"Who do you think you are, Hilda? You're nothing but a low-level sales rep!"
"Since you don't know what's good for you, you can kiss your entire paycheck goodbye!"
With that, he stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door. The lock clicked shut behind him.
The air in the living room turned suffocating.
Then a wave of dizziness hit me out of nowhere.
I remembered the doctor's warning: my anemia meant I couldn't afford to get worked up.
But it was too late. The room was already spinning. My knees buckled, and I hit the floor hard.
I needed to call 911, but my phone was in the bedroom. I dragged myself to the door and tried the handle.
Locked.
I knocked. Then I pounded.
All I got back was Damian's cold, contemptuous laugh.
"Begging already? Too late for that."
Then silence.
For half an hour, I lay crumpled against that door, consciousness slipping further away with every passing minute. Damian only opened it because he needed the bathroom.
He looked down at me sprawled on the floor and scoffed.
"Nice act."
He stepped over me and walked into the bathroom.
When he came back out, I hadn't moved. Not an inch.
That was when the color drained from his face. He fumbled for his phone and dialed 911.
The ambulance arrived quickly. He was about to climb in with me when his phone rang.
Eleanor's voice poured through the speaker, breathy and trembling.
"Damian, a dog bit me on my way home. What if I get rabies? I'm so scared."
His whole demeanor shifted in an instant. Panic flooded his face. "Don't be scared. I'm coming right now."
He turned to leave. A paramedic grabbed his arm.
"Your wife is severely anemic. Where are you going?"
He wrenched free without a second glance.
"Someone else needs me. She's your problem now."
He paused at the ambulance door. "Oh, and she might be faking it. If she is, just dump her outside."
Then he vanished into the night.
One of the hospital aides watched him go and let out a long sigh.
"If that were my husband, I'd have divorced him yesterday."
By the time I woke up in the hospital bed, Eleanor had posted again on social media.
This time it was a designer bag worth a million dollars.
The caption read: "Thank you to my generous big boss for this gift. I'll repay you with every ounce of energy I have, every single day."
The comments underneath were a parade of sycophants.
"Only Ellie could make Mr. Henson spoil someone like that!"
"Ellie, when are you going to push the wife out for good? We're all waiting for the wedding invite!"
There were dozens more just like them.
My expression didn't change. I closed the app.
A file pinged on my phone from one of my people. It was a timeline of Damian's affair.
Last June, while I was hospitalized, Damian and Eleanor had checked into a hotel together. The file included a photo of the two of them in bed.
I remembered that period clearly. We'd been splitting everything fifty-fifty for four years by then, but Damian's growing coldness had left me desperate for even a scrap of tenderness.
So I'd swallowed my pride and called him. Told him I had no money in my account. Asked if he could come see me. Help cover the hospital bill.
He'd barely let me finish before hanging up.
"I'm on a business trip. No time. And the agreement is crystal clear—neither of us borrows money from the other. It breeds complacency. If you can't afford it, tough it out. Consider it a lesson in working harder."
Then there was last November.
The company had organized a team retreat. Damian said he needed to stay behind to meet with clients.
But according to the file, he and Eleanor had spent the entire day going at it in his office.
Now it all made sense—the flush on his neck when he came home that night, the rosy glow on Eleanor's face whenever she looked at him. The signs had been screaming at me all along.
I closed the file. Something inside me went cold and still.
The betrayal was no longer a question. It was a fact, documented and timestamped.
Which meant it was time to settle the score.
After I was discharged, I printed the divorce papers and walked straight to the president's office.
