I didnt ask you to ruin your life.
Ellie, are you sure youre alright? You dont make decisions like that in a week, Lucy asked, eyeing the halfempty mug in front of her.
Ive thought it through, Emily said, pushing her tea aside. Seriously, Lucy. For the first time in years I actually know what I want.
Thats not love, its just hormones! Lucy teased.
Thanks for the support, Emily replied dryly. Im just being honest. Hes twentyfour, Ellie. Twentyfour. He was in primary school when you were graduating university.
Emily rolled her eyes. Numbers stopped meaning anything when real feelings were involved.
Ive already decided, she repeated, firmer. Ill talk to Victor today.
Lucy gave a silent shake of her head and finished her latte. In Emilys mind, she was already elsewhere a place that smelled of fresh coffee and printer ink, where a man waited whose glance made her legs feel like jelly.
That evening Victor was perched on the edge of the bed their bed, in the bedroom theyd picked twelve years ago while arguing over whether a canopy was necessary. The canopy never materialised. In the years that followed there had been few conversations, few touches, few looks. Their marriage had become a polite cohabitation, a split of square footage and a shared budget.
Ive found someone else, she blurted out.
Four words. Emily had rehearsed a speech for days, practised it in the shower, scribbled notes on her phone but only those four escaped. Silence followed.
Victor didnt shout. He didnt smash anything. He simply nodded, slowly, as if confirming a longheld suspicion, then began packing his things. Methodically. Neatly. Folding shirts the way he always did collar to collar. There was something unsettlingly precise about his neatness.
Victor
No need. I get it, he said without turning. Im going to my parents.
The door closed softly, almost soundlessly worse than any argument. Emily felt a strange tug in her chest: guilt and relief, mixed in an indeterminate ratio. The flat suddenly seemed vast and echoey, like an empty concert hall.
She was free
The talk with her parents happened three days later. As expected, they didnt back her.
You do realise what youve done? her mother loomed over her like a kitefisher. Twelve years of marriage, and for whom? For a schoolboy?
Dad, hes twentyfour, an adult
Adult! her father grunted, sinking heavily into a squeaky chair. Victor is an adult. He put up with you, fed you for years, and this is what you give him
He never fed me. I run my own business, Mum, Emily snapped.
Youre disgraceful, her father added darkly.
Emily rose from the table. Her legs felt like jelly, but she forced a calm tone.
I thought youd support me.
We thought wed raised a sensible daughter, her mother said, turning to the window. Guess we were wrong.
She left the flat without looking back. In the lift she texted Ian: Pick me up. He arrived twenty minutes later, wrapped her in an armful hug, pressed his nose to the top of her head, and for a moment all the mess seemed to vanish.
Friends the couples who used to share barbecues and New Years gettogethers drifted away one by one. Katie wrote, Sorry, Emily, I cant. Victor is like a brother to me, you know. Olivia simply stopped replying. Maya sent a long tirade about betrayal and selfishness, after which Emily stared at the screen for five minutes, clueless about how to respond, then deleted the entire fiveyear chat history and swore off crying.
For three weeks a hollow settled around her. Ian took her to meet his mates young lads glued to streams, TikToks, and some new music video. Emily sat among them, smiling and nodding, while a sharp, almost physical loneliness gnawed at her. She didnt get half the jokes, didnt know the names they tossed around, and realised the only person she could actually talk to was Ian himself. But Ian was busy with his friends, leaving her alone in a noisy room.
This will pass, she told herself. Well build something new. Something fresh.
Fancy a getaway? Ian said that night, fingers twirling through her hair as they lay side by side. Another city. A fresh start, no exes, no meddling parents. Clean slate.
Emily propped herself on her elbow, studying his face in the dim light.
Seriously?
Absolutely. Ive got contacts in Manchester; the photography markets buzzing there. You could open a new studio, bigger, better.
The word studio hit her right between the ribs. Her own studio eight years of work, a client base, a team shed trained from scratch. Walk away?
But Ians eyes sparkled with a certainty and excitement that made her nod. Yes. Start over. Prove to everyone this wasnt a midlife crisis or a whim, but a genuine feeling worth the gamble.
She sold her studio within three weeks, for far less than it was worth because the buyer sniffed urgency and squeezed a massive discount. Emily signed the papers with a trembling hand, saw the transfer hit her bank account, and felt oddly like shed handed a piece of herself to some beigesuitclad aunt.
Thats it, she told Ian that evening. Were free.
He lifted her onto his shoulders, spun her around the room, and Emily burst out laughing a real, ringing laugh she hadnt heard from herself in years. The money from the sale seemed huge enough for any plan. First they rented a flat near the city centre, with high ceilings and massive windows. Their nest. Their home.
The first weeks in the new city felt like a honeymoon. Breakfasts in bed, endless chats about everything and nothing. Ian photographed her on the balcony, in the kitchen, in the bathroom with wet hair each shot a love letter.
Then things began to shift.
At first, subtly. Ian started staying later on shoots. Hed come home exhausted, eat in silence, glued to his phone. Lots of work, hed say. Gotta grind while the gigs last. Emily nodded, understanding, refusing to become the nagging partner.
When she tried to hug him at night, hed pull away. When she brought up the studio, plans, hed answer with monosyllables: Later, Well sort it, Not now. Each not now scratched at her deeper.
She started looking for a job more to fill her head than out of desperation. But at thirtyfour, finding anything wasnt a stroll in the park.
Money thinned. The rent ate a large chunk each month. Ians earnings were erratic, and when Emily gently suggested splitting the bills, he shrugged, Im already contributing. Cant you see?
She saw it the way Ians gaze drifted, the way he checked his phone before leaving the room, the way he slipped out for some fresh air and returned after midnight smelling of another womans perfume. Or maybe she was just imagining it.
We need to talk, Emily said one night when Ian trudged back at three a.m.
About what?
About us. I dont get whats happening. Youre a different person. I barely see you, we barely talk, we
Youre smothering me, Ian snapped, tossing his jacket onto the chair. I told you I need space. Everythings moving too fast. I never asked you to wreck your life.
She froze.
You didnt ask?
You decided yourself. I didnt force you to divorce, didnt force you to sell anything. That was your choice. We moved here when you were already free.
Ian was right. Technically, right. It was her decision, her fire, the blaze that made her abandon everything she owned.
From that night Emily spiralled. She checked his phone while he slept, scrolling through messages, obsessing over every like on his photos, spotting subscriptions to female models and fledgling photographers, each name a knife. She sent him twenty texts a day, asking where he was, who he was with, when hed be back. She staged jealous scenes and then despised herself for it, because she saw a version of a woman she never wanted to become.
Youre ill, Ian said after another blowup. You need a therapist, not a relationship.
He might have been right.
Ian started disappearing more often. Shooting out of town, Staying with a mate, Dont wait up. And Emily waited sitting in the dark, watching the door, feeling something inside her dry up into dust.
One Tuesday evening, after her fifth cup of coffee, her phone pinged.
Emily, I cant do this any longer. Im sorry. Its gone too far. I never wanted to ruin your life. I cant take responsibility. Please dont look for me. Leave me alone.
She read it three times, then again, and once more.
The phone slipped from her hand, and she tumbled off the stool onto the cold floor.
She spent the next day in a hollowedout flat, lying on the floor, then the sofa, then back on the floor the chill was a distraction from the turmoil inside. She cried, loudly, messily, with sniffs and snot. When the tears finally ran dry, only a burntout emptiness remained.
No husband. No business. No friends. No parents. No lover. No cash a quick glance at her account showed enough for, at best, two months. At thirtyfour, the only thing left was a rented flat with lofty ceilings she could no longer afford.
Three days later she forced herself to call Victor not to beg him back, just to apologise, to own her part. Subscriber unavailable. Hed blocked her.
She wrote a long, frantic message to her mother, spilling the truth: that shed messed up, that she was hurting, that she needed help. Her mother replied after two hours:
We warned you. Figure out the aftermath yourself. Dad asked me to say hes not ready to talk.
Emily set the phone down and laughed a small, cracked laugh. That was it. The full package.
A week later she moved into a twelvesquaremetre room in a communal house on the citys edge. A stout, sixtysomething neighbour glanced at her and muttered, Youll get over it, love.
She soon found work as a nail technician in a cramped basement salon on the next street. The pay was pennies, but pride mattered now.
In the evenings Emily stared at her hands the same hands that once ran a business, signed contracts, thumbed through Italian cosmetics catalogues now spent all day filing other peoples nails for a pittance. Months of madness passed, and everything shed built over a decade vanished. And she, she realised, was the one whod torn it down.
