Chapter 4: Eviction Notice
I returned to the condo shortly before six. I still hadn’t shed a single tear.
Instead, I walked into the master closet, pulled down a medium-sized rolling suitcase, unzipped it, and left it sitting empty, like a gaping mouth, directly in the center of the entryway rug.
Twenty minutes later, the deadbolt clicked. Alejandro walked in and nearly tripped over the luggage.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, tossing his briefcase onto the armchair.
“We need to have a conversation,” I said from the sofa.
He rolled his eyes dramatically, letting out a long, aggrieved sigh. “Christ, not this again, Mariana. I am exhausted.”
“I had coffee with Chloe today.”
Alejandro’s spine went rigid. The color vanished from his cheeks. “You went to my office building? Are you completely out of your mind?!”
For seven long years, that specific accusation—that I was losing my mind—had been the magic incantation he used to make me retreat into my shell, doubt my own sanity, and apologize.
Not today.
“She showed me your text history, Alejandro,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “She confessed to an eighteen-month affair. She detailed the fantasy you sold her—that our marriage was dead, that we slept in separate rooms, and that imaginary psychiatrists forbade you from leaving me.”
His jaw clenched. He scrambled desperately to regain the high ground. “Chloe misunderstood the context of me venting about my stress—”
“Did she misunderstand the context when you kissed her in my driveway last night?”
Silence hit the room like a physical blow.
“Did she misunderstand the lease applications for the luxury apartments you were touring together?” I pressed.
Alejandro rubbed his face aggressively. “It was a physical relationship. Yes. It meant nothing.”
“And last night? When you swore to me you were locked in a boardroom with Sergio?”
“We had dinner!” he shouted, his guilt instantly morphing into defensive rage. “I wasn’t going to tell my emotionally unstable wife I was grabbing food with a coworker!”
“Of course not. Lying was the path of least resistance.”
Alejandro threw his hands in the air. “What do you want from me, Mariana?! You want the truth? Our marriage has been a corpse for years!”
“Then you should have possessed the spine to ask for a divorce.”
“When?!” he roared, stepping menacingly toward the sofa. “Right after Lucía died?! So your family and all my colleagues could brand me as the bastard who abandoned his grieving wife when she was suicidal?!”
The horrific words hung suspended in the air.
I stared at him, and for the first time in a decade, the fog completely lifted. I saw the parasite standing in my living room. “So… you stayed to protect your PR image.”
He realized his fatal error a millisecond too late. “That is not what I meant—”
“That is exactly what you just said.”
“In the beginning, I stayed because I loved you!” he barked, his face flushed red. “Because you were entirely broken! I am the one who dragged you to therapy! I cooked your meals! I sacrificed my peace for your sleepless nights!”
“And I spent seven years allowing you to make me feel guilty for it,” I replied coldly.
“Guilty?! You stopped being a functioning human being! I would come home to find you wearing the same sweatpants, staring at the wall! What did you expect me to do?!”
“I expected that if your love expired, you would have the basic human decency to leave me, rather than keeping me as a pet to make yourself look like a saint.”
I pulled out my phone and held up the screenshot of his text to Chloe. “‘Where is she going to go? She doesn’t know how to survive on her own.’ Was that out of love, too?”
He stared at the screen, his chest heaving. “I was angry when I typed that.”
“You were also angry when you systematically isolated me from my friends,” I said, standing up to meet his gaze. “Laura came to this house twice. Andrew called. You told them that hearing about medicine caused me to have violent psychological relapses.”
“I was protecting you from stress!”
“I never asked you to act as my warden.”
“You don’t remember how pathetic you were!”
“I remember exactly the state I was in seven years ago,” I said, taking a step toward him, forcing him to back up. “What I want to know is why you were still telling your boss those exact same lies yesterday. You turned my grief into a convenient professional shield for your own corporate incompetence.”
Alejandro sneered, pointing a shaking finger at the open luggage in the entryway. “Are you going to pack your bags and run away to your sister’s, then?”
“No,” I said smoothly. “That suitcase is for you. You are leaving.”
He stared at me, then let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Leave to where? This is my house!”
“I bought this condo five years before you bought me a ring, Alejandro. The deed is in my name, and my name alone.”
“We have lived here together for fifteen years!”
“And your residency expires today.”
His face contorted with ugly, desperate fury. “Do you honestly think you can survive out here?! The mortgage, the HOA fees, the taxes?! You haven’t worked in a decade! You won’t last a single week before you’re begging me to come back!”
A week ago, those venomous words would have paralyzed me. Today, they sounded like the desperate screeching of a cornered rat.
“Then we will see what happens in a week,” I said. “Pack your clothes, or I will throw them off the balcony.”
Alejandro stormed into the master bedroom. I listened to him shatter a picture frame, slam drawers, and forcefully stuff his tailored suits into the canvas bag.
As he reached the front door, he spun around, his chest puffed out. “When this little manic delusion passes, do not bother calling my phone.”
“It isn’t a delusion, Alejandro. It’s an awakening.”
The heavy door slammed shut.
A profound, echoing silence filled the condo. I sat down on the sofa. My hands were shaking. I was terrified—deeply, existentially frightened of the void stretching out before me.
But as the quiet settled over my shoulders, I realized something miraculous. Being utterly alone was infinitely less terrifying than being constantly degraded.
