Chapter 5

I drove to the apartment complex.

The security guard waved my Porsche through without question. Julian's Audi A8 was parked on basement level B2.

Its license plate ended in 668, our wedding date.

The elevator required a key card. I stood in the lobby and called Julian.

On the seventh try, he finally picked up, his voice laced with suppressed anger. "What's wrong? I'm with a client."

"I'm in the lobby of The Sycamore Residences," I said. "Either you come down, or I'll ask the building management to open the elevator."

A dead silence filled the other end of the line.

Five minutes later, the elevator doors opened.

Julian stood there, wearing dark blue loungewear I'd never seen before, his collar open, revealing fresh hickeys.

Behind him stood a young woman in a silk robe, pinning her bangs with one of my hair clips.

"Audrey?" the girl gasped. "Oh my god, Julian, why didn't you say anything sooner...?"

I recognized her.

Chloe Yang, a marketing management trainee hired last year during campus recruitment.

I had personally put her employee badge on her when she started. She'd told me she envied Julian and my love story.

Now, she wore my wedding ring on her ring finger.

Last year, I mentioned my ring felt a bit loose and needed resizing. Julian had offered to take it to the jeweler.

Later, he said the jeweler suggested a complete redesign, which would take three months.

"Let's talk upstairs," Julian reached out for me.

I shrugged him off, pulling the pair of watches from my bag and throwing them to the ground.

The sound of the watch faces shattering echoed through the lobby, and the security guards looked our way, alerted.

"Happy Birthday, Julian," I said, turning towards the revolving door. "The divorce papers will be in your inbox tomorrow."

Behind me, Chloe cried out, "Audrey, you've misunderstood! We were just discussing a project..."

I pressed my car key, and the Porsche's headlights cut through the dusk like a knife.

In the rearview mirror, Julian stood rooted, only looking down at the mess on the floor.

I knew that posture too well. In our junior year, when I was hospitalized with acute appendicitis.

After signing the surgical consent form, he had stood in the hallway just like that, staring at his sneakers for forty whole minutes.

"Audrey," he'd said then, "what would I do if something happened to you?"

Now, his expression was identical.

Only this time, his "what would I do" no longer included me.