Griffin slammed the glass door shut behind him, the sound echoing with the pent-up anger within him. He slid into the Maybach's driver's seat, the cold leather pressing against his skin.
The car pulled smoothly away from the curb, melting back into the city's bloodstream.
Inside the clinic, Dr. Sullivan pressed a cup of warm water into Chloe's icy, trembling hands. The water sloshed over the rim, spilling onto her fingers, but she didn't seem to notice. Her gaze was fixed on the tiny pinprick on the inside of her elbow, where a single bead of blood was welling up. Her vision blurred, the bright lights of the room fracturing into a thousand tiny stars.
A nurse quietly entered and handed a report to the doctor. Chloe saw Dr. Sullivan's expression shift as he scanned the page — from concern to disbelief, then to something dark and cold. She watched him slam the file down on the counter with a crack that made her flinch. He muttered something under his breath, his voice shaking with fury, then stalked to the window and pulled out his phone. She could hear the sharp taps of his fingers on the screen, but not the words that followed — only the low, urgent pitch of his voice as he spoke into the receiver.
Miles away, Griffin was walking down the plushly carpeted hallway of Jaida's Upper West Side apartment building. The doctor's words stopped him dead in his tracks. His hand, reaching for the doorknob, froze in mid-air.
"It's an act," Griffin retorted, the denial automatic. "A new way to get attention. She's fine."
A harsh, bitter laugh came through the phone. "Fine? She's on the verge of a vasovagal syncope episode, you arrogant bastard. Consider my medical advisory contract with your family terminated. Effective immediately. Find someone else to enable your abuse."
The line went dead.
Griffin stared at his phone, the dial tone a shrill, accusing sound in the silent hallway. A strange, unfamiliar prickle of irritation, sharp and unsettling, worked its way under his skin. He shoved the feeling down, attributing it to the doctor's unprofessionalism. He straightened his collar, smoothed the front of his sweater, and pushed open the door to Jaida's apartment.
Inside the clinic, Chloe watched Dr. Sullivan end his call, his face grim. She couldn't make out the words from this distance, but she saw his jaw tighten as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. The validation, the simple act of a stranger seeing her pain when her own husband refused to, was the final crack in her dam of composure. A single tear escaped, then another, until silent, shuddering sobs racked her body. The tears she had refused to shed for him, she shed for a stranger's kindness.
Dr. Sullivan placed a box of tissues on the table beside her. He sighed, a heavy, weary sound.
"Mrs. Donovan," he said gently, his anger softening into pity. "For your own health, for your own safety... you need to leave him."
Chloe's hand clenched around a tissue, her knuckles turning white. She looked up, her tear-filled eyes meeting his in the reflection of the dark window. Outside, the lights of Manhattan glittered, a city of dreams that had become her cage. The hope that had once fueled her, that had allowed her to endure three years of this cold, hollow marriage, was finally, completely extinguished.
She used the armrest to push herself to her feet. Her legs were shaky, protesting the movement, and she had to brace herself against the wall as she walked towards the door. Each step was a deliberate, painful effort.
The automatic doors of the clinic slid open, and the raw, damp cold of the late-night air hit her like a slap. It was a shock to her system, but it was real. It was something to feel other than the crushing weight of despair.
She didn't call the driver Griffin kept on staff for her. She didn't want to be ferried around in another one of his gilded cages. Instead, she stumbled, her steps uncertain and unsteady, towards the distant, rumbling sound of the subway.
At the station, the air was thick with the smell of damp concrete and electricity. Her hands shook so badly that when she tried to pull her MetroCard from her wallet, it slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the grimy floor. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead; it took her several tries to bend down and pick it up.
A woman with a kind, tired face, probably on her way home from a late shift, saw her fumbling. She bent down and picked it up for her, her brow furrowed with concern.
"You okay, honey?" the woman asked, her voice laced with a genuine, uncomplicated concern that made Chloe's throat tighten. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Need me to call someone? You're shaking like a leaf — I don't think you can make it home on your own."
Chloe managed a weak smile. It felt brittle, like a piece of glass about to shatter. "No, thank you. I'm just... very tired."
The woman didn't look convinced, but she nodded slowly. "Well... you take care of yourself, honey. You sure you don't want me to call you a cab or something? A girl like you, out here alone this late — you're gonna get yourself killed."
Chloe shook her head. "I'll be fine."
The woman sighed, a reluctant, worried sound. "Lord, I hope so. But if you collapse in a tunnel, no one's gonna find you till morning."
She watched Chloe for a long moment, as if waiting for her to change her mind, then turned and walked away, muttering something under her breath about "rich folks' problems."
Chloe sat on a cold metal bench, the screech of an approaching train a physical assault on her frayed nerves. The wind from the tunnel whipped her hair across her face.
The train car was nearly empty. She sank onto a hard plastic seat and leaned her head against the cool glass of the window. Her reflection stared back at her: a pale, hollow-eyed stranger with smudged mascara and a haunted expression.
She pulled out her phone and opened her message history with Griffin. It was a pathetic, one-sided conversation. Her messages — "Are you coming home for dinner?", "Hope the meeting went well.", "Thinking of you." — were met with hours, sometimes days, of silence, occasionally punctuated by a one-word reply. "No." "Fine." "Seen."
Her thumb hovered over the screen, over the history of her own foolish, relentless hope. With a final, shuddering breath, she pressed 'Delete Chat History'.
As the train plunged into the darkness of the tunnel connecting Manhattan to Long Island, the last remnants of her love for Griffin Donovan were swallowed by the blackness.
She walked the final half-mile from the station to the Donovan estate, each step a deliberate effort against her trembling legs. The massive iron gates loomed in the darkness like the entrance to a mausoleum. The house itself was a hulking shadow against the night sky, dark and silent. He hadn't even left a light on for her.
She pushed open the heavy, carved wooden door. The foyer was cavernous and cold. She slipped off her heels, the thick wool of the Persian rug a small comfort to her aching feet. She didn't turn on the lights. She preferred the darkness.
Silently, she climbed the grand staircase, her hand trailing along the cold, polished wood of the banister. She didn't go to their bedroom. She went to his study.
She sat down in his large leather chair, the one that still held the faint scent of his cologne. She opened the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk and pulled out a stack of blank legal paper.
With a steady hand, she took one of his expensive fountain pens from its holder. At the top of the crisp, white page, she wrote two words.
Divorce Agreement.
---
