"What?" She latched onto his wrist, trying to ground herself as the world spun around her in high speed. She moved much too late, the alcohol in her system slowing her reflexes. Luke pried his hand away from her weak grip and moved two steps back.
"What? What did you say?" She repeated, awake and much too drunk at the same time. It made it difficult to understand anything, but in all honesty, Sophie thought she needed more wine because fuck, she wanted to understand nothing at all about the situation unfolding at the moment.
"I said I want a divorce." Her husband stated, eyes hardening. He nearly looked like a stranger in the middle of their living room, cold and untouchable.
Sophie couldn't force herself to appreciate the perfection of his indifference, not this time.
"I..." She tried to say something, anything.
"Where is this coming from?" Her voice cracked under the pressure of the entire atmosphere on her lungs. Hearing herself was like hearing sounds from under hundrends of kilometers of ocean. "A divorce? Luke, I know things haven't been great these past few months but it hasn't been that long. We can still fix things..."
Luke's jaw was clenched, eyebrows furrowed in tension. Her husband stared, no longer at her but through her. Like she was ghost of what once was.
"Luke, I..." Sophie continued. "I love you."
The Agnelli heir looked almost pained at those three words. Sophie didn't miss the way his fists clenched harder as she said it. Her sobriety was slowly catching up with the situation, a clear head required to handle her withering marriage.
No, not withering. Shattering, like glass under the threat of a sharp object.
Sophie needed to hear him say it back. To even just look at her with an implication of affection.
"I'm not so sure anymore." He said instead, the words a spawn of her worst nightmares. "I've been thinking about it for a while now. I don't think this is what I want."
"Can you tell me why at least? Did I do something wrong? Is there someone else?"
Luke said nothing more, his silence piercing through Sophie's chest every time she took a breath. This entire exchange would be much easier without the breathing part.
"So it's true, then. Is it Gabriella?"
"What?" He looked almost outraged at the mention of the brunette. "No, it's not Gabriella, it's..."
"It's someone else?" Luke seemed almost as conflicted as her.
"Whatever. My reasons don't change that I want a divorce." He answered.
Sophie shook her head. "Well, I refuse to accept it! I refuse to leave it at that! I don't want a divorce without even understanding what the hell is going on."
It failed to move Luke. Instead, he looked even more exhausted. "Well, I want it. It's a divorce or an open marriage, you choose."
He left, a recurring action these past few months. Sophie couldn't even bother hearing the slam of the door, couldn't bother feeling the coldness of the early morning, or tasting the tears that dried on her face mixed with the wine on her tongue. None of her senses were working properly.
That wasn't how the exchange was supposed to go.
-
"He what?" Naomi's voice was as calm as the waves of the sea crashing on a random shore. Still, anyone within a five mile radius could tell she was seething.
"He asked me for a divorce." Sophie repeated for the fifteenth time that day, already sounding like a broken record. "Or an open marriage. Not like either is better than the other."
Alcohol would be a perfect accomplice to Sophie's sorrow, but getting wasted at Sunday brunch was as shameful as walking into the restaurant naked.
Naomi went back to cursing out the entire male population, encouraging her friend to just get up and dump her dickhead of a husband. A few restaurant goers looked outraged at her crude, unfiltered usage of words. Sophie would've found it incredibly amusing on a normal day.
Deep inside, she knew it couldn't be that simple. She couldn't leave Luke without any heavily impacting consequences, not that the same could be said about him. Losing the Agnelli name was akin to losing her invitation to her familiar circle of elites. Would Lola and Naomi even accept her without her husband's influence?
She'd certainly have to worry more about affording weekly trips to luxury spas and paying for her tennis club subscription. Sure, she was self-sufficient with her already high paying job but living a life of luxury while simultaneously rearranging the entire course of her life wasn't something she was ready to spend for.
She wasn't so sure her best friends were willing to empathize, or if they were able to comperehend financial struggles at all, considering how easy their lives have been from childhood all the way to adulthood. As much as she knew they cared about her, both lived in blissful ignorance.
For a moment, guilt ate up her insides. Had Gabriella been right? Was she really a gold digger?
Of course not. As a matter of fact, a part of Sophie wasn't ready to let go of Luke. She still loved him all the same, despite how painfully vague he'd been. But it wasn't anything she was willing to acknowledge, not anytime soon.
She'd been so concerned about the possible outcomes of her divorce she failed to notice how quiet Lola had been, her blonde friend usually so expressive and outspoken.
"I have something to confess."
Lola's voice was small, almost unheard amidst the crowd's chatter and the classical music playing in the background. Small as it may be, it did a splendid job of breaking through Sophie's thoughts like a wrecking ball.
"Lola?" She asked with what sanity she could muster. Lola flinched and her other friend looked tense.
The guilt swirling inside Lola's ocean eyes surprised Sophie. Out of all the ways she could react, Lola chose to fucking surprise Sophie. Nothing pleasant lied behind the word surprise. Not after everything her husband put her through.
"Well, uhm, one time I was..." Her gaze flicked from one decorated wall of the restaurant to her friend's face back to the wall, nervous about what she was about to admit. "One time I was shopping for a new necklace when I saw Luke with another girl clinging to his arm. I thought I hallucinated it at first but no, he spoke to her and it was really him. They seemed close, suspiciously close, almost like a couple in open daylight. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I was too scared of confrontation."
Lola's words knocked the living breath out of her.
"When was this?" Sophie probed as if her blonde friend was undergoing heavy investigation.
"A... a few months ago. Two months ago?"
"Two months ago?" Her voice came out louder than she intended and she shrunk under the critical gazes of the other nearby customers. "This was two months ago and you only tell me now, Lola?"
"I'm sorry, I knew you would be mad."
Lola fidgeted uncomfortably on her seat, the fire behind Sophie's words not helping with her nervousness one bit.
"Mad? Of course I'd be mad finding out my husband's been shamelessly parading another girl! That's what you're concerned about? Who even was it? That bitch Gabriella?"
"What?" Lola shook her head. "No! It was someone else. I don't know who, but she had long, jet black hair just like Naomi's!"
Sophie looked to her other friend. Both of them displayed a face full of contemplation as Lola stuttered out her answers.
"Too many people fit that description." Naomi eventually commented.
"For fuck's sake." Sophie abruptly stood from her seat, forks and knives clattering against each other at the sudden movement. At that point, she couldn't care who was judging her. Only few could relate to the pain and humiliation of an unfaithful husband or maybe many could relate. Who knew what these rich people were up to in their free time?
"Look, I don't blame you for anything that's happening, Lola. But I can't look you at you right now. I understand you were trying to protect yourself from confrontation, but I can't believe you care so little to keep this from me. If I never brought up the divorce, how long were you willing to hide it? Would you have let years pass without me being aware?"
Lola couldn't answer her and Sophie was sick of silence. Everyone she knew from the higher echelons of society seemed intent on playing with her feelings, hiding crucial information only to let it blow up on her face all at once.
Sophie knew she was difficult, ambitious in a way not many could stand, and she barely kept her mouth shut, but that didn't mean she deserved to be toyed around with.
She gave her goodbyes to Naomi, the only person she could rely on after everything and walked out the restaurant feeling even worse than when she entered.