Page 85 of Devotion
There was nothing. Just terms. Just signatures. Just a clean, professional exit from a marriage that was never supposed to be real.
I put the papers down. Pressed my hands against my chest and tried to breathe through the feeling that was crushing my ribcage from the inside. I thought about Anna’s voice on the phone, weeks ago, a lifetime ago.Don’t fall in love with him. That’s not part of the deal.
I’d fallen anyway. I’d fallen so far and so completely that standing in his study looking at divorce papers felt like standing at the edge of a cliff I’d already gone over.
I walked back to the bedroom. Got into bed. Pulled the covers up. Pressed my face into his pillow because even now, even with photos on my phone and papers on his desk, I still wanted to be close to him. That was the cruelest part. The wanting didn’t stop just because the evidence said it should.
He came home near midnight. I heard the front door. His footsteps on the stairs. The bedroom door opening. He moved through the room in the dark, quiet, careful, the way he always moved when he thought I was asleep.
I kept my eyes closed. Kept my breathing even. Played the role of a sleeping woman the way Christopher played every role, with total commitment and a heart that was screaming underneath.
He sat on the edge of the bed. I felt the mattress dip under his weight. His hand found my hair. He brushed it back from my face, gentle, like you touch something you’re afraid of breaking. Then he leaned down and kissed my forehead. His lips were warm and the kiss was slow and it lasted longer than it needed to. I felt every second of it in every part of my body.
He pulled back. Then he touched my nose. Ran his finger down the bridge of it, a small, playful gesture, the kind of silly,intimate thing that only happens between people who care for each other. He did it again.
“Goodnight, beautiful,” he said quietly.
He got up. I heard him change. The rustle of clothes. The bathroom door. Water running. Then he came back and slid into bed beside me and his arm went around my waist and he pulled me against his chest the way he always did, his face in my hair, his body warm and solid behind mine.
He fell asleep within minutes. His breathing evened out. His arm stayed around me.
I lay there in the dark with his arm around my waist, his breath against my hair, and tears running sideways across my face into his pillow. I didn’t make a sound. I pressed my lips together, breathed through my nose, and let the tears fall silently because I didn’t want to wake him. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I didn’t want to have the conversation that would come if he opened his eyes and found me crying in his arms.
Seraphina. The divorce papers. The photos. The way he kissed my forehead like I mattered while the paperwork to end us sat in the next room.
I lay there until his breathing was deep and steady.
I barely slept. When I did, it was the thin, restless kind where your body shuts down but your brain keeps running and you wake up more exhausted than when you closed your eyes. Every time Christopher shifted in his sleep, pulled me closer, pressed his face into my hair, I felt it like a blade. The tenderness. He held me with casual intimacy, as though I were the most important thing in his world. While the papers to let me go sat thirty feet away in his study.
Morning came. His alarm went off at six-thirty. He groaned, reached over me to silence it, and his arm settled back around my waist.
“Five more minutes,” he murmured against my shoulder. His voice was rough with sleep and warm. It took everything I had not to turn around, bury my face in his chest, and pretend I hadn’t seen anything.
I kept my eyes closed. Played sleeping. He pressed his lips against my shoulder. Then the back of my neck. Then he propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at me. I could feel his eyes on my face even with mine closed.
“You’re beautiful when you sleep,” he said quietly, to himself.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to turn over and ask him why he was saying that when the divorce papers were already printed. Instead I lay still and breathed and let him believe I was asleep.
He got up. Showered. Dressed.
He kissed me on the lips, slow and gentle. It was a kiss you give someone you love when you’re leaving for the day, wanting the last thing they feel before you go to be warmth.
“I’ll be home early tonight,” he said. “I have something I want to talk to you about.”
My heart stopped. Something he wanted to talk about. The papers. The divorce. The end of us, presented the way Christopher presented everything, calmly, strategically, with a plan already in place.
I heard him leave. The front door closing. The car pulling out.
I opened my eyes. Stared at the ceiling. My face was wet.
Finally, I got up and called Eleanor.
“Good morning, my beautiful girl,” she wished from the other side.
“I’m not feeling well today.” My voice sounded strange, thin and far away. “I’m going to take the day off if that’s okay.”
“Of course. Rest. Is it a cold? I have a recipe for a ginger broth that could kill any virus known to science.”
