Zzgirl

When the Contract Expires

Three years of a contract marriage, and I told myself I never fell for him.

Then came the night I packed my bags — and realized my clothes only took up one small corner of the closet, yet I could recite every dish he loved better than my own birthday.

Ethan Thorne. The youngest self-made legend on Wall Street. Our marriage was written into a contract — three years, then a clean break.

Three years are up.

I found out he was back in Manhattan through a financial news alert. I cancelled every plan I had, spent an entire afternoon in the kitchen cooking everything he liked — and what I got in return was a photo my best friend sent from across town. Ethan, sitting in the middle of a crowd, laughing like he owned the room, a woman with long hair settled across his lap, his hand resting on her waist.

I told myself I could walk away without looking back.

Then he pushed open the bedroom door — and every resolution I had started to crack. Not because I still loved him. But because his first words weren't an apology, weren't an explanation —

"Clara, don't forget what you are to me."

I hated how certain he sounded when he said it. Hated that he knew every inch of how my body responded to him. Hated that the next morning he walked out and slammed the door without once turning around.

What I hated most was what I heard afterward: that when his family was choosing a candidate, there were plenty of names on that list — and Ethan was the one who asked for mine.

He never explained himself. Never tried to keep me. Yet the moment the word divorce left my mouth, something shifted in his face — dark, and heavy, like the air before a storm —

"If there's a divorce, it happens when I decide to let you go. No one else gets to call that."

Ethan, what is it that you actually want?

The contract is up. All I want is out.

But some people — you think they're just a signature on a page.

Turns out they're the thing you can't walk away from for the rest of your life.