I couldn't be bothered to argue with her. In half a month, I'd be free of all this.
Grandma had promised to clear my name when the time came. What they thought of me no longer mattered.
I stared at her, expression blank, then let out a long breath and rolled over onto the bed.
"Do whatever you want."
She thought I was about to beat Noel like I used to. She tensed up, planting herself in front of him like a shield.
But when I simply turned my back and lay down, every trace of her panic evaporated.
After a long silence, she asked in disbelief, "You're... you're not angry?"
My voice was flat. "Isn't this what you've always wanted? For me to get along with him?"
She relaxed, a laugh escaping her. "You've finally learned. I knew you weren't that heartless. I'll make it up to you, I promise."
I didn't respond. I didn't look at her once, not even as they left.
A long time later, I pressed my hand to my chest.
Nothing. Not even a flutter.
So this is what letting go feels like.
Over the following days, guilt seemed to gnaw at her. She brought me gifts every few days, undeterred by my indifference, rambling about the wonderful life we'd have together.
Then she brought up the baby's one-month celebration, and her tone turned careful.
"Noel will never be able to acknowledge his own child. So I was thinking... while the baby's still too young to understand, he could attend the celebration openly. As the father."
She paused. "It would give him closure. Don't you think?"
I didn't stop what I was doing. Didn't even look up.
"I told you—do what you want. It's not my child. None of this has anything to do with me."
Her breath caught. Red crept into her eyes, fury simmering beneath. She snatched the offerings I'd prepared for John's memorial.
"Why have you been like this lately? Do you even understand what it means if he attends? It means you're accepting him as a son-in-law of the Jenner family. You never would have allowed that before."
I paused, glancing at her with mild disinterest.
"And that's a bad thing? Two months ago, when you were taking care of his needs, weren't you the one saying it was such a shame you could never give him a proper title?"
She went white. Frozen. Like a statue carved from ice.
I took the offerings back, my composure unbroken, as if nothing had happened.
She hovered at my ear, babbling excuses—how she didn't love him, how she only slept with him because she felt responsible—
My silence crushed every word.
After that day, she stopped visiting.
But Noel's social media told the whole story. Photos flooded his feed—family portraits in every style imaginable. Him, her, the baby. A perfect little unit.
The day she finished her postpartum confinement, the Jenner family threw a grand celebration for that bastard child.
Grandma told me the divorce papers would be ready tomorrow.
I went home to collect my things.
The apartment—our apartment, once warm, once ours—had been remade in Noel's taste.
Even the photo that used to sit by the TV, the one of me cradling her pregnant belly, had been replaced. Now it was her, Noel, and the baby. A new family portrait.
In the photo, Greta was smiling.
Brighter than she'd smiled on our wedding day.
In the bedroom, I started packing the clothes I'd had before the marriage.
But no matter how I searched, I couldn't find it—the suit my mother had sewn for me by hand before she passed.
I was about to call and ask when I saw it.
Noel's latest post.
He was wearing it. My mother's suit. At the celebration.
Rage erupted through me like a wave of fire.
I grabbed a cab and stormed into the banquet hall.
There he was—arm around Greta, the two of them laughing, basking in the crowd's admiration.
When Greta spotted me, guilt flickered across her face.
And beneath it, a gleam of triumph she couldn't quite hide.
