POV : Arrabella
At nine o’clock in the morning, I officially signed our divorce petition.
The Civil Registry Office was still quiet when I stepped outside. The morning sun was hidden behind gray clouds, making the atmosphere feel even gloomier. The cold air stung my skin, yet nothing was colder than the emptiness now spreading through my chest. The plastic folder containing the divorce documents was clutched tightly in my right hand.
I had taken a major step.
I was not waiting to be discarded.
I was the one leaving first.
When I stepped back into the Cooper residence, silence greeted me heavily.
Quiet.
The antique clock in the central hall chimed slowly, showing eleven o’clock in the morning.
Michael still had not come home.
I let out a short breath and looked around the house I had cared for wholeheartedly for the past three years. Every corner held traces of how hard I had tried to become a good wife for him. Yet last night’s phone call—the sound of running water and Sophia’s soft laughter—had become the most definitive answer.
Michael was making up for the longing he had carried for three years.
There had never been a place for me from the very beginning.
I walked into the master bedroom, pulled a medium-sized fabric suitcase from the large wardrobe, and began packing my clothes one by one with slow, mechanical movements.
My tears had already dried.
They had been replaced by frozen determination.
Bang!
The sound of the front door opening forcefully brought my movements to a halt.
Hurried footsteps echoed through the hallway, heading toward the bedroom.
“Ara! What is the meaning of this, sweetheart?”
Dona Cooper stood in the doorway with her eyes widened in shock. Her gaze immediately locked onto the open suitcase on the bed. Behind her, Felix Siauw Cooper followed with an extremely tense expression.
I forced a faint smile, trying to hide the fragile tremor in my shoulders.
“Mom? Dad? What brings you here so early?”
Dona did not answer.
She strode toward me and gripped both of my arms, her fingers beginning to tremble. Her eyes moved from the pile of clothes inside the suitcase back to my face.
“Why are you packing your things, Ara? Where are you going?”
I lowered my gaze to Dona’s hands on my arms.
“My role is over, Mom. Michael’s first love... Sophia, has returned.”
“What do you mean your role is over?!” Felix Siauw Cooper interrupted with his deep baritone voice, which thundered through the bedroom. His firm footsteps carried him closer.
“Who told you your role is over, Ara?”
“Michael didn’t come home last night, Dad,” I said softly.
Silence instantly suffocated the room.
The room fell completely quiet, leaving only the sound of Felix’s heavy breathing.
“Sophia answered his phone,” I continued, letting the sentence hang in the air.
I took a deep breath, trying to ease the tightness in my chest.
“She said Michael was taking a shower. They spent the night together. This marriage... from the beginning, it was only an arrangement to save the Cooper family’s reputation when Sophia left. Now that she’s back, it’s time for me to know my place.”
“No! There will be no divorce in this family!” Felix shouted.
His face was flushed red with overwhelming anger. He clenched his fists tightly at his sides and stared directly at me.
“If anyone has to leave this family, it’s not you, Ara! No matter what happens, the only daughter-in-law of the Cooper family is you!”
Dona cupped my face, her eyes glistening with tears as she looked at me with deep sorrow.
“Ara, look at me, sweetheart. Let Mom ask you something... During these past three years, have you never loved my son? Was all the care you gave him fake?”
I fell silent for a moment.
My chest ached unbearably at her question.
“I love him, Mom,” I admitted in a voice barely above a whisper, hoarse from the pain that had accumulated inside me. “I’ve loved Michael since we were children at the orphanage. But loving him alone only adds more wounds to my heart. I can’t do it anymore.”
Dona shook her head firmly before turning to her husband with a sharp look.
“Dad! Call Michael right now! Tell that shameless son of yours to come home immediately!”
Without wasting a second, Felix pulled his phone from his coat pocket and dialed Michael’s number with a sharp motion.
The moment the call connected, he gave the person on the other end no chance to speak.
“Come home right now, Michael Cooper! Don’t you dare argue with me if you still consider yourself part of this family!”
Beep.
Felix ended the call without waiting for a response, his breathing rising and falling with restrained fury.
Thirty minutes passed in suffocating tension.
We were all sitting in the living room, trapped in rigid silence.
Then the sound of a car entering the driveway broke the stillness.
The front door opened.
Michael walked in with a hardened jaw.
But he was not alone.
Beside him, Sophia Muller entered with her chin raised high, dressed in a stylish burgundy gown. Her slender fingers were wrapped possessively around Michael’s arm, as though deliberately showing everyone in the room that Michael belonged to her.
“Dad? Mom?”
Michael stopped in the middle of the room. His eyes moved between Felix and Dona, who sat with expressions as rigid as stone. His brows furrowed tightly.
“What’s going on? Why did Dad order me home in such a tone?”
Sophia lowered her sunglasses slightly and offered a sweet smile that appeared forced.
“Hello, Mom, Dad. Sorry if my presence is a surprise, but I’m only accompanying Michael.”
“Take your hand off my son, you arrogant woman!” Dona hissed coldly, her sharp gaze fixed on Sophia’s hand still clinging to Michael’s arm.
Sophia flinched.
Instinctively, she tightened her grip on Michael’s arm before slowly letting go under Felix’s intimidating stare.
She stepped back half a pace and stood behind Michael’s broad back.
Michael let out a long sigh and stepped forward, trying to break the tension.
He looked at his mother with visible frustration.
“What’s really going on, Mom? Is there an urgent problem at the office?”
Michael’s calm yet ambiguous attitude made my chest ache even more.
He did not seem eager to save this marriage, yet he also did not immediately speak of divorce in front of his parents.
He simply allowed the situation to unfold, making me even more certain that I needed to end this uncertainty as soon as possible.
I rose from the sofa, breaking the silence with slow but firm footsteps.
From my shoulder bag, I took out the plastic folder I had brought from the Civil Registry Office that morning.
Michael immediately turned toward me.
His dark eyes locked onto my every movement.
There was a faint trace of confusion in them when he saw what I was holding.
I stopped exactly three steps in front of him, lifted my head, and held the folder out toward his chest.
“What is this, Ara?” Michael asked.
His voice was low, and his brow furrowed deeply.
I looked directly into the eyes that had once radiated a false warmth that made me lose myself.
“Our divorce petition, Michael,” I replied calmly, without the slightest trace of emotion.
Michael visibly stiffened.
His body suddenly tensed where he stood.
His eyes fixed sharply on the papers inside the plastic folder.
“Ara... are you joking?”
“I already signed the divorce papers this morning at the Civil Registry Office,” I continued, letting the words linger in the cold air of our living room. “Now, all that’s left is your signature.”
“What?!”
The cry of shock did not come from Michael.
It came from Sophia.
She immediately covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes sparkling with delight that she tried to hide beneath an expression of surprise.
Meanwhile, Michael remained frozen.
His eyes stared at the document in my hand in complete disbelief, as though he had just been struck by something he had never imagined would come from the lips of an Ara who had obediently followed him for the past three years.
***
