**Diary Entry**
I can still hear his sigh as he stopped me in the hallway. “Katie, can I have a word?”
I turned, wiping my hands on my apron—always the apron, always the kitchen, always preparing for his guests. “Of course, James. What’s wrong?”
He winced. “There you go again—‘James.’ I’ve asked you a hundred times, love. It sounds so… common. And those flat vowels of yours. Honestly, it grates. Maybe back in Yorkshire, they talk like that, but here in London? It just doesn’t fit.”
I stiffened. “I’ve never pretended to be anything else. Some people drop their ‘H’s, some don’t—you lot swallow half your words anyway. What’s the difference?”
He rubbed his temple. “You don’t get it. I’d rather you didn’t join us tonight. It’s a business thing, and my colleagues… well, they’re a certain sort. You wouldn’t… fit in.”
The air left my lungs. “In what way don’t I ‘fit’? Is my dress not posh enough? Too simple for your finance bros and their start-up talk? Because your precious Emma and Sophie—even bloody Charlotte—aren’t exactly hedge fund managers. We sit at the other end of the table laughing at memes and swapping baby photos. What’s the issue?”
He hesitated. “It’s just… their backgrounds are different. And you’re—look, it’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” My voice cracked. “Was it embarrassing when I nursed you through that flu last winter? When we drove back from my parents’ with a boot full of homemade jams? Convenient then, wasn’t I? But the minute you need to impress your city boys, suddenly I’m ‘not the right sort’?” I tore off the apron and stormed upstairs.
“Katie, wait—” He called after me, but the door was already slamming behind me.
He didn’t know I heard every word after that. The muttered complaints, the click of the front door. I sank onto the bed, hands shaking. Anger and hurt tangled in my throat. How many times had they warned me? “Country mouse marrying a London hotshot—it never lasts.” But I believed in us. In his kindness. And until tonight, he’d never given me reason to doubt.
We met at uni—final year. Me, a bookish library sciences student; him, the awkward econ nerd girls whispered about. I felt sorry for him—always stammering, always nervous. In the library once, I’d teased, “Breathe, slow down, just say it.” That was the start. Then came the dates, the late-night talks, the way he blossomed beside me. Two years later, a wedding even his snobbish aunt approved of.
And now… this?
“So when you were nobody, I was good enough. But now you’re some big shot, I’m dead weight?” I wiped my eyes and yanked out a suitcase.
My sister answered on the first ring. “Stay with us,” she said before I’d even finished. Her husband and the kids would welcome me.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“Go home. There’s a library job opening up near Mum and Dad. I’ll rent a flat. The rest can wait.”
Then my phone lit up—James.
“Where the hell are you? The lads arrive in two hours, and there’s no food, no hostess!”
I laughed coldly. “Darling, if I’m too ‘common’ to sit with your elite mates, I suppose I’m too common to cook for them, too. Sort your own dinner. I’ve left.”
“Katie, have you lost your mind?”
“No. I’ve left *you*. Divorce papers tomorrow.”
I hung up and opened Instagram. A short, raw post: how one evening unravels a marriage when your husband thinks you’re an embarrassment.
His friends’ wives were the first to react. Messages flooded in—even from his own mates. “Didn’t peg James for that sort.” He texted me, furious: “You’ve turned everyone against me.”
As if he expected silence. As if those women—half of them from council estates—wouldn’t recognize themselves in his sneer.
“You did this on purpose. Ruined my reputation.”
“You ruined it yourself the moment you told me I wasn’t good enough. You never really knew me.”
“Who’d even want you now?”
“Then why did you beg the judge for reconciliation?”
Silence.
“All this over nothing,” he muttered.
“If you think basic decency is ‘nothing,’ you’re either cruel or an idiot. Either way, I’m done.”
I walked to my sister’s, the chill air sharp in my lungs. Dad’s already promised to help with the flat. The job’s mine. And love? It’ll come. But next time, I’ll know—respect matters as much as the rest.
