257. DIVORCE AGREEMENT

257. DIVORCE AGREEMENT
I can barely breathe as I pull it out, holding it by the edges carefully, as if it’s too fragile, too dangerous—something with the power to destroy me. Because it does.
Funny, isn’t it? Once, these letters haunted me, and I tried to run from them. But now, I’m the one bringing them back into the light, tired of living under their shadows.
My eyes sting with tears I fight to hold back, and I struggle to see Christopher’s expression through them. He’s pale. His face tightens in that painful mix of grief, fear, and a sorrow too deep for words. He shakes his head slowly, silently pleading for me not to do this.
But I have to.
Because I had promised to let him go.
I step closer, my eyes lowered, focused on those two simple words. DIVORCE AGREEMENT. My fingers tremble, crumpling the edges of the paper as if they can’t bear to hand it over, like they’re desperate to hold onto what we still have.
“Marshall gave me this after that night in Kensington.” I lift my gaze, watching anger darken his eyes. “From the start, my plan was to stay with you for six months, have Henry, and quietly leave when you asked me for a divorce. But you’re not going to do that.”
He lets out a wet, broken laugh, but it’s not an amused one. It’s rough, strained, raw. He shakes his head more quickly, glancing down at the floor, then at the couch where he’d sat on our honeymoon, and finally back to my eyes. But not to what’s in my hands. Not to the divorce papers—the same ones he once asked me to sign a lifetime ago.
“Now I get it...” he says, swallowing hard and running a hand over his face again. “Now I understand how you felt that time. You bled on that floor, too. But I doubt it hurt even a fraction as much as it did inside. Because, God, Charlotte, I swear it feels like I’m being torn apart.”
He steps closer. One, two steps, until he’s standing right in front of me, eyes red, breathing heavy, hands shaking. He raises one hand slowly and closes my fingers around the paper, covering mine.
“You’re leaving me?” Christopher’s voice barely escapes—hoarse, just a breath.
I swallow the sob threatening to escape and take a deep breath. Christopher’s hand trembles over mine, hot and sweaty, and his eyes plead openly, so full of emotion that the brown almost looks lighter.
“You’re leaving me, love?”
I touch his face, and even with the gentlest contact, he flinches. A single heavy tear drops from his eye, leaving no trail for me to wipe away. My chest tightens even more, my heart stumbles, and my lungs struggle to find air.
“Only if you want me to,” I whisper, meeting his eyes. “Do you want that? Do you want the divorce this time, Christopher?”
“Hell, no.” He chokes out, his other hand covering mine on his face. “You don’t need to let me go, because I’m not going anywhere. And you sure as hell aren’t, either.”
Christopher squeezes his eyes shut, and for a moment, our entire life probably flashes through his mind. He presses another kiss to my forehead, firmer this time—almost painful—crushing his lips against my skin like a vow.
Then he pulls back, just enough to look at me.
“Because when I put a fucking bullet in my head, Charlotte, I swore to myself that if I ever found you again in another life, I would never let you go.”
“Christopher…” I whisper, but my voice breaks too, shaky, heavy, carrying everything I feel. Everything I ever felt.
“We weren’t supposed to be here,” he goes on, his voice thicker. “I wasn’t supposed to get another chance. But I swore, Charlotte. I swore that if the universe gave me a second life, I wouldn’t waste it. That I would find you and love you right.”
My hand, still clutching the paper, tightens. The edge cuts my finger, a faint sting reminding me that I’m still alive. That he is, too.
“Then go ahead, try.” He takes the divorce papers with both hands, slowly pulling them from mine. “Try to run, Charlotte. But try with everything you’ve got. Do your best. Run as far from me as you can—hide in some small town or even another country. But know this: no matter where you go, no matter if it takes the rest of my days searching, I will. I’ll find you again. And again. In this life, or the next ones. Because I love you, and I don’t know how to live without you anymore.”
Christopher finally looks down at the papers, his hands no longer shaking. In fact, they are steady, firm, with an unwavering resolve. He means every word. Each one comes from his soul. It’s a promise.
“You don’t have to find me,” I whisper, drawing his eyes back to mine, still wet, but softening when they meet my gaze. “You don’t have to look for me… because I don’t want to go anywhere.”
He exhales sharply, finally letting go of the breath he’s been holding, then looks down at the paper that’s starting to tear between his fingers. He rips it in half, and then again, until the pieces are so small that not a single line can be read, until there’s no trace left of the last ghost that could haunt us.
When he opens his hands, letting the scraps fall to the floor at our feet, Christopher pulls me into his arms tightly. He holds me as if he’s trying to merge with me, his head buried in the curve of my neck, one hand cradling my head while the other rests across my shoulder blades.
I feel his quick breath against my skin, the heat of his chest pressed to mine, and I realize how hard he’s fighting not to fall apart completely. But I’m holding on too, clinging to him like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s been collapsing beneath me for so long.
“Do you forgive me?” he whispers, muffled against my neck and hair in a prayer—in a plea. “For everything.”
I nod, “I forgive you.” The words come effortlessly, and they’re the truest I’ve ever spoken. “But only because you forgave me, too.”
Christopher leans back just enough to meet my eyes, his hands still resting on my back. His gaze is lighter now, clear, like a cloudless sky.
“Then let’s start over,” he says simply, sliding one hand down to my belly where Henry is growing healthy and strong. “No ghosts. No lies. No walls or locked doors.”
I nod, cupping his face in both hands, wiping away the damp traces that somehow stained his beautiful face as he melted into me.
“Yes, let’s start over… You, Henry, and me.”