“After all, she is the person my parents wanted me to marry, so I should at least put on a show.”
Lizzie’s hands shook as tears streamed down her face unexpectedly. She reached for another piece of torn-up paper. It read, “We got married just as my parents wanted and while Lizzie is thrilled, I lie next to her feeling nothing but resentment. If only it were Ophelia instead. Maybe if she hadn’t existed, my parents wouldn’t have disliked Ophelia so much.”
The note went on: “I kept my distance from her and she acted indifferently. What’s wrong with her? She is so weird.”
Lizzie quietly gathered the papers, stacked them neatly and returned them to the display piece she’d found them in, securing the head back onto the figurine as if nothing had happened. She locked her bedroom door and broke down, realizing that her years of love for him had been a joke.
Adrienne disappeared for two days. When he returned, Lizzie was unboxing a package that contained her visa. She calmly tucked it away, noticing that Adrienne barely paid attention to what she was doing.
As Lizzie was heading out with her bag in hand, Adrienne called out, “Lizzie, can we talk for a second?”
She turned, her expression cool. “What is it?”
“It’s Ophelia... she took some pills. Tried to... well, they just managed to save her.” Adrienne looked torn. “I need your help.”
Lizzie paused, then walked over and sat down, saying nothing.
“I think we should get a temporary divorce,” Adrienne finally blurted. “Ophelia needs me right now.”
Lizzie’s gaze was steady as she nodded slowly. “Alright.”
“Do we need a certificate to prove it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he muttered.
“Well, let’s go get it then.”
As they drove to the courthouse, Adrienne felt an unsettling emptiness creeping in. He glanced at Lizzie, wondering why she’d agreed so easily—why hadn’t she even asked when they would remarry. Did she trust him that much?
“It’ll just be for a while,” he reassured her. “Once she’s better, we’ll undo it.”
Lizzie just nodded, focused on her phone, booking her flight. She noticed there was a flight that afternoon at three p.m. and if they could get the divorce certificate, she could fly right away—it happened to be a non-stop flight.
The divorce certificate was processed quickly. When they walked out of city hall, Adrienne turned to her, looking slightly ashamed. “Lizzie, I’ll also need you to make a public statement saying we’ve been separated for a while. To let everyone know that Ophelia had nothing to do with our split.”
Lizzie held the divorce papers in her hand, looking at Adrienne with a soft smile that soon made her eyes sting with tears. “Okay,” she murmured.
After dropping her off, Adrienne left to visit Ophelia at the hospital, likely to tell her the good news about his now-official divorce. Lizzie had already packed her things, so she quickly loaded them into a suitcase, double-checked that all her documents were accounted for and scheduled a pickup to ship everything out.
Her friend Mara took the day off to drop her off at the airport, giving her a final hug as she headed toward security. Once on board, Lizzie opened her phone and posted on social media, tagging both Adrienne and Ophelia: “Adrienne and I have been divorced for a while. Wishing him and Miss Bullock all the best.”
The flight attendant announced they were about to take off and as Lizzie switched her phone to airplane mode, she typed a final message for the world to see: “Goodbye.”
