Chapter 4 Big Nicole (part two)

I dragged a hand over my face, exhaling deeply as I forced my thoughts into the truth. He said the marriage wasn’t working, he said dragging it will not change anything, fine. 

Then I wouldn’t drag anything, I would not beg him or chase after him again. Besides I had done that for so long that it only ended in divorce. 

And I definitely wouldn’t break myself trying to hold onto someone who had already walked away. My lips pressed together as I sat back again. The truth was he had not just left tonight, he had been doing it for so long. Another quiet breath left me as I realized I just helped him that night to break the truth to me. 

I glanced at the glass again, then glanced away. closed my eyes briefly, letting the silence settle around me. He thought this was the end of everything, but as I sat alone  in a house that no longer felt like mine, I realized something he clearly hadn’t. This wasn’t my ending. It was the first moment I had finally been left with myself.

I woke up the following morning with a headache that felt like punishment. For a moment, I didn’t move, my eyes stayed closed and my body felt heavy. 

Slowly, I opened my eyes and sat up carefully, wincing as the dull throb in my head sharpened. My gaze dropped to the coffee table, the half-empty bottle and the glass tipped on its side. 

A humorless smile tugged at my lips as I realized last night had not been a dream after all. I swung my legs off the couch slowly, pressing my palms against my knees as I steadied myself. My body felt off, heavy and sluggish but my mind was clearer than it had been in the last four years. 

Every word he said replayed in my mind. This marriage isn’t working. My lawyer will contact you. He had said it like a speech he had rehearsed several times. I inhaled deeply, then pushed myself up.

I walked to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, forcing myself to drink slowly. I set the glass down and looked around. Nothing had changed from what I remembered. 

My gaze lingered on the counter where I used to prep meals he barely touched. On the dining table where I used to wait for him long after the food had gone cold. On the small details I had once convinced myself mattered. 

I turned away, heading up the hallway toward the bedroom. My steps slowed as I reached the door. I hesitated for a second then pushed the door. The room was still the same from when I met them in bed.

The sheets were pulled unevenly to one side, The pillows were disturbed, one pushed slightly off-center, the other dented like it had been used to steady a body that was not as stable as mine. 

The smell of sex and two bodies slapping each other still lingered faintly in the air. My stomach tightened. I stood very still, my fingers curling slowly at my sides as the reality of it settled in layers. He never liked his women thick, not he didn’t. Nyla was his ideal woman. I had seen the way he worshiped her body yesterday, it was in sane. I didn’t know my husband had that level of foreplay in him.

I stepped forward slowly and hovered my hand over the edge of the bed for a moment before I pulled it back. I didn’t want to touch it. Still my eyes lingered on the mess on it, on the betrayal made physical and the absence of even basic respect. 

A bitter laugh threatened to rise, but I swallowed it down before it could form. Instead, I exhaled slowly, steadying myself as I stepped back. This was not our room anymore, it was evidence of a final page of a story I had been too loyal to keep reading.

My gaze shifted away from the bed, moving to the mirror across the room. I caught my reflection briefly, I still looked tired and still shaken, but I was no longer completely broken. I lifted my two hands over my face, my hands couldn’t cover it. It was big, too big to be cupped.

I lifted my blouse and for the first time, the size of my belly irritated me. I tried lifting it up to see my lower body but it refused to cooperate. The sight was taunting. I left it fall back as I turned from the bed without another glance. How was I this stupid? In what world did I even consider the possibility of someone like Gabriel being faithful or loving toward me? I was a mess, I was truly ‘big Nicole’ as Gabriel and Nyla had called me. 

My eyes burned as I stared at nothing in particular, my throat tightening with something that wasn’t just pain anymore. It was disgust, but it was not at them but myself.

I had built that illusion of him being faithful by myself, piece by piece, ignoring every crack because I wanted it to be real more than I wanted it to be true. The tears weren’t coming anymore. The humiliation was still there, I turned toward the mirror across the room. I didn’t look away this time. My reflection stared back at me, it was messy, tired and real. And for the first time, I didn’t flinch from it. The truth was no longer something I was trying to survive, it was something I was finally ready to use.

My hands dropped slowly to my sides. The words they had used, big Nicole echoed again, but this time they didn’t land the same way. They weren’t defining me, they were revealing their comfort in reducing me. Their ease in dismissing me and wishing I broke. Their belief that I would never hear it clearly enough to leave. 

But they had miscalculated me. I turned away from the mirror and walked to the bed again. This time, I had a purpose. I grabbed the corner of the sheets and pulled them down, stripping away the mess, the scent and the memory. When I finished, the bed looked bare, exactly like me.