Chapter 2 - Thirty-Eight Dollars and Rain
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Six weeks earlier, Nora had walked out of a marriage with exactly thirty-eight dollars, a faded duffel bag, and enough humiliation to last a lifetime.
Her divorce from Gregory Whitmore had been finalized at 3:17 on a cold, rainy Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan. Gregory had spent seven years meticulously teaching Nora that every flaw, every failure, and every argument in their marriage could somehow be traced back to her.
He told her that her clothes were too plain.
He complained that her laugh was too loud for his social circles.
He constantly reminded her that her body was too soft, her ambitions were inconvenient, and her appetite embarrassed him at corporate dinners. By the end of their marriage, even her silence seemed to irritate him.
During the final divorce meeting, his highly paid attorney slid the settlement paperwork across a polished mahogany conference table. Nora had read through it with quiet, exhausted precision. She noticed the missing payment almost immediately.
“Page fourteen,” Nora said, her voice steady.
Gregory sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes. His attorney looked confused, adjusting his glasses.
“The transitional household payment,” Nora continued, pointing at the printed text. “It says twenty-five hundred dollars was transferred on Friday.”
“So?” Gregory snapped.
“It wasn’t.”
Gregory leaned back in his leather chair, crossing his arms.
“You’re really holding this entire proceeding up over twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“I’m holding it up because the legal document is false.”
His mouth curled into a familiar, condescending smirk. That exact expression had once made Nora doubt her own sanity. Not anymore.
“Check the transfer,” she told the attorney firmly.
The attorney opened his laptop and checked the escrow accounts. There was no transfer. Gregory’s arrogant smile instantly disappeared. Twenty minutes later, the paperwork was manually corrected, and the funds were wired.
Nora signed her name. Seven years of emotional suffocation ended with a simple scratch of black ink.
Outside, heavy rain covered Midtown in a sheet of silver. Gregory followed her out to the elevator bank, his hands shoved deep into his expensive coat pockets.
“You’ll come back,” Gregory stated confidently.
Nora pressed the down button.
“No.”
“You haven’t worked full-time in three years,” he reminded her, his voice dripping with mock pity. “You have no apartment. My family won’t help you. They never did.”
His gaze traveled slowly, insultingly down her body, and Nora felt the old, deeply ingrained instinct to fold inward. Gregory gave a short, cruel laugh.
“You think someone else is going to want all this?”
Nora looked at him. “All what?”
He gestured carelessly at her figure, her age, her entire existence.
Nora smiled, a genuine, radiant expression that unsettled him.
May you like
“Someone already does.”
Gregory frowned deeply. “Who?”
