My Coldhearted Ex demands a Remarriage
Chapter 8

His eyes, wide with disbelief, met hers.

“Sandra, are you out of your mind?”

Out of her mind? Yes, she was clearly insane to ever fall for him in the first place.

Sandra fumed silently, her heart pounding in her chest.

Suddenly, the sharp buzz of the phone on the table cut through the mounting tension, its vibration bringing a brief respite from their standoff.

Kristopher cast a fleeting glance at the message, shut off the phone with a snap, and strode towards the door, his back rigid with tension.

Her voice, firm and unwavering, chased after him.

“We’re getting a divorce! Make sure you sign those papers before you walk out that door!”

Kristopher paused briefly and said sharply, “I have something to do now.

When I return, do whatever pleases you.” With that, he forcefully shut the door.

Sandra’s eyes followed his unwavering exit, feeling an oppressive weight compressing her chest once again.

She disregarded the sharp sting in her leg and hobbled determinedly toward her tablet.

Fingers trembling, she hastily navigated to Elijah’s Twitter page.

Elijah had just uploaded a new tweet.

The photo showed her lying down with a fever patch adhered to her forehead, still enveloped in Kristopher’s familiar jacket.

The caption read, “Being sick makes me extra clingy.

Wishing I had someone here.

Stay cozy and take care, everyone!”

The simultaneous timing of these two events made it almost impossible for Sandra not to suspect that Kristopher had dashed off to tend to Elijah.

Sandra’s instincts loudly proclaimed that this was no accident; Elijah had deliberately sought to tug at Kristopher’s heartstrings.

It appeared her tactics were effective.

Not even Sandra’s stark threat of divorce could overshadow Elijah’s theatrical display of vulnerability.

Seething with fury, Sandra quaked like a leaf swept into a storm.

She steeled herself against the heartache, forcefully ripping the plastic wrap from her aching leg.

After her lengthy soak, the bath’s lingering moisture had infiltrated her skin, inflaming the wound until it was a vivid, angry red and painfully swollen.

She, too, could be clingy.

Even in the harshest times back in the county, she had shown vulnerability, breaking down into soft sobs within the comforting arms of her grandmother, especially that one time she got burned by the scalding kettle.

But such vulnerability had its time and place, and it wasn’t now.

The stark reality of Kristopher’s exit forced Sandra to confront her need for self-reliance.

Biting down hard on her lip, Sandra cleaned the throbbing wound with a practiced hand before securely wrapping it anew.

She rose with a newfound resolve and yanked a black suitcase from the far end of her expansive walk-in closet—it held all the belongings she’d brought into this house as a hopeful bride.

She grabbed a fresh set of clothes to slip into and left a bank card neatly on the bedside table.

She had transferred every penny she’d earned over the past year onto that card, effectively settling her financial entanglements with Kristopher over the last two years and cutting him out of her life for good.

Dragging the heavy suitcase behind her, she limped painfully out of the opulent villa.

As she passed through the gate, she wrapped her baseball jacket more tightly around her slight figure, her silhouette hauntingly solitary in the enveloping darkness.

The night air of early spring was bitingly cold, devoid of any trace of warmth, a chill that seemed almost faint compared to the ice forming in Sandra’s shattered heart.

She had arrived here with nothing but a suitcase and a heart full of dreams, and now she was leaving, dreams crumbled, utterly alone.

A bitter laugh slipped through her lips.

If only she hadn’t fallen so hard for him, if only she’d proposed an amicable separation at the end of their agreed year, maybe she wouldn’t be wandering now, a lost soul in the shadow of her former self.

Elijah didn’t have to lift a finger, and Sandra had already fallen, utterly broken and beyond redemption.