My Ex-Husband Tried Remarrying Me for Millions

The rain started before I left the apartment, and it never let up.

By nine, I was standing on the courthouse steps in Seattle, my coat already soaked through at the shoulders. King County. Big gray building. Doors that kept swinging open and shut as strangers ducked in from the weather. I wore the blue dress under my coat. The one Dylan once said made me look like spring. I remember picking it out that morning and smoothing the hem in the mirror, like a fool.

I texted him at nine-oh-two. "I'm here. Come whenever."

By ten, I sent another one. "Traffic?"

By eleven, I stopped sending them.

The rain got heavier. It ran off the hood of my coat and into my collar. My hair stuck to my neck. I kept watching the street where his black SUV should have pulled up. Every dark car made my chest jump. Every one of them kept driving.

I stood there rehearsing what I'd say when he got out.

I wouldn't be cold. I wouldn't cry. I'd tell him this was our second chance and I wanted to do it right this time. I'd tell him I forgave him. I'd probably even laugh, because that's what I do when I'm nervous. I'd tell him I loved him.

God. I really was going to tell him that.

At one forty-seven, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I thought it was him. My hand was shaking so much I almost dropped the phone in a puddle. But it wasn't Dylan. It was a name I hadn't seen in months. Someone from the edge of our old circle. The message said, *thought you should see this*.

Underneath was a video.

I tapped it.

A bridal salon. Bright, warm lighting. Fifth Avenue, I could tell from the window in the background. There was a woman on the pedestal in front of the mirrors. Long dark hair. A wedding gown with a train that spilled out like poured cream.

Aliana Cook.

And there was Dylan. On his knees. On the floor. Both hands moving so carefully over the silk of her train, smoothing it out, adjusting a fold. He was looking up at her. Not at the dress. At her face.

I knew that look. I had spent months chasing that look.

I watched it once. Then again. Then a third time, because my brain refused to hold it. The rain hit the phone screen and I kept wiping it with my thumb, like if I cleaned it enough the picture would change.

It didn't.

A second buzz.

A screenshot this time. A group chat. Names blurred at the top except for one. Dylan's message sat in a blue bubble, casual, thrown off between other jokes.

*Leave her on read a few times and she'll fall in line.*

I read it once. I did not read it twice.

I put the phone in my pocket.

I walked to my car.

The rain kept coming. My shoes were ruined. My dress clung to my legs. A man with an umbrella asked me if I was okay and I nodded, because that's what you do. I unlocked the car. I sat down. I put my hands on the wheel. I noticed my knuckles were white. I noticed I wasn't breathing.

I drove to my mother's shop.

Briana kept a small tea place tucked into a corner of Pike Place Market. Warm windows. Mismatched cups. A hand-lettered chalkboard that changed with her moods. The bell over the door rang when I walked in, and every regular there looked up, and then looked away, because my mother has trained them well.

I sat down at the corner table. The one that had been mine since I was seven years old.

I didn't take off my coat. Water pooled around my chair.

My mother didn't say anything. She looked at me once, really looked, the way only she can, and then she turned to her kettle. She poured two cups of chamomile. She carried them over. She set one in front of me. She sat down across from me.

She didn't ask.

She didn't ask if I was okay. She didn't ask what happened. She didn't ask about Dylan. She just sat there with me while the tea cooled and the rain drummed on the window and my dress dripped onto the wooden floor.

After a while she reached across the table and put her warm hand over my cold one. She left it there.

That night, back in my apartment, I opened the video one more time. I watched Dylan's hands on that dress. I watched his face. Then I pressed delete, and I pressed it again to confirm, and then it was gone.

I sat down at my drafting table. I opened my sketchbook. I picked up the pen.

I didn't draw anything.

I just held the pen above the blank page, and I stayed there a long time.

Something inside me got very quiet.

And very, very clear.