Document.

Divorce.

I look at the document in front of me. A single signature that would change my life forever… that would take away the one thing in my life I thought was permanent, the one thing I thought was true. He sat across from me at the table. The table where we had made so many memories. Some romantic, some mundane, yet every single one I thought impossible to wrench from the depths of my heart. Yet here he was, wrenching each and every moment that had happened from the depths of my heart. I watched them spill out onto the dark oak and hoped my face did not show my pain. He had taken damn near everything from me, but I wanted to hold on to my final shred of pride.

I would miss the big things, sure. The wedding, the honeymoon, the holidays, the nights of passion… but I would miss the small things more. The lazy smile as I wipe the sleep from his eyes in the morning as he sips at his coffee. The gentle kiss on my forehead as he passes me while taking his empty cup to the sink. The soft squeeze of the hug he gives before I leave for work. The feel of his breath on my neck as he curls up to me at night, and the warmth of his feet under the sheets as he moves them next to mine.

There was no infidelity. Not on my part or his and, as strange as it sounds, it feels worse because there wasn’t. My pain is unable to be guided towards anything, it is a ship lost on a midnight sea. It cannot find direction in this darkness, because deep down I know he has done nothing wrong. He simply grew tired of me, grew tired of my love. I simply was not enough. This feeling buzzes around my brain like a swarm of disorientated bees. Eventually, I know that it will turn inwards, that the sting of blame will fall on me, because where else can it go? It is me who has failed, not him. If he had strayed, the pain would have felt like a knife in my gut rather than this strange dull ache, but it would have at least been his fault. I would have at least had anger to channel my pain into. I would have at least been able to blame someone other than myself. I know that sounds pathetic, but that’s how I feel. I struggle with the fact that he hasn’t found someone better. That I am not a seven who failed to compete with a ten. I am a zero. He would rather have nothing than have me.

He continues to talk, though I’m no longer listening. My mind has drifted far beyond this room, far beyond this moment, back through time to the death of my great grandfather. I never met him and I never met my great grandmother, but I had heard the story of how they fell in love, and how that love had ended. How she had fallen pregnant just before he had gone off to war. How he had died overseas, dying as a hero fighting who fought for his country. Why couldn’t my husband… my ­ex-husband, have done the same? Why couldn’t he have died while I was still able to cling to the myth of his unquestionable love? I try to shake this thought from my head, understanding the darkness within me that it represents. But I can’t deny it. I would rather he had died before he stopped loving me. I hate myself for thinking it, for feeling it deep with my bones, but I do.

I am not an old woman, but neither am I young. Will I ever love again? And, if I do, will it be in time for me to still have children? I want a child, just not yet. That’s what he said to me, so I waited. Though I was eager for a family, I wanted a family with him. I wanted to build a family with him. I thought we were building a home for that exact purpose, but now that home is nothing but ruins. Like the bomb that dropped on the building that killed my great grandfather, the document in front of me has blown everything to rubble. My chances for a family have crumbled into tiny pieces. I could adopt, I could go down the path of IVF, but would that be fair? What I had to offer wasn’t enough to keep the man I thought would love me forever. So, if my love isn’t enough for him, what could I possibly offer a child?

In a few years’ time I will begin to heal. Slowly, my heart will repair. But three years is a long time, and right now it feels as if this empty feeling will last forever.

I could refuse to sign; I could try to hold on to my marriage for a little longer. Yet, all that will do is cause pain and resentment for the both of us. All that will do is delay the inevitable. He is leaving me, and I cannot change that. He says he wants to remain friends, and while I think that’s nice, it’s not something I’m keen to do. If we are to separate, it must be completely. I cannot have the ghost of our love haunt me while I struggle to accept him as anything other than my husband. I tell him this. I’m unsure if he’s relieved or disappointed. But he nods and says he understands.

I hesitate for a few seconds, savouring the last moments of the one thing in my life I thought was permanent, the one thing that I thought was true.

Then, I pick up the pen.