Chapter 3

The next morning, I went to the city hall to file some paperwork for my name change, to go back to my maiden name. As I stood in line, the door opened and Ethan walked in, with Sophia clinging to his arm. My heart gave a small, stupid jump, but I forced it to be still.

"Chloe!" Ethan sounded surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Sophia looked me up and down, a smug smile on her face. "Don't tell me you're here because of that little scene yesterday. You're not trying to cause trouble, are you?"

"I'm just handling some personal matters," I said, my voice even.

Ethan seemed to misunderstand. He thought I was talking about our home. "Good. Go home and rest. We'll talk later." He patted my shoulder condescendingly.

I looked at him, then at Sophia. The irony was thick. The idea of that cold house being my "home" was a joke. My real home was a world away, with parents who actually loved me. I just had to wait for the 30-day buffer to end.

"Sophia and I are here to get our marriage license," Ethan announced, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. He looked down at her with a fondness that made my stomach turn. "She's been so worried about her visa status, so we're just making it official. You understand, right, Chloe? It's just a formality."

A formality. My marriage to him was about to be officially replaced, and he called it a formality. He adjusted the scarf around Sophia's neck, his movements gentle and careful. "You shouldn't have come out in this cold, you'll get sick."

A painful memory surfaced. Last winter, I had a terrible flu. I asked him if he could get me some medicine on his way home from work. He forgot. When he finally got home late that night, he just said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I was busy." I had to drag myself out of bed and go to the 24-hour pharmacy myself, shivering in the freezing cold.

He had never once worried about me getting sick. He had never adjusted my scarf or looked at me with that kind of detailed care.

That was the difference between love and not love. It wasn't in the grand gestures. It was in the small, unconscious acts of concern. And he had never had any for me.

Sophia seemed to sense my thoughts. When Ethan stepped away to talk to a clerk, she leaned in close to me, her voice a poisonous whisper.

"He never loved you, you know. Every time he touched you, he was thinking of me. Every gift he gave you was something I once said I liked. You're just my shadow, Chloe. A cheap copy."

I looked at her, at her perfectly made-up face, and for the first time, I didn't feel the sting of her words. I just felt a distant pity for her.

"I see," I said, my voice calm.

My calmness seemed to unsettle her. She expected a reaction, a fight.

"I'm divorcing him," I added quietly.

A flicker of something-was it panic?-crossed her face, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a twisted smile. "You think it's that easy? You think you can just walk away? I'll make you regret ever meeting him."

Her threat hung in the air, but I was no longer afraid. There was nothing left for her to take from me.