Page 83 of The Humiliated Wife

He'd made them for her.

The first bite tasted like vanilla and butter and something she couldn't quite name. Effort, maybe. Or apology.

Baked goods solve everything.

She'd said that to him dozens of times. Usually while pressing a warm cookie into his palm after a bad day at work, watching his shoulders relax as he bit into something made with her own hands, her own love.

She took another bite, and suddenly she was crying.

Not the quiet, dignified tears she'd been rationing since the divorce papers. These were ugly sobs that came from somewhere deep and raw, the kind that made her double over against the counter.

It shouldn't have felt safe—his arms, his voice, the way he’d wrapped around her like she still belonged to him. But for that moment on the porch, it had. And that was the part that made her furious. Because a hug shouldn’t feel like rescue when it came from the man who helped sink you in the first place.

Baked goods solve everything.

Howdarehe.

How dare he remember that phrase—her phrase, her belief in small kindnesses—and use it now, when it was too late. How dare he stand on Emma's porch with flour on his shirt and love in his eyes like he hadn't spent two years looking down on her.

She shoved the rest of the cookie in her mouth, chewing angrily through her tears.

@shitfionasays.

The name alone made her stomach turn. How long had he been thinking of that username? How many of her private moments had he catalogued, waiting for the right one to share? When she'd told him about crying over the owl, had he been calculating engagement rates in his head?

She grabbed another cookie, biting into it like she was biting into her anger.

Twenty-three thousand people. Twenty-three thousand strangers who knew her most vulnerable moments. Who'd laughed at her for believing the world could be kind, for crying at nature documentaries, for leaving notes in lunch boxes.

For loving him with her whole heart while he documented her like a science experiment.

But God, the cookies tasted like home.

They tasted like Sunday mornings when he'd wake up early just to bring her coffee in bed. Like the way he used to trace patterns on her back when she couldn't sleep. Like the Dean who'd held her during thunderstorms and told her she was brave, who'd kissed her forehead and called her his miracle.

That Dean had been real. She knew he had been real.

But so had the other Dean. The one who'd typed captions while she slept beside him. The one who'd smiled at dinner parties while his friends mocked stories she'd shared in confidence. The one who'd let strangers call her stupid, pathetic, embarrassing.

She hugged the plate against her chest. The foil crinkling, tears still streaming down her face.

She'd married the love of her life. She was sure of it. The way he'd looked at her on their wedding day—like she was sunlight and miracle and home all wrapped up in white lace. The way he'd whispered "I can't believe you're mine" against her hair as they swayed to their first dance.

She'd been his. Completely. Devotedly. Stupidly.

And he'd sold her for likes.

The part that made her want to throw the remaining cookies across the room was that some tiny, traitorous part of her still loved him. Still wanted to call him when something funny happened at school. Still reached for his side of the bed in the moments between sleeping and waking.

Still tasted these imperfect cookies and felt like coming home.

She wrapped up the remaining cookies with shaking hands and shoved them in the freezer.

Because loving someone who'd betrayed you didn't make you wise.

It just made you vulnerable all over again.

And she'd been vulnerable enough for one lifetime.