Page 32 of The Edge Of Us

The next day, we reconvened for the finalization of the divorce. The conference room felt colder, heavier. The settlement terms were on the table, and my heart pounded as I prepared to sever the last legal tie between us.

Allen sat across from me, his expression unreadable. Ms. Davenport began, her voice clinical. “Regarding the financial settlement, Mr. Woods has agreed to the terms. Mrs. Woods will receive ten percent of his total wealth in addition to a fifty-million-dollar settlement for emotional distress. Furthermore, she will receive monthly child support as stipulated.”

Allen’s hands twitched slightly, but he remained silent.

The judge looked at me. “Do you accept these terms, Mrs. Woods?”

I inhaled deeply. “Yes, Your Honor.”

Allen’s voice finally broke through the stillness. “Corinne, is this really what you want?”

I lifted my gaze to meet his. “You made that choice for me when you betrayed our vows.”

His throat bobbed, but he said nothing more.

The judge nodded. “Then it is finalized.”

A pen was placed in front of me. I picked it up, my fingers steady despite the turmoil inside. I signed my name, the ink sealing the end of our marriage.

Allen hesitated for a second before signing his own name beside mine.

It was done.

I stood, smoothing my dress, my heart pounding in my chest. Without another word, I turned and walked away.

I never looked back.

Chapter 21

Corine

It had been three months since the divorce, and I barely recognized the woman staring back at me in the mirror. She looked like a ghost—eyes hollow and sunken, skin pale and drawn, like it was desperately trying to contain a soul unraveling at the seams. My once vibrant auburn curls now hung limply around my face, dull and lifeless, much like the woman I’d become.

Los Angeles, with all its flashing cameras and cruel whispers, was behind me now. I had packed up the last pieces of my pride, my children, and a suitcase full of shame and come home to North Carolina. My hometown. But it didn’t feel like home. Not anymore. Not after the curious stares at the grocery store, the hushed voices at church, the pitying smiles that never quite reached the eyes.

On paper, I’d had everything. A powerful husband who was admired in the public eye, two beautiful children, a life most people envied. But behind closed doors, that marriage had been a slow, quiet erosion. Infidelity. Gaslighting. Manipulation disguised as love. The kind of hurt that left bruises no camera could capture.

And when I finally left him, when I finally chose myself—chose them—the media shredded me to pieces. The broken wife. The drama queen. The woman who “snapped.”

Now I was living in my childhood bedroom again, a 32-year-old woman with an almost-four-year-old son and a four-month-old baby daughter, trying to survive each day without falling apart in front of them. I couldn’t even open social media anymore—the judgment, the cruel memes, the conspiracies. They never stopped.

I was a ghost. A mother on autopilot. I changed diapers. I made snacks. I rocked Astrid through the night while she cried from colic and I cried from despair. I tried to hold it all together for Kyle, who didn’t understand why Daddy didn’t tuck him in anymore.

But tonight… tonight, I was breaking.

It had been a brutal day. Astrid had screamed for hours with no relief, Kyle had thrown a tantrum that left me in tears, and my mother had snapped at me for not eating. Again. The house felt like it was pressing in on me, tighter and tighter, until it was hard to breathe.

When the kids finally fell asleep—Astrid curled in her bassinet after a long feed, Kyle snoring softly in his racecar bed—I sat down in the hallway outside their rooms and let the silence close in.

And then came the whispers.

You’re a failure.

You’re not enough.

They’d be better off without you.

I tried to fight them off. I turned on the TV—static. I scrolled through old photos on my phone—smiles, red carpet snapshots, baby bump selfies. A woman full of light. I didn’t know her anymore. She didn’t exist.

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