For Five Years, My Husband Loved Me Like a Replacement Chapter 05
Silence crashed down over the whole room.
Maren’s voice came from behind me, thin as a needle.
“Vivian, don’t push him like this.”
Julian’s fingers closed around the ring. He stared at me.
“If you walk out that door tonight – don’t come back.”
I held the ruined white rose painting in my arms and walked toward the exit.
It was raining outside.
I didn’t have an umbrella.
And I didn’t look back.
Just as the rain soaked my hair, Tara’s car pulled up at the curb. She rolled down the window, let out a quiet curse, then immediately got out and draped her coat over my head.
“The painting?”
I handed her the soaked canvas.
She looked at it. Her eyes went red.
“Did Julian do this?”
“No.”
I got in the car, voice flat.
—
“But close enough.”
Tara cranked the heat. “We’re going to my studio. Let’s save the painting first.”
I nodded.
My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.
Julian called thirteen times.
When the fourteenth call came in, I turned the phone off.
Tara glanced at me. “For real?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t push.
The studio lights stayed on all night. The restorer Tara brought in said the original was too far gone — but the surviving color could be transferred to a new canvas.
I stared at the blurred patches of white.
Five years. I’d tried so hard to become what Julian wanted.
And all I had left was a blur.
*****
The next morning, I powered my phone back on.
Julian’s messages flooded in.
“Where were you last night?”
—
“Stop making a scene. Come home. We’ll talk.”
“Maren has a fever. You’d better not upset her again.”
The last one came in at 4 AM.
“Vivian. You used to be different.”
I stared at that line for a long time.
Different how?
The girl who said she liked white roses.
The girl who said it’s fine when her spot got taken.
The girl who smiled and said the better one suited Maren more.
I put the phone down and went back to work on the canvas.
Tara slid a form across the table.
“Southport Arts Residency. You never dared apply before. I saved you a spot. Deadline’s today.”
I looked at the application. My hand stopped moving.
After we got married, Julian didn’t like me being gone too long.
He said someone had to stay home.
So I stayed in that house for five years.
Tara said, “Vivian, you’re not unwanted. You’ve just been standing in the wrong place.”
I signed my name.
—
That afternoon, Julian found the studio.
He stood at the door, rain still on his jacket, exhaustion pulling at his face.
“Come back with me.”
Tara stepped in front of him. “Mr. Sterling, you’re not welcome here.”
Julian didn’t look at her. He looked at me.
“Vivian. I can explain what happened.”
I asked, “Explain what?”
He said, “I didn’t know the painting would get ruined. Maren didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”
I nodded. “And you?”
He frowned. “Me what?”
“You made me step aside for her, over and over. Was that an accident too?”
He went quiet.
I held out the divorce papers.
“Sign them.”
Julian stared at the papers as if they were something utterly absurd.
“You’re divorcing me over a few bouquets of flowers and one
—
painting?”
I said, “It’s not about flowers. Or the painting.”
“It’s because I finally realized — what you gave me was always *the usual*.”
Julian’s throat moved.
He didn’t take the papers.
“I’m not signing.”
A calm male voice came from the doorway.
“Ms. Moore — I brought the canvas samples.”
I turned.
Eliot Vance stood in the rain, carrying a roll of fresh canvas.
Julian’s gaze landed on him. The temperature in the room dropped.