Chapter 1 - The Wish
“I wish you weren’t my wife.”
Nathan Carter said it on our fifth wedding anniversary while a candle burned between us and the unopened gift I had bought him sat beside my purse.
Then his phone lit up.
Victoria.
One name.
That was all it took for me to understand that my marriage had not died that night.
It had been dead for months.
I was simply the last person Nathan had bothered to tell.
For three weeks, I had planned that dinner at a small restaurant near the Charleston waterfront. I requested the same corner table where Nathan and I had eaten on our first real date, back when he had been a struggling property developer with one employee, two unpaid invoices, and an almost ridiculous amount of confidence.
That night, five years earlier, he had ordered sparkling water instead of bourbon.
“Why?” I had asked.
“Because I want to remember everything you say tonight.”
At the time, I had laughed.
I thought it was the most romantic thing a man had ever told me.
Five years later, I wore the blue dress he once claimed made him forget what he was saying.
He barely looked up when I arrived.
“You look nice,” he said.
Nice.
Not beautiful.
Not stunning.
Not even, “Happy anniversary.”
Just nice.
I told myself not to count the small things.
That had become my specialty during the last year of our marriage.
Nathan working later?
Business was growing.
Nathan taking phone calls behind a closed office door?
Client confidentiality.
Nathan turning away when I reached for him in bed?
Stress.
Nathan forgetting the photography exhibition I wanted to attend?
He had a major closing that week.
I could explain everything because I had spent years becoming very good at explaining away my own loneliness.
Dinner arrived.
Nathan checked his phone twice.
By the third time, something inside me finally stopped cooperating.
“Nathan.”
He looked up.
“Are we okay?”
His expression changed.
Not surprise.
Annoyance.
Like I had finally opened a drawer he had been hoping would stay closed.
“Clara…”
“I’m serious. I feel like I’ve been married alone for a year.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Am I?”
He leaned back.
The candlelight cut across his face, and for one strange second I saw the man I had married.
Then he disappeared again.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“The truth would be a good start.”
He stared at the table.
And then came the sentence that would divide my life into before and after.
“I wish you weren’t my wife.”
The restaurant kept moving around us.
A woman laughed near the bar.
A waiter carried a birthday cake past our table.
Someone dropped a fork.
Ordinary sounds.
That was the cruelest part.
My world had just split open, and everyone else was still eating dinner.
“What did you say?”
Nathan exhaled.
“I said I wish you weren’t my wife.”
“You’re saying this tonight?”
“I’ve been unhappy for a long time.”
“You have been unhappy,” I said. “I have been trying.”
“We’re not the same people anymore.”
“No. Apparently we’re not.”
His phone lit up.
Neither of us meant to look.
We both did.
Victoria Lane.
I watched Nathan turn the phone facedown.
My voice became strangely calm.
“Who is Victoria?”
“Clara—”
“How long?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“Men only say that when it is exactly what women think.”
His jaw tightened.
I waited.
Finally he rubbed the back of his neck.
Eight months.
That was his answer.
Eight months.
I immediately thought about January.
Savannah.
The weekend I had arranged because I thought our marriage needed oxygen.
We had walked along the river. Nathan had bought me a secondhand photography book from a little shop. One rainy morning, he made coffee and carried it to me in bed.
I had believed that weekend meant we were finding each other again.
He had already been sleeping with Victoria.
The birthday dinner two months later.
The kiss against my forehead.
The late-night movie on our couch.
All those memories suddenly changed shape.
“How long have you wanted to leave me?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But long enough to cheat.”
He looked down.
I picked up my purse.
May you like
“Where are you going?”
(I know you're all very curious about the next part, so if you want to read more, please leave a "GRIPPING" comment below!) 👇
