Just A Body

It happened on a Tuesday.

The kind of day that starts deceptively quiet. Sunlight, croissants, espresso on silver trays. I wore navy silk and a thin chain around my neck. I looked alive. I almost believed it.

Until Emilia approached me in the garden.

"Your husband asked for your presence at the hospital gala tonight."

I blinked. "He wants me there?"

"He said it's mandatory."

"Like a flu shot?"

Emilia's lips twitched. "I don't believe he's concerned about your immunity, Madam."

By 7 p.m., I stood at the top of the grand steps of the Lione Foundation Hall, blinking against flashbulbs, cameras clicking like guns cocking.

Alessandro hadn't waited.

He was already inside.

With her.

Giulia Ricci.

Clinging to his arm like she belonged there.

Like she'd always belonged there.

She wore blood-red satin, lips to match, and that smug little curve in her smile that made it clear she knew I was watching.

He saw me.

His eyes found mine across the room.

And still…

He didn't let her go.

Later, I stood alone by the wine table, fingers curled around the stem of a glass I didn't want. The string quartet played something elegant and tragic, like the background music to my life.

Voices buzzed around me.

"That's her?"

"Moretti's little charity wife?"

"She looks sick. You can see it in her hands."

I turned away.

And that's when I saw it.

Alessandro and Giulia standing under the staircase. His hand on her waist. Her palm pressed to his chest.

And then…

He kissed her.

Not on the cheek.

Not politely.

On the mouth.

Slow.

Calculated.

Just long enough for me to see it.

Just long enough to destroy something in me that had barely begun to heal.

I didn't cry.

I didn't scream.

I smiled.

Lifted my glass.

And whispered, "May it choke you, Alessandro Moretti."

Then I drank it.

All of it.

And turned to walk away.

My heart wasn't broken.

It was preparing for war.

The moment I turned away, I felt the weight of a hundred eyes.

I didn't stumble.

I didn't shrink.

But I felt it.

Their pity.

Their smug satisfaction.

Their cruel little thoughts clicking behind champagne smiles.

I walked into the corridor off the main ballroom, heels tapping slowly across marble, glass still in hand, heartbeat a drumbeat against my ribs.

Behind me, footsteps.

Fast. Purposeful.

"Anastasia."

His voice.

I didn't stop.

"Anastasia."

I did now.

Turned.

Met his gaze.

His hair was tousled like her hands had been in it. His mouth slightly red.

Mine curled up.

"You missed a spot," I said, tilting my head toward his jaw.

He blinked.

"It wasn't what it looked like," he said.

"Then your lips are very bad at lying."

"She kissed me."

"And you just stood there?"

He didn't answer.

My fingers tightened around the wineglass.

"I was across the room, Alessandro. You knew I was there. You looked me in the eyes."

"I didn't plan it."

I stepped closer, voice low and trembling. "You didn't stop it."

Silence.

"You humiliate me in private," I whispered. "But tonight, you made it public."

"You're not a victim…"

"No, I'm a prop. The obedient wife. The ghost who serves at your convenience and disappears when the lights come on."

"You're being dramatic."

"I nearly died last week. Alone. In a hospital. And you didn't show up."

He flinched…barely.

"And now?" I went on. "You kiss the woman who's been trying to replace me since the day we married?"

"She was just…"

"...convenient."

He opened his mouth.

I raised a hand. "Don't."

I turned to leave.

"I didn't know you were watching," he said softly.

I paused.

Looked back.

"That's the problem, Alessandro. You never see me…unless I'm bleeding."

He said nothing.

I walked away again.

And this time, the glass slipped from my hand and shattered behind me.

Not from weakness.

From clarity.

From release.

From the first moment I realized:

I wasn't walking away from him.

I was walking back toward myself.

I left the gala alone.

Not in a limo.

Not in his car.

I walked.

He didn't follow.

Not even when the rain started.

I heard thunder crack behind the city skyline and felt the first drops soak into my silk like a warning.

Still, I walked.

Through marble steps, under black umbrellas held by strangers, through whispers and looks and the thick sound of my name dripping with scandal.

Moretti's wife.

The quiet one.

The one he doesn't love.

Let them talk.

Let them drown in it.

Let them choke on my silence like he choked on his own guilt.

By the time I got back to the villa, my dress clung to me like a second skin and my hair was plastered to my face. My heels were ruined. My skin ice-cold.

I opened the door.

The butler stepped forward.

"Madam…"

"I'm fine," I said.

I walked past him. Through the foyer. Past the portraits. The staircase. Up to his office.

The door was open.

He was there.

Hands on the desk.

Head down.

Tie gone. Shirt undone. Sleeves rolled.

Dripping like me.

"You walked," he said without turning.

"Yes."

"In the rain."

"Are you going to scold me, Alessandro? Or thank me for not embarrassing you further?"

Silence.

He looked up.

And for the first time, I saw something.

Not regret.

Not shame.

But fear.

Of me.

He stepped toward me.

I stepped back.

"You don't get to touch me," I said. "Not anymore."

"It was a mistake."

"No," I said calmly. "A mistake is forgetting an anniversary. This… this was cruelty."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"But you did."

He looked down.

"You think I don't see you?" he muttered.

"You only see me when I leave," I whispered.

"You don't get it…"

"No, you don't. I have five bottles of medication in this house. One of them is for my lungs. One is for my heart. And three are to make me forget you exist long enough to survive this marriage."

He didn't move.

"You kiss her," I said, walking past him, "and I bleed. You ignore me, and I beg myself to keep breathing. You push, and I fold because I don't have the strength left to fight. But tonight, something changed."

"What?"

I turned.

Smiled.

Soft. Cold. Final.

"I stopped waiting for you to notice I'm drowning."

Then I closed the door behind me.

And locked it.

From the inside.

He stood in the hallway long after the door shut in his face.

He didn't knock.

Didn't call my name.

He just stared at the wood like it might start bleeding his guilt back at him.

Inside, I didn't cry.

I sat with my back to the door, listening to his silence through it.

That was the part that gutted me most.

How good he was at being silent.

Like it was his mother tongue.

My fingers found the necklace he bought me three months ago. The first week of our marriage. I had worn it three times. Each time, I told myself it meant something.

Tonight, I pulled it off.

The chain snapped easily in my hands.

Like trust.

I dropped it on the floor beside me and whispered, "You can keep every part of me you never touched."

A minute passed.

Then two.

His footsteps retreated down the hall.

I waited to hear his door close.

It didn't.

Instead, there was a soft knock.

Not on my door.

On the wall.

Just once.

Then his voice, low and hoarse through the wood.

"You're not nothing to me."

I didn't answer.

Because I didn't believe him.

Because it wasn't enough.

Because if I opened that door, I'd fall again.

And I was done falling for silence dressed in apologies that never came.