Nigel Ainsworth, my ex-husband, had just been appointed my new boss. Staring at his handsome, stone-cold face, the memory of his betrayal from three years ago tightened around my heart like a vise. The hands that once set my body on fire now signed off on surgical directives, and the thought made my stomach clench. I let my voice drip with ice. "Dr. Ainsworth, if you'd shown this much backbone three years ago, we might not be in this position." Without a second glance, I spun on my heel and strode out of the suffocating office, my heels echoing sharply on the polished floor.
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1
The moment I stepped out of the office, a few nurses immediately swarmed me.
"Dr. Barnes, do you know the new Director of Surgery?"
"No," I said, my voice clipped. I just wanted the topic to die.
"Oh my god, Jules, that Dr. Ainsworth is so young! I heard he's a Hopkins grad... and apparently, he's single."
That comment sent a ripple of excitement through the nurses' station. A few of the more gossip-prone nurses began to chatter, the sound grating on my last nerve.
"Dream on," I shattered their fantasy. "He's been married. And divorced."
I ignored their stunned silence, grabbed my handbag, and prepared to leave for the day.
"How do you know so much about him?" a young nurse persisted, unwilling to let it go.
A bitter laugh escaped me. How could I not know? I was the ex-wife he'd abandoned.
I didn't bother to explain, heading straight for the elevator. The moment the doors slid shut, the knot in my shoulders began to loosen. I had told myself a thousand times not to let the past define me, but seeing Nigel Ainsworth again, as my superior, my guarded heart couldn't help but throb with a familiar ache.
We had been married for five years.
For our fifth anniversary, I'd planned every detail of the hospital's charity gala, eager to celebrate with him. Instead, he was in the hospital's glass conservatory, holding Chloe Sinclair—my best friend. The photo went viral on the hospital's internal forum. Overnight, they became the Seattle medical community's new power couple.
The saccharine congratulations, that single, viral photo—none of it had anything to do with me. I hid in an empty locker room and dialed his number.
"Nigel, I want a divorce."
There was a beat of silence, then his voice, tight with anger, "Jules, what kind of game are you playing?"
"I'm sending the papers to your email," I said, and hung up.
When I got home, the flames in the fireplace danced quietly. I pulled a thick roll of blueprints from a desk drawer. They were the designs for the lakeside cabin we had dreamed of. I once believed it would be our forever home, but now, poring over the drawings, a painful irony struck me. From choosing the site to drafting the plans, through every single revision, the only handwriting was mine. This "shared dream" had been my solo project from the very beginning.
He was never really part of it.
I stared blankly at the stack of blueprints that held all my love and hope, and then, one by one, I fed them to the fire. The crisp blue pages curled, blackened, and turned to ash, just like the future between us that had never even begun.
