My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 02

My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 02

In my previous life, when I’d heard those words, my entire body had trembled.

I’d grabbed Helen’s hands and begged her. “Did I do something wrong? Does he not want me anymore?”

I couldn’t catch my breath between sobs.

I’d sat there on that hospital bed, barely holding it together, and begged her. I told her I could wait. I told her I didn’t care how long it took.

In the end, I hadn’t signed.

And what did that get me?

Gavin still left.

For thirty years.

For three decades, I played the dutiful daughter-in-law to his parents. I held his entire family together. His mother, Martha Whitmore, looked down on my background. She called me a nobody from the sticks.

His sister, Mandy Whitmore—she’d roll by every couple days and help herself. Meat from the fridge, cash from the drawer, even the grocery coupons I’d been stocking up for six months. And after she wiped me out, she still had the gall to call me cheap.

I swallowed it all.

Because I told myself that when Gavin came home, everything would be better.

And did he come home?

He did.

Seven days’ leave. He was home for two of them—the other five, he stayed on base.

And during those two days, he barely spoke to me.

At night, he slept with his back to me, breathing steady and even. I stared at the curve of his spine, wanting so badly to tell him about all the years of swallowed misery. My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Because I was afraid.

Afraid he’d find me tiresome.

Afraid he’d think I couldn’t hack it. That I wasn’t cut out to be a military wife.

Then he left again.

Later, he made commander.

Even later, I heard rumors about a female aide-de-camp assigned to him. Nova Pierce. Young. Beautiful. She accompanied him to every function and every event.

By then, I was already in my fifties. Hair streaked with gray. Back too bent to straighten.

I didn’t make a scene.

I didn’t dare.

I just sat alone in the yard, staring at the pomegranate tree we’d planted when we got married, and I remembered what he’d said to me back then—

“Sloane, when the war is over, I’ll take you to see the ocean.”

He never took me.

The day I died was bright and cloudless.

My neighbor Rose Cooper found me collapsed on the kitchen floor, half a peeled potato still clutched in my hand.

By the time they got me to the hospital, it was too late.

A cerebral hemorrhage.

I heard Gavin was silent for a long time after he got the news.

I heard he stood at my funeral for a very long time.

I heard he said, “I owe her.”

And what did that matter?

I was already dead.

By then, words meant nothing.

So in this life—

When Helen Parker placed those divorce papers in front of me, I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg. I had no useless words left to waste.

I sat up, reached over, and took the pen from her hand.

Helen froze. “Sloane, take your time with this. You can think it over carefully—”

“I don’t need to.”