After His Birthday Snub, I Chose Divorce

Chapter 2

I spent three whole days in the hospital, and in those three days, Jeremy had vanished off the face of the earth.

The next time I heard any news about him, it was from the top trending searches.

A wildly popular young actress named Sabrina Wells had posted a photo that blew up i********: entirely.

Her caption was playful, reading: Well, I finally got to grab a meal with a college friend!

She added a cute, tongue-out emoji right after.

In the photo, you could clearly make out a sliver of a man's wrist.

The ring on his finger was the one I had made with my own two hands.

Every single top comment was nothing but excited well-wishes.

Sabrina had gained a ton of fans a while back when her secret i********: account got exposed.

Everyone knew this stunning star was really just a dorky, lovestruck mess deep down, too scared to confess her crush on a guy a year ahead of her back in high school.

That little secret account had nothing but sappy personal photos with captions so long they were basically like essays gushing about her years-long crush on him.

She'd jotted down every single tiny memory related to him, from high school all the way through college.

The revelation stayed at the top of internet searches for a full day. The whole drama didn't hurt Sabrina at all. If anything, it solidified her pure, innocent public image.

Years had passed, and the shy, delicate girl from back then was no longer the quiet little wallflower who only dared to tag along behind her crush when no one was looking.

Now she was an A-list celebrity, and her story about pining after him had gone radio silent ever since her secret account was uncovered all those years ago.

After all this time, that secret account updated again, and her long-running crush finally got a sequel.

Netizens immediately hailed it as the ultimate slow-burn crush goals.

Hordes of drama-hungry netizens flooded the comments to egg her on.

A: [What are you waiting for? Go for him!]

B: [Get together! Get together!]

C: [Fly high, Sabrina! We've got your back!]

D: [Wait, did she finally lock him down?]

The drama brewed for a full day, and it didn't take long for sharp-eyed netizens to spot something off.

The man in the photo was wearing a ring on his left ring finger.

A married man and a pure-hearted starlet? That scoop was way too explosive.

As the hashtag blew up, even juicier details were dug up.

That ring had a one-of-a-kind design, and people had only seen it on the finger of the red-hot up-and-coming business mogul everyone had been obsessing over lately.

Soon enough, Jeremy's personal info got leaked, and both his name and Sabrina's shot straight back to the top of the trending list.

The whole mess had spiraled way too far, so platform admins yanked the trending hashtag in an emergency takedown.

But Jeremy, the man right in the middle of this firestorm, didn't say a single word to explain himself.

I clutched my phone, staring at the whole chaotic circus unfolding on the trending page, and let out a sharp, bitter huff of laughter.

Three whole days had passed, and I still hadn't gotten a single check-in from him, let alone an explanation for any of this.

A few days later, in the dead of night, Jeremy wandered back home as if nothing had happened.

He looked dead on his feet, exhaustion etched into every line of his face, and his usually perfectly gelled hair was messy and out of place.

"Baby, I'm sorry. Work's been crazy lately, so I haven't had time to check on you."

He didn't mention a thing about me being in the hospital, and he didn't offer up any explanation for the online drama either.

My gaze fell on his completely bare ring finger, and a hot surge of anger bubbled up in my chest.

"Where's your ring?" I asked.

He glanced down at his hand on instinct, his voice suddenly sounding off and evasive. "I lost it."

'Did he really lose it, or did he just get rid of it on purpose?'

Only he knew the real answer to that.

My emotions flared up, and my nose stung with that dry, sharp ache I'd been dealing with since the hospital.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, not in the mood to argue with him any more than I had to.

We'd blown up at each other so many times by now that I didn't even have the energy to argue.

When I turned to leave, Jeremy reached out fast and clamped his hand around mine to stop me.

From my expression alone, he must have thought better than to act dumb and pretend he didn't know about the news circulating about him.

"I can explain the whole trending topic thing," he said, and I waited for him to continue. "Look, Sabrina's just an old friend from high school. We happened to be in London at the same time, so we grabbed a meal together. That's all. There's nothing romantic going on between us, I swear."

I tugged at the corner of my mouth, my voice sharp as shards of ice. "Then why didn't you explain it? All you needed was a single public statement. Why did you choose to yank the whole trending topic down instead, and let all the rumors spiral out of control?"

He sighed. "Sabrina's career is just taking off. I can't ruin it for her."

I let out a sharp, mocking snort. "Didn't she kick this whole mess off herself? If her career gets ruined, isn't that exactly what she deserves? Besides, how would clarifying the truth ruin her? That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard!"

"Aly, don't be so cruel."

I could barely wrap my head around the fact that those words had just come out of the mouth of the man I'd been married to for seven whole years.

That day, I snapped like a stretched rubber band, something I almost never did.

I screamed at him, every word raw and burning in my throat. "Me? Cruel? How am I half as cruel as you? Your wife was in the hospital getting surgery for three whole days, and where were you? MIA without a single check-in? Off having fun in the UK, having meals with a woman I don't know, and now I'm the cruel one? Jeremy, you make me sick," I spat out. "Get out. I don't want you anymore."

Truth be told, I'd gotten pretty good at keeping my cool these past few years. I almost never lost my temper like this.

A sharp, hollow disappointment settled in my chest. I couldn't even pinpoint when Jeremy and I had ended up like this.

A flicker of panic crossed his eyes. He pulled me tight into his arms.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean that."

I pried his fingers off my arm one by one, my voice ice-cold and steady. "I think we both need some time apart to sort this out."

I could barely even recognize this ugly, enraged version of myself, it made my own skin crawl.