He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
"She said she's known about me all along. About me, and probably about all the others too, all the women you had kept tucked away in nice apartments before. Did you also play husband with them?"
"Zahra, please—"
"She called me your pet project," I continue, not giving him a chance to speak, leaning forward so he can see exactly how much his lies have cost me. "Said I was just the latest toy you like to dress up and show off when nobody important is around to see."
He reaches across the table, but I pull back so fast I almost knock over my cold tea.
"Don't touch me."
"Please, I love you—"
"Stop." The word comes out too loud, loud enough that other people in the café turn to look at us, and I have to lower my voice to a whisper. "Don't you dare ever say that word to me again."
I can feel tears starting to build up behind my eyes, but I blink them back hard because I refuse to cry for him anymore. I've cried enough tears over Damien Cross to fill an ocean.
"I thought I was your wife," I whisper, and the words feel like they're tearing my throat apart on the way out. "Even if the rest of the world didn't know it, even if we had to keep it secret, I thought what we had was real. I thought it mattered."
"You do matter—"
"I'm the secret, Damien. I'm the dirty little sin you hide behind business trips and late meetings." I reach into my purse and pull out an envelope, white and official and final. "A woman in my building spit on me this morning. Called me a homewrecker and told me I should be ashamed of myself."
I slide the papers across the table and watch his eyes go wide when he realizes what they are.
"What is this?"
"Divorce papers."
"But we're not legally married—"
"We're married in the eyes of Allah, and that's the only marriage that mattered to me anyway."
He stares at the papers like they might catch fire and burn him.
"I'm leaving the city tonight."
His head jerks up so fast I think he might have hurt his neck. "Where are you going?"
"Somewhere you'll never find me."
"Zahra, please don't do this—"
"I can't stay here anymore," I tell him, standing up on legs that feel like they might give out underneath me. "I won't be the woman you love in the shadows while someone else gets to stand in your sunlight."
"Don't leave me," he says, and his voice breaks on the words. "I can fix this. I'll tell her everything, I'll make this right—"
"Tell her what exactly? That you've been lying to her face for two years? That all those business trips were really you coming to see your secret second wife?" I grab my purse and sling it over my shoulder. "She already knows, Damien. She's always known, and she's been letting you think you were getting away with it."
I take a few steps toward the door, then turn back to look at him one more time.
"You had a woman who would have died for you," I say, and my voice cracks on every word. "Someone who gave up her name, her job, her family, everything that mattered to her, just to be yours. And you…you made her the scorn of society."
Something akin to pain, regret, loss, flickers across his face, but it's too little and way too late, for it to move my heart.
"Goodbye, Damien."
I push through the door. The sound of glass breaking comes behind me. I don't look back, don't even pause, as I step out into the cold air and mix in the crowd.