Ethan
I woke up with the uneasy feeling of having slept in a bed that wasn't mine.
The mattress was firm, the sheets too clean, lacking the familiar scent Clara had left in our room for years. I blinked, confused, staring at the white ceiling of the guest room. For a moment, I thought I'd drunk too much at the event, that maybe I'd decided to sleep here so as not to wake her when I got home late.
Then the memories returned, slowly, like fragments of a badly edited film.
The suitcases, her firm voice. The word I never thought I'd hear from her lips.
Divorce…
I sat up abruptly, running a hand through my hair. My head felt heavy, but not from the alcohol or the stress of yesterday, but from disbelief. Clara never made a scene. Clara never complained. Clara never asked for anything.
An
