Chapter 5
Five Years Of Marriage And I Was A Name He’d Never Mentioned Chapter 05
Five Years Of Marriage And I Was A Name He’d Never Mentioned Chapter 05
The coffee shop was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Brandon opened his mouth. His face went pale inch by inch.
Ivy looked at me first, then at him. Her voice was barely audible. “Do you… know each other?”
I didn’t look at her. I just took off my wedding ring and set it gently on the table.
“Yes.”
“I’m his wife of five years.”
That one sentence landed. Ivy’s spoon clattered into her cup.
She stared at Brandon, the color draining from her eyes.
“You’re married?”
Brandon’s throat moved. He tried to explain. “Ivy, I—”
“You lied to me?”
Ivy stood up, her voice shaking. “You said you lived alone. You said you’d never been married. You said you liked me and wanted a real relationship.”
“Brandon, which part of you is even real?”
I finally looked up at his ranking. Number one: Ivy Simmons. Number two: Mom. Number three: Lauren Cole.
How ridiculous.
The night I asked him who Ivy was, I was already number three.
And I’d still been at home, warming his milk, waiting for him to come back.
Brandon stepped forward, panic on his face like I’d never seen before.
“Lauren, let me explain.”
“Explain what?”
I smiled softly.
“Explain how you gave away the pen I gave you?”
“Or explain how you took her to the waterfront where we used to walk, ordered the caramel lattes I don’t even drink, and lived every kind of day I once wanted to live with you?”
He froze.
His face was terrifyingly white.
I looked at him, and something slowly carved open my chest.
“Brandon.”
“You didn’t suddenly stop loving me. You stopped wanting to love me a long time ago. You were just waiting for someone fresher than me to show up.”
“Now she’s here, and you’ve been handing her every bit of tenderness that should have been mine.”
His eyes turned red. His voice cracked. “That’s not true.”
“I just…”
“Just what?” I stared at him. “You just wanted to be that person again – the one who still feels things, still puts in effort, still knows how to be soft – but with someone else?”
“But why?”
“Why do I get the worst version of you, and she gets the best?”
Ivy finally understood everything.
Her eyes were red. She grabbed her phone off the table and headed for the door.
Brandon instinctively moved to follow her, but then he saw me.
And stopped.
In that moment, I saw something almost laughable in his hesitation.
He couldn’t even decide who to chase.
Ivy reached the door and turned back.
She looked at me, shame and misery in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I said quietly, “I’m not the one you owe an apology to.”
The door swung open.
Ivy left.
Brandon stood there, his face ashen, like he’d lost his soul.
I picked up my ring and walked out.
This time, he finally came after me.
“Lauren!”
The second his hand closed around my wrist, I jerked away on pure instinct.
Brandon flinched like he’d been burned.
Pain filled his eyes. His voice trembled. “I know I messed up.”
“I really know.”
“Come home with me, okay?”
I looked at him and felt nothing but exhaustion.
“Brandon Cole.”
“Not every mistake deserves a ‘come home.'”
“I want a divorce.”
When those three words left my mouth, the ranking above his head shook
violently.
“Lauren Cole” at number three started to rise—slowly, little by little.
But I didn’t feel a single wave of anything anymore.
Too late.
