Did Imogen not think about how rough it would be sitting across from her at our usual table in our favorite coffee shop when she asked me to meet her?

Yankee Doodle Donuts had been the location of many a Sunday mornings brunch, quick lunch stops, and pop ins to get coffee before we walked to the park around the corner.

It sat on the main street in Chatham, a rustic seaside town that most would call cute and something out of a New England fairy tale. Each store sported Cape Cod’s traditional shiplap, shingled exterior, and these were boutiques, restaurants, bookstores and craft stores that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world. The cape was a place where exclusivity and small business reigned supreme. While I wasn’t much for the exorbitant price tags here, I did love that there weren’t big-box stores or fast-food joints. Stepping onto the street in Chatham was like stepping onto a perfectly curated movie set.

And now here I sit, waiting for my wife. The one who hasn’t spoken to or contacted me in an entire week. When we were still married, in the emotional sense, we never went one hour without checking in, or at least a kiss-face emoji. Now, I have to smile as Kira, the college-aged girl who works the coffee counter gushes about how cute it is that Mrs. Walsh and I are having a midday lunch during the work week. She has no idea that we’ve broken down in every sense of the word.

What will it be like when I have to admit to the world that I’m no longer Theo, of Theo and Imogen? It hasn’t hit me full force yet, and I’m keeping the soul-crushing reality at bay. This week has been horrible, but not as devastating as it could be. Because I’ve been lying to myself or at least omitting the truth. My brain is computing things as if Imogen’s taken a business trip, not completely walked out of our life together forever.

The bell above the door tinkles as it opens, and I turn in my chair to watch as my wife walks in.

I purposely sat in the chair that would force my back to be toward the entrance, because I told myself I wouldn’t watch, like a sad puppy, her walk in. But, per usual, I can never help myself when it comes to Imogen.

And before I know it, she’s sliding into the chair across from me.

Long blond waves, radiant green eyes, porcelain skin, petite, thin frame. She’s in her business clothes, a sharp gray pencil skirt that goes past her knees paired with a fuzzy emerald green sweater that matches her eyes. And she’s wearing those knee-high chestnut-colored leather boots that make my mouth water.

Even in the midst of our marriage imploding, she looks incredible. Imogen is something pulled from the pages of a fairy tale … I thought that from the moment I met her. Like a mystical fairy or one of those sirens, without the ill will toward sailors. Or well … maybe she has ill will toward me, because she trapped me by the sea and I’ve always raked my heart over the rocks, sacrificing myself, to give it to her.

“Hi,” she breathes, her eyes shifting around the coffee shop. Looking anywhere but at me.

“Hi,” I respond, my voice awkward in my throat.

Here is a person I know everything about, who knows everything about me. I’ve been inside of her, she’s nursed me back to health, we’ve shared meals and walks and bank accounts and even a cat. Yet, right now, we’re acting like complete strangers.

Is that why divorce is so brutal? Because it takes two people who once shared love and dismantles every emotion between them until they don’t know each other at all?

Except in this case, the love is not gone. I’m still so very in love with this woman that I want to stand up and scream that this has to be some kind of mistake.

“Thanks for meeting me.” Imogen is twisting her hands under the table. I know because that is her nervous tic.

I clear my throat. “I would go to the moon if you asked me to after not hearing from you this week.”

She sighs. “Please don’t make this harder than it is.”

“So don’t make this … this. Why did you leave, Immy?” I use her nickname, my hand slapping on the table between us as my voice becomes impassioned.

Her nervous eyes flit over to Kira, whose gaze was probably directed toward us when I slapped my hand down. “Don’t do this, not here.”

“Then where? You won’t return my calls, you moved out. You didn’t give us a chance.” My voice breaks.

Her eyes are so sad, it hurts. “The last two years were our chance. We couldn’t make it work, Theo. You think I want to get …”

“Don’t you dare say it.” If that word came out of her mouth, I might throw the coffee mug in front of me against the brick wall behind her.

“We’ve been headed there for a long time, don’t try to say you didn’t see it too. I’m just making the most logical decision for both of us. The life we have … it’s no life.” Imogen rubs her hands up and down her arms as if trying to get warm.

“Love isn’t logical,” I spit at her, furious. She’s discounting everything we have.

Her next sentence is a whisper, “Please, stop this. Can’t you see? There is too much pain. I can’t live in that house anymore. I can’t see the ghosts of the children that were supposed to fill it.”

And now my heart actually does break. Cracks wide open, bleeding the pure anguish we’ve both felt.

I nod, because if this is hurting her, I don’t want to do it anymore. I love her enough to let her leave.

“But … before it comes down to legally …” Imogen breaks off, and I know she doesn’t want to say the word. Maybe, just like me, she can’t. “I need your help.”

“What?” The switch from her deepest emotion to her asking a favor throws me off.

“You know what happened when we got married … how my father revoked my position at Weston?”

“Of course I do. Not that you need your family’s company to be successful.” I get the jab in there because her family has always irked me.

Immy bows her head. “You have your opinions. But, now that we’re … separating, I have a chance to gain the executive role back.”

My hands ball into fists under the table. Her fucking father is the evilest mastermind I know.

“Well, if that’s what you want, I guess that’s great for you.”

She nods slowly. “Except … my parents don’t want a scandal following my promotion. So … they would like us to remain married until they can smooth a public … separation over and hide it behind the story of my rise to power within the company.”

Apparently, I underestimated the old bastard. He was going to make her jump through hoops, even in her lowest of times.

“What exactly does that mean?” I have a sneaking suspicion I know, but I want her to say it.

Those green eyes latch onto mine. Imogen may be quiet, but she’s brave and confident when needed. “It means that I need us to stay married, look happy for the public, until we … divorce.”

And she’s said it. The firing squad murders my heart in my chest.

“You’re asking me to pretend for you? To fake love you? I don’t need to fake that Imogen.” My teeth snap together in anger.

Inside, I’m dying. My organs are in multi-system failure, because if the heart goes it all goes. I feel so cold and numb that I can barely sit upright. How is this not killing her too? Did I miss the point where she fell out of love with me? Or had I always been the more invested one?

“Please, Theo. You know why … I have to be on my own. I don’t want to have this fight again, but I gave that job up for you. I have the chance to get it back.”

Did she have any idea what I’d given up for her? I had a feeling she never really cared about what I’d sacrificed. And suddenly, that struck a deep chord of rage in me. Imogen wanted our marriage to end and for me to help set her up for her next chapter. How selfish was that?

It was time to be done with this back and forth forever. Our marriage, our love, had been in a state of limbo for the last two years. And now I’d rip out my heart making this decision, but I’d do it.

“I’ll do this for you.” I puff out my chest, trying to ignore the lightning bolt of pain that fissures my heart.

Imogen’s big green eyes blink, those thick lashes working over the words I just said. “You’ll help me to get back in my father’s good graces?”

“If this helps you … after we’re over, then yes.” My soul feels like it’s being strangled, suffocated by my own hands.

“Theo, thank you. I know it won’t be easy, but we know the motions, we can fake this.” Her eyes are hopeful.

How the hell can she possibly pretend to love me? Just so that the public can see it? This will mentally slay me, and yet here she is, motivated by the scent of money and her family’s precious company. Maybe I’d decided to ignore this part of her because I was so in love with her when we got married. But Imogen is revealing a part of her true colors right now, and it’s filling my mouth with the taste of blood money.

I want to hurt her as much as she’s hurting me right now. “But you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.” She nods, her blond waves rustling over her shoulders.

“After you secure the position, if this works to get you back into the fold … I want you to leave me. Really leave me. A fast divorce, and then no contact. I don’t want to see you after all of this is over. You have to vow to leave me forever.”

Just saying the words is akin to death by a thousand tiny cuts. That’s what some people say marriage is, and the irony is not lost on me. But it is … it feels like my skin is being sliced open, vein after vein, cell after cell. I didn’t leave Imogen, and I never would have, no matter how much our relationship broke down. No matter how stripped away to its bones it became, I would have kept on loving her the best I could.

But now, seeing how much she wants to fake our happiness for her own personal gain? This is not my wife. If this ploy of hers gives me just a little more time to love her, and for her to love me, even if it’s insincere, then I’ll take it. But after it’s over … I never want to see her again.

If you had told me four years ago that I’d be making Imogen Weston Walsh promise to walk away from me forever, I would have laughed in your face. But … here we are.

Imogen looks like I’ve slapped her, and it serves her right. Except, even when I’m pissed at her, I still want to take her into my arms and erase any pain. She is the weakness in me, the very thing that can bring me crumbling to my knees.

“I … promise.” Her voice breaks.

I steel my heart, trying to shut off emotion. “You promise what?”

Her upper lip trembles as she looks me square in the eye. “I promise to walk out of your life forever.”