Shadows Of A Forgotten Spring (Emma and Alexander) novel Chapter 2

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12:46 Tue, Dec 17 

Chapter 2 

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The smile froze on Emma’s face as the breath caught in her throat. The room seemed to tilt, her mind struggling to process the words. Divorce? The word rang in her head like the peal of a cracked bell, cruel and sharp. All these years, she had braced herself for many things–his distance, his coldness, his silence–but not this. 

Her hands were shaking, and she quickly clasped them together in her lap to hide the shaking. A wave of nausea washed over her, and her vision blurred as tears welled up in her eyes. She had fought so hard and waited so long for even a glimmer of hope in their marriage, only to have everything taken away in one single, devastating moment. 

Annie. The name was like a dagger thrust into her heart. The woman who had always been a shadow between them, a ghost from the past whom Emma just couldn’t compete with. Now she was back, and with her, she had taken whatever small hope Emma had clung to. 

Emma felt a tightening in her throat, her speaking suddenly very hard to do, but she willed herself to swallow the growing lump down her throat. “A–Are you serious?” she managed to whisper, her voice barely audible, as if speaking louder would make a nightmare more real. 

The look in Alexander’s eyes, though, told her all she needed to know. He was serious. And in that moment, Emma felt her heart shatter into a million pieces, the weight of his words crushing her beneath their finality. 

“Kevin is preparing the divorce papers. I will send you a copy tomorrow,” Alexander added, as his voice was cutting through the thick silence strumming in the room. 

Emma turned her eyes at him, brimming her eyes with full containers of unshed tears. But she quickly blinked them away, refusing for them to fall. Her body was so weary, her heart in pain, but she willed herself still to speak, when everything in her never wanted to. She had spent years trembling at his words and his presence, always trying to be the perfect wife, all for him to never be satisfied. But now, after all she had given, all she had endured, this was how it ended—a divorce paper as his final act. 

“Okay,” she said, a little steadier this time, but hollow, her fists clenched hard at her sides, under the table, where he couldn’t 

see. 

The silence returned, more weighted than before. Alexander watched her face with his eyes, trying to find something more, possibly. But Emma had nothing more to give. More than a moment passed before he finally broke the awkward silence again. 

“I think 

you should be the one to break the news to my mother. She’ll take it better if it comes from you.” 

“Okay,” Emma agreed, her tone flat, void of warmth that she once tried so hard to give him. 

Alexander’s gaze lingered on her, piercing and intense, before he continued, “Regarding alimony, I’m ready to pay you 20 million dollars.” 

He rose to his feet, his decision made, and began to walk away, his footsteps echoing in the quiet room. 

Emma sat a little longer, her mind was in a whirl at all that was happening. Then she pushed her chair back and stood up, her voice cold as she spoke, “All I need is a week to find a new apartment. Bring the papers as soon as possible.” 

Alexander stopped and turned towards her, his face unreadable as if he wanted to say something more. Something flickered in his eyes–something she hadn’t seen in them before, but she was too drained to really think about that. It didn’t matter 

over 

between them and she was done being the girl he had been forced to marry by their parents. anymore. It was 

Emma didn’t say anything; she turned around and walked away. There was a firm heaviness in her steps. She was walking towards her room–a haven where, at last, she could let go of the pretence. Upon the door closing behind her, the tears that 

they were silent but relentless. Her shoulder shook with soundless sobs as she had held back all night began to spew forthr she fell onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. 

In that room, alone with her grief, Emma mourned not just the end of her marriage, but the end of the dreams she had 

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Tue, Dec ’17 

12:46 

Chapter 2 

once dared to believe in. The woman who had fought so hard to be loved by a man who had never truly seen her now realized that it was time to let go, not just of him, but of the life she had tried so desperately to build. 

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