The restaurant was Luigi’s, the same place where he had proposed, and the same place we had celebrated nineteen anniversaries before this one. The candlelight flickered off the wine glasses, casting a warm, deceptive glow over the wreckage that was about to happen.
I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach, but it was the good kind. Twenty years. We had made it. I reached into my purse and pulled out the velvet box I had been hiding for weeks. Inside was a Rolex—a heavy, beautiful thing that had cost a fortune, but the real value was on the back.
“Happy Anniversary, David,” I whispered, sliding the box across the white tablecloth.
He took it. He opened it slowly. He read the inscription. I handed him a watch engraved with ‘Forever.’.
He stared at the word Forever for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, he snapped the box shut. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t smile. He simply reached into his jacket pocket and produced a thick, white envelope.
“I have something for you, too,” he said, his voice devoid of any inflection.
My heart leaped. An envelope? It had to be a trip. We had talked about the Amalfi Coast for years. I thought it was tickets to Italy. I imagined us drinking limoncello by the sea, rekindling the spark that had dimmed over the last few years.
I tore open the seal, my hands shaking with excitement. I pulled out the document.
The first word I saw wasn’t Alitalia. It was Superior Court.
My breath hitched. I scanned the page, my brain refusing to process the bold letters at the top. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
It was divorce papers.
I looked up at him, the paper trembling in my hands. “David? What… what is this?“
He didn’t answer immediately. He raised his hand and signaled the waiter.
“Check, please,” he said.
“David!” I hissed, tears instantly welling up. “We are at our anniversary dinner! You’re doing this now?“
He looked at me with the cold, pragmatic eyes of a stranger. He checked his new watch—not the one I gave him, but the one on his wrist.
“‘I didn’t want to drag this out,’” he said calmly, as if he were firing an underperforming employee rather than ending a two-decade partnership. “The timing seemed… symmetrical.“
The waiter arrived and placed the leather folder on the table. David didn’t reach for it. He stood up, buttoned his jacket, and looked down at me one last time.
“I moved my things out while you were at the salon today,” he added. “The lawyer will be in touch.“
And then, he turned and walked out the door.
I sat there, frozen. The Rolex box sat closed on his side of the table. The divorce papers sat open on mine. The restaurant was buzzing with happy couples, clinking glasses and laughing, while I sat in the center of a silent crater.
I looked at the leather folder. He had the waiter bring the check before I even opened the envelope.
I opened the folder. The bill for our anniversary dinner stared up at me. $240.
He left me there with the bill.
He hadn’t just broken my heart; he had stuck me with the tab for the execution. I realized then that the “Forever” I had engraved on the watch was the only thing he had left behind—because for him, “forever” had ended the moment the check arrived.
