I hadnt asked you to ruin your life
Emma, are you sure youre alright? You dont make decisions like that in a week.
Ive thought it through. Amelia pushed her mug away. Seriously, Lucy. For the first time in years I actually know what I want.
Thats not love! Its just hormones!
God, thanks for the support.
I am supporting youby telling you the hard truth. Hes twentyfour, Emma. Twentyfour. When you finished university he was just starting primary school.
Amelia rolled her eyes. Numbers lost all meaning when true feeling was involved.
Ive already decided, she said, firmer now. Ill speak to Victor today.
Lucy nodded silently, finishing her latte. In Amelias mind she was already elsewherewhere the air smelled of coffee and fresh ink, where a man waited, whose single glance made her legs feel weak.
Victor that evening was perched on the edge of their bedtheir bed, in the bedroom they had chosen together twelve years earlier while arguing over whether a canopy was necessary. They never bought one. In those twelve years little had really happenedfew conversations, fewer touches, fewer glances. Marriage had settled into a polite cohabitation, a sharing of square metres and a joint budget.
Ive met someone else.
Four words. Amelia had been rehearsing a speech for days, practicing in the shower, jotting notes on her phone, but only those four escaped her lips. And then silence.
Victor did not shout. He did not smash anything. He simply noddedslowly, as if confirming a longheld suspicionand began packing. Methodically. Neatly. Folding shirts exactly as he always didcollar to collar. There was something unsettlingly precise about his movements.
Victor
Dont. I get it. He didnt even turn. Im going to my parents.
The door closed softly, almost unheard, and it felt worse than any argument. Amelias chest tightened with a mix of guilt and relief she could not weigh. Their flat suddenly seemed as vast and echoing as an empty concert hall.
She was free.
The conversation with the parents came three days later. As expected, they did not support her.
Do you realise what youre doing? her mother loomed over her like a hawk. Twelve years of marriage for a boys whim? For a lad?
Mother, hes twentyfour, hes an adult
Adult! her father grunted, sinking heavily into the creaking chair. Adult is Victor. Hes supported you for years, and you give him this?
He didnt support me. I run my own business, Father.
Youre disgracing us, he added, voice low.
Amelia rose from the table. Her legs felt like water, but she forced herself to speak calmly.
I thought youd stand by me.
And we thought wed raised a sensible daughter, her mother said, turning to the window. Seems we were wrong.
She left the flat without looking back. In the lift she typed to Ian: Pick me up. He arrived twenty minutes later, wrapped her in a hug, pressed his nose to the crown of her head, and for a moment all problems vanished.
Friendsthose they once socialised with as couples, sharing barbecues and New Years Eve drinks faded one by one. Katie texted, Sorry, Nora, I cant. Victor is like a brother to me, you understand. Olivia simply stopped replying. Megan sent a long rant about betrayal and selfishness; Amelia stared at the screen for five minutes, unsure what to answer, then deleted the entire fiveyear chat history and forbade herself to cry.
For three weeks a hollow settled around her. Ian took her to meet his matesyoung lads arguing about streams, TikToks and the latest music video. Amelia sat among them, smiled, nodded, while a sharp, almost physical loneliness gnawed at her. She missed half the jokes, didnt recognise the names they tossed around, and realised the only person she could actually talk to was Ian himself. Yet Ian was forever busy with his friends, leaving her alone in a noisy room.
This will pass, she whispered to herself. Well build something new.
What if we just leave? Ian lay beside her that night, running his fingers through her hair. Go to another city. A fresh startno exhusbands, no meddling parents. Begin on a clean slate.
Amelia propped herself on her forearm, studying his face in the halflight.
Are you serious?
Absolutely. I have contacts in Manchester; the photography market there is buzzing. And you could open a new studiobigger, better.
The word studio pricked her ribs. Her studio. Eight years of work, a client list, artisans she had trained from scratch. Toss it all away?
His eyes shone with a fierce certainty, and she nodded. Yes. Start over. Prove this wasnt a midlife crisis or a fleeting fancy, but a real feeling worth the risk.
She sold her studio within three weeksfar below its true worth, because the buyer sensed urgency and squeezed every possible discount. Amelia signed the papers with trembling hands, watched the transfer hit her bank account, and felt a strange sensation: as if she had cut off a piece of herself and handed it to a beigesuitclad stranger.
Done, she told Ian that evening. Were free.
He lifted her, spun her around the room, and Amelia burst into a laughclear, ringing, a sound she hadnt heard from herself in years. The money from the sale seemed a small fortune, enough for any plan. First they rented a flat nearer the centre, with high ceilings and enormous windows. Their nest. Their home.
The first weeks in the new city felt like a honeymoon. Breakfasts in bed, endless conversations about everything and nothing. Ian photographed her on the balcony, in the kitchen, in the bathroom with wet haireach frame a declaration of love.
Then something shifted.
At first it was subtle. Ian lingered longer on shoots, returned home exhausted, ate dinner in silence, buried himself in his phone. Lots of work, he would say. Ive got to grind while the orders keep coming. Amelia nodded, understood, and refused to become the nagging, clingy wife.
But when she tried to hug him at night, he pulled away. When she broached the studio, the plans, he replied curtly: Later, Well sort it, Not now. Each not now scraped at her insides.
She started looking for worknot out of desperate need, but to keep her mind occupied. At thirtyfour, finding a new job was no small feat. Money dwindled. The rent ate a large chunk each month. Ians income was erratic, and when Amelia gently suggested splitting the bills, he shrugged irritably.
Im already contributing. Cant you see that?
She saw it. She saw Ians gaze flick away, the way he checked his phone before leaving the room, the latenight airouts that returned at midnight smelling of strangers. Or perhaps it was only her imagination.
We need to talk, Amelia said one night when Ian staggered in at three a.m.
About what?
About us. I dont understand whats happening. Youre different. I barely see you, you dont talk to me, were
Youre suffocating me. Ian flung his jacket onto a chair. I told you I need space. Everythings moving too fast. You expect things Im not ready for. I never asked you to smash your life.
She froze.
You didnt?
You chose. He didnt force a divorce, didnt force a sale. It was your decision. We moved here when you were already free.
He was technically right. It had been her choice, her fire, the blaze that consumed everything she owned.
From that night Amelia spiralled. She checked Ians phone while he slept, scrolled through messages, stared at every like on his photos, found follows of female models and fledgling photographers, each name a brandnew wound. She sent him twenty texts a day, pestering where he was, who he was with, when hed return. She staged jealous scenes and then loathed herself for it, because she recognised in herself a woman she never wanted to become.
Youre ill, Ian finally said after another blowup. You need a therapist, not a relationship.
Perhaps he was right.
Ian began disappearing more often. Shooting out of town, Stayed at a friends, Dont wait up. And Amelia waitedsitting in the dark, watching the door, feeling something inside dry up, turn to ash.
When Ian finally came back they were silent, or shouting. No middle ground remained. In his eyes Amelia saw the thing she feared most: fatigue, irritation, pity. He looked at her as if she were a problem he could not solve.
On a Tuesday evening, after her fifth cup of coffee, the phone pinged.
Nora, I cant do this any longer. Im sorry. Its gone too far. I never wanted to ruin your life. Im not ready to take responsibility. Dont look for me. Please leave me alone.
She read the message three times, then again, then once more. The phone slipped from her hand, and she fell off the stool onto the cold floor.
She spent the next twentyfour hours in the empty flatlying on the floor, then the sofa, then back on the floor because the cold was somehow less oppressive than the heat inside her. She wept badly, sniffling, with snotstreaked cheeks. When the tears finally ran out, only a dry, scorched emptiness remained.
No husband. No business. No friends. No parents. No lover. No moneyher bank balance showed barely enough for two months. Thirtyfour years old, and the only thing left was a rented flat with lofty ceilings she could no longer afford.
Three days later she forced herself to call Victornot to beg him back, just to apologise, to acknowledge the weight of her guilt. Number unavailable. He had blocked her.
She wrote a long, rambling, honest message to her mother, confessing her mistake, her pain, her need for help. Two hours later a reply arrived:
We warned you. Deal with the consequences yourself. Father asked me to tell you hes not ready to talk.
Amelia put the phone down and laugheda brittle, cracked chuckle. That was it. The full set.
A week later she moved into a twelvesquaremetre room on the edge of towna shared house with a communal kitchen and a perpetually occupied bathroom. The neighbour, a stout lady in her sixties, sized her up and snorted, Youre still young. Youll get over it.
A job came quicklynail technician in a basement salon on the next street. The pay was pittance, but Amelia no longer cared about pride.
In the evenings she stared at her handshands that had once built a business, signed contracts, flipped through Italian cosmetics cataloguesnow spent all day filing other peoples nails for pennies.
Months of madness passed, and everything she had built over ten years vanished. And the one who bore the blame was, inevitably, herself.
