hand clenched into a fist, nails biting into her palm. “You want me to help you,” she said slowly, each word measured. “You want me to represent you. In our divorce.”?
“Yes.” His answer was immediate, desperate. “You’re the only one who understands me. You’re the only one who…”
“The only one who what, Elijah?” The words came out sharper than she intended, the carefully constructed calm cracking. “The only one stupid enough to help you after what you’ve done?”
“No.”
His voice dropped, heavy with guilt.
“The only one who knows me well enough to see that I’m trying to fix this. That I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things right.”
Mia’s throat tightened, a dangerous heat building behind her eyes. She pressed her palm against her desk, grounding herself.
“You broke me,” she whispered.
The line went silent. For a moment, she thought he’d hung up. Then she heard him exhale, shaky and uneven.
“I know,”
He said quietly.
“God, Mia, I know. And I hate myself for it. But I need you. I can’t face this alone.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. Because despite everything, despite the betrayal, the lies, the months of feeling invisible, there was still a part of her that wanted to believe him. A part that remembered the man who’d held her hand through her first major case, who’d shown up with Chinese food when she’d worked through the night, who’d once looked at her like she hung the moon.
Where had that man gone?
“I’ll think about it,” she heard herself say, the words escaping before she could stop them.
She ended the call before he could respond, her hand shaking as she set the phone down.
The silence rushed back in, heavier than before.
Mia sank into her chair, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. Not again. Not over him.
But the tears came anyway, hot, angry, relentless. They weren’t just for Elijah. They were for herself. For the woman she’d become, the one who’d spent years building her life around a marriage that had been dying in slow motion. For all the nights she’d waited up, all the excuses she’d made, all the times she’d convinced herself that things would get better.
They never had.
The next morning arrived too quickly.
Mia sat at her desk, nursing her second cup of coffee, the bitter taste doing nothing to clear the fog in her head. She’d barely slept, her mind replaying the conversation with Elijah on an endless loop.
“I need you.”
The words had burrowed under her skin, making a home in the hollow space where her certainty used to be.
Her phone buzzed, and she flinched before checking the screen.
Not Elijah.
Jake Thompson.
“Good morning, Mia. Hope you’re doing okay. Just wanted to check in about the Harper contract, let me know if you need anything. And if you want to grab coffee sometime, I’m buying. You look like you could use a break.”
Despite everything, a small smile tugged at her lips.
Jake. The journalist who’d been covering a story on Elijah’s company for the past few weeks. They’d met at a corporate event last month, and he’d been… easy. Warm. The kind of person who actually listened when you talked, who didn’t make you feel like you were competing for his attention.
She typed back quickly, before she could overthink it.
“Thanks, Jake. Coffee sounds good. Tomorrow?”
His response came almost immediately.
“Perfect. I know a place. 10 AM?”
“See you then.”
Mia set her phone down, feeling lighter than she had in days. It wasn’t anything. Just coffee with a colleague. A distraction from the chaos swirling around her.
But even as she told herself that, she couldn’t ignore the small flutter of something in her chest, something that felt dangerously close to hope.
Her phone buzzed again.
Elijah.
The flutter died instantly.
“Mia, please. I need to see you. Can we meet? I know I don’t deserve it, but please.”
Her jaw tightened, fingers hovering over the screen. Every instinct told her to say no. To put distance between them, to protect what little was left of her heart.
But that traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind: *What if he means it? What if he’s really trying?*
She typed slowly, hating herself a little with each word.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
His response was almost instant.
“Please. I’m sorry, Mia. I need you to understand… this isn’t just about us anymore.”
Her stomach twisted. ‘Not just about us.’As if their marriage had ever been just about them. As if his empire, his reputation, his precious business deals hadn’t always come first.
She set the phone down without responding, her hands trembling.
The divorce papers stared up at her from the desk, patient and inevitable.
Mia stood and walked to the window again, watching the sun sink lower over the Manhattan skyline. The glass was warm now, heated by the afternoon light, but it did nothing to chase away the cold settling in her chest.
She didn’t know what to do. Her heart ached for the man Elijah used to be, the one who’d loved her fiercely, who’d made her believe in forever. But that man felt like a ghost now, something she’d imagined in the early days when everything had seemed possible.
The man texting her now wasn’t the same person. He was desperate, yes. Regretful, maybe. But was he sorry for hurting her? Or just sorry he’d been caught?
Mia closed her eyes, her forehead resting against the window.
She couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t keep living in this limbo, suspended between the past and whatever came next.
The ink was drying.
And she had to decide, soon, whether she was going to sign those papers and walk away, or risk everything on the slim chance that the man she’d married was still in there somewhere, buried beneath the lies and betrayal.
Her phone buzzed one more time.
She didn’t look at it.
Outside, the city kept moving. Inside, Mia stayed frozen, caught between the life she’d built and the wreckage it had become.
- Writer
