My Ex-Husband Will Regret

“Are you, wife, useful for anything if you can’t even cook breakfast?”

My phone buzzed against the steering wheel before I've even parked with Pol's name flashing on the screen, and I already knew how this call was going to go. But I still answered.

"Pol," I say, tired, tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear as I grab my bag from the passenger seat.

"Where's food, Mary?" His voice is flat, already annoyed, like I've committed some crime just by not being home.

"I'm literally walking into work right now," I say, checking my watch. Six fifty-eight. Two minutes to spare. "I told you I had an early meeting."

"You said that yesterday too." He sighs, long and dramatic, the kind of sigh that's supposed to make me feel guilty. "I can't keep eating cereal for breakfast, Mary. It's pathetic."

"Then make something yourself," I snap, immediately regretting the sharpness in my tone. "I work sixty hours a week, Pol. You work thirty-two."

"Don't start with the math again," he mutters, and I can practically hear him rolling his eyes through the phone. “You’re the woman of the house. You’re supposed to cook and clean.”

"I'm not starting anything, I'm just saying that maybe, for once, you could figure out food without me," I say, my voice rising as I weave between parked cars.

"It's not that hard to boil pasta, Pol, I promise—"

"So now I'm lazy? Is that what you're saying?" His tone sharpens, defensive already, like I've attacked him instead of just answering his question.

"I didn't say that," I mutter, rubbing my temple with my free hand. My phone buzzes again, a second call cutting through. It's my manager, Diane. "I have to go, my boss is calling."

"Of course she is," he says, and hangs up before I can respond.

I swipe over to Diane's call, already bracing myself. "Hi, I'm just parking, I'll be up in—"

"You're late," she cuts in, clipped and cold. "Meeting started three minutes ago. Move."

I don't even get a chance to argue. The line goes dead in my ear, and I'm sprinting across the parking lot in heels that were not made for sprinting, my bag slapping against my hip with every step, my breath coming out in short, panicked bursts.

The conference room doors are already closed when I get there, and every head turns when I push them open. Fifteen faces, all lawyers, all senior to me, all watching me stumble in eight minutes late with my hair falling out of its clip.

"Nice of you to join us, Mary." Richard, my department lead, doesn't even look up from his tablet. "Take a seat. If you can find the time."

A few people chuckle, and someone in the back mutters something I don't quite catch, though I can guess the gist of it. I feel my face go hot as I slide into the nearest empty chair, murmuring an apology nobody wants to hear.

"As I was saying," Richard continues, his voice dripping with irritation, "before we were so rudely interrupted, we need the Hensley files finalized by end of day. No excuses this time."

I nod, pulling out my notepad, my hands still shaking from the run.

The meeting drags on for another forty minutes, Richard occasionally shooting me looks like I'm something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

When it finally ends, he asks me to stay behind, and my stomach drops the second the door clicks shut behind the last person leaving.

"This isn't working, Mary," he says, not bothering to sit down, arms crossed over his chest like he's already rehearsed this speech in his head.

"I know I was late today, but I've been here every single weekend for the past month," I say quickly, the words tumbling out before I can stop them.

"It's not just today." He shakes his head, unimpressed. "It's the missed deadlines, the sloppy filing, the attitude. We're letting you go."

The words don't land right away. "Wait, what? You're firing me?"

"Effective immediately." He's already turning toward the door, like this conversation is beneath him, like I'm just one more item crossed off his list for the day.

"Richard, please, I need this job," I say, my voice cracking despite myself, tears burning at the edges of my eyes. "I have bills, rent, I have a whole life that depends on this paycheck—"

"Should've thought about that before you decided punctuality was optional." He doesn't even look back at me as he walks out, leaving me standing alone in the empty conference room.

I pack my desk in under ten minutes, stuffing a picture frame and a chipped coffee mug into a cardboard box while my coworkers pretend not to watch, their eyes flicking toward their screens the moment I glance up.

Nobody says goodbye. Nobody even looks up from their desks.

The drive home is a blur of red taillights and my own thoughts crashing into each other, one after another, relentless. I grip the steering wheel and let myself finally cry, ugly and loud, the kind of crying I've been swallowing for months.

I think about Pol, about how I used to believe love was supposed to feel like something other than exhaustion.

I think about the years I've spent trying to be enough — enough of a wife, enough of an employee, enough of a person — and how none of it seems to matter anymore, no matter how hard I try.

I picture walking into our apartment now, jobless, and still having to cook dinner because Pol will ask the second I walk through the door, like nothing has changed, like my entire world hasn't just collapsed.

I picture scrubbing dishes with tears still drying on my face while he watches television and complains that I used too much salt, oblivious to the fact that I have nothing left to give him tonight.

By the time I pull into our complex, my hands have stopped shaking, replaced by something heavier, something hollow that settles deep in my chest.

I climb the stairs slowly, key already in my palm, rehearsing what I'll say when he asks about dinner, how I'll even begin to explain that I don't have an answer for him anymore.

I push the door open, ready to tell him I got fired, ready to fall apart in front of the one person who's supposed to catch me when everything else falls apart.

Instead, I freeze in the doorway.

Pol is standing in our kitchen, one hand tangled in a woman's hair, his mouth pressed against hers like he's done this a hundred times before.

She's got her back against our counter, the same counter where I make his coffee every morning, and neither of them notices me standing there, my box of desk junk still cradled against my chest, my whole life quietly ending in the doorway of my own home.

He’s cheating.

The woman scrambles back from Pol so fast she knocks a glass off the counter, and it shatters against the tile.

I don't move.

I can't.

My box of desk junk is still pressed against my chest like a shield, like it could somehow protect me from what I'm seeing.

"Mary—" Pol starts, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like that erases anything.

"Get out," I say, my voice barely above a whisper, aimed at the woman still frozen by the sink.

She grabs her purse and slips past me without a word, her eyes down, and I hear the door click shut behind her.

Then it's just me and Pol, standing in the wreckage of broken glass and everything I thought I knew.

"How long," I say, setting the box down on the counter because my arms are shaking too hard to hold it.

"It's not what you think," he says, running a hand through his hair, already sounding defensive instead of sorry.

"I just watched you kiss another woman in our kitchen, Po