Thomas slipped away, and Clara only smiled.
“God, I’m so done with this,” Thomas muttered, pacing the kitchen like a caged animal. “Every day, the same routine! Come home from work, and the house reeks of that tired, gray stillness.”
“What do you mean?” Clara stirred the stew on the stove, her shoulders rigid but her voice as smooth as the surface of a still pond.
“What do I *mean*? This coldness! You’re always lost in your own world, your projects, your thoughts. Where’s my place in all of it?”
“I’m simply swamped, you know,” she replied, the words falling like dead leaves. Her gaze remained fixed on the bubbling pot.
“Swamped, swamped! What about us? What about *me*?” Thomas pounded his fist against the table. “The last time you asked about my day? The last time we did something together outside these four walls?”
Clara turned slowly, her eyes half-closed, a faint haze of weariness lingering beneath their surface. “We went to the cinema two weeks ago.”
“And you spent the whole time fixated on your phone!” He raked his fingers through his hair, the gesture frantic. “You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I’m out.”
The spoon in her hand faltered. She blinked once, twice, her face betraying no flicker of surprise.
“Going where, mid-night?” she asked, as if parsing an equation.
“Today. *Forever*.” He gestured to the room. “This—us—everything.”
Clara set the spoon down. She had heard this coming for ages, and yet the words hit her like a sudden, quiet storm.
“There’s someone else,” Thomas blurted, his voice cracking on the edge of fear. “Someone who *gets* me. Who laughs at my jokes, who listens.”
Clara gazed at him. Then, to his shock, she smiled. Not the bitter, hollow thing he expected, but a lightness in her face, like sunlight breaking through a cloud.
“Fine,” she said. “When do you plan to pack up?”
He froze. Not tears, not fury—just that eerie calm. It unnerved him.
“Are you not even going to *fight* for this?” he demanded, the word sharp with desperation.
“Is there anything left to fight for?” She moved to the window, watching the rain blur the garden below. “I’ve lived in my world. You, in yours. Where’s the overlap?”
Thomas realized the cards had slipped from his grasp. The ace of spades—his dramatic exit—had turned to dust in his hands.
“I’ll take my things tomorrow while you’re at work,” he muttered, retreating toward the hallway.
“Whatever you need,” Clara said, returning to the stove. “Tea?”
He slammed the door without an answer. Clara heard the creak of the hallway chair, the rustle of fabric being folded, the final *thud* of the front door.
Alone, she extinguished the flame, pushed the pot aside, and sat at the table. Silence filled the apartment, sudden and vast. She opened her phone, read her friend’s message—*”Well, Clara, did you get it out there yet?”*—and let the laughter rise in her chest, strange and light. The tears came too, soft as dew on grass.
Two weeks later, Clara sat in a riverside café near Kensington Gardens. Natasha, her old friend, nursed a cup of tea across from her.
“And you just *let him go*? Not even a fight?”
Clara twirled her keyring. “What was the point?” The swans on the Thames glided past, oblivious. “The last ten years were like living two parallel lives.”
“But you were *married*!” Natasha flung a sugar cube into her cup. “Didn’t any of it matter?”
“It did. But not enough to keep pretending.”
Natasha shook her head. “You’ve changed, Clara. Where’s the fierce woman I knew?”
“She’s here,” Clara said, tapping her temple. “Just… smaller.”
The weeks turned into months. Clara’s new role at a gallery downtown bloomed into something unexpected—creative, vibrant, *hers*. She painted in the mornings, hiked the Cotswolds on weekends, and rekindled old friendships with the warmth of someone finally home.
One afternoon, Thomas appeared at the door, drenched from the spring rain.
“I forgot my, er, books,” he mumbled, his voice a shadow of its former weight.
Clara handed him the box without a word. He lingered, eyeing the shelves now stocked with her photographs, her sketches, her life.
“You redecorated.”
“Some of it,” she said, watching the watercolor light spill across the walls. “More open. More *me*.”
He nodded, as if measuring the new space. “You look… different.”
“Freer,” she said, and it was true.
Thomas left. The last time, she thought.
Now, under the gas lamps of the High Street, Clara sipped a cappuccino at a corner table. The city hummed, and for the first time in years, the silence between the moments felt like song.
A text blinked on her phone: *”New exhibition preview. Be there?”*
She typed back: *”Already here.”*
