"So it's over then," Wesley asked her "For definite?"
"Yep," Dolly's voice croaked as she spoke, "Gonna speak to my lawyer."
"I can't believe it," Angela said, looking at her friend, "Thought you two were gonna last forever."
"Me too," Dolly admitted, "I thought I couldn't picture my life without him, but the truth is, I think I'd rather picture a life without the arguments and the silence."
She took a sip of wine, and then another, hoping to feel a numbness buzzing through her veins as she sat there, the couple looking at her.
"So what now?" Angela asked, looking at Dolly as she sipped on her wine, "You think you'll date again?"
"Don't know, think it's too soon to even think about it," She spoke, "I know I was the one who pushed for the divorce in the first place but I never thought it'd actually happen."
"It's a big adjustment," Angela said, "You're essentially learning to live without the man who was by your side for so many years."
"Well, I have a cat, a dad, and a job offer back in Jersey." Her eyes stayed trained in front of her, gazing at nothing in particular.
"You're not going to take the job back in Jersey are you?" Wesley asked, raising a brow as he took another sip of whiskey from his glass.
"I don't know yet, it's good money and I'm close to family on my dad's side, Aunt Margaret said she'd hook me up with a good real estate agent, and help me find a house." She admitted.
"Sounds like you've got it all planned out, so when would you be moving?" Angela asked, sipping from her wine as she spoke.
"Two months, give or take," Dolly said, finally turning to look at the man.
"I mean I'll miss having you here," Angela admitted, a note of sadness in her voice as she said it, "I know you're a grown woman- and this is just my own selfish little thing- but I've always thought you'd been close to friends here in LA. Maybe moving back to Jersey isn't the best decision?"
"I've not decided yet, I'm gonna get the divorce out of the way first," Dolly admitted, taking a sip of the wine.
"Are you two even talking? Or are you completely no contact?" Angela asked, raising a brow and showing a hint of concern for her friend.
"I'm blocked on everything, so much for civil," She scoffed, trying to find amusement in the thing causing her the most hurt.
Angela was silent, she hadn't been expecting that answer and she felt her heart breaking for her friend. "He's not talking at all?"
"Nothing," Dolly shook her head, "That was the thing that pushed me over the edge initially, those weeks of silence like he was disgusted by me."
"He wasn't disgusted, Dolly," Angela said, taking her hand and placing it on top of hers to comfort her, "Maybe he felt hurt, maybe you hurt him. And he didn't want to say anything he didn't mean, so he withdrew?"
"He slept on the couch and didn't even look me in the eyes when I spoke, I can tell when it was over," She sighed, downing the last of her wine.
"Well then maybe that's for the best," Angela said, not fully believing it herself but wanting to reassure Dolly somehow, "If he wasn't willing to talk, then maybe you leaving and moving back home is the best thing to do, you're around people who actually care for you, that has its own benefits right?"
"I used to blame not being able to get pregnant on being shot but we were trying for three years before that and we still never got pregnant, we were looking into options like IVF but then it happened and I could feel the difference when I came home," Dolly admitted, "If I'd stayed any longer he'd have hated me, but I think he already despised me secretly."
Angela felt her heart sinking as her friend said this final sentence. If only she could convince her the opposite was true, but Dolly seemed to be making her mind up and she couldn't say much to change it. "Maybe you're right," she said, forcing a smile, "Maybe you'd be better off back in Jersey."
"Maybe."
『★』
Dolly walked into her house, feeling herself sink as soon as she stepped inside. She looked around her home for a few seconds, remembering the first moments she and Tim had spent here together. Every piece of furniture, dish, and ornament had a memory tied to it and she felt the sadness come in floods. She felt completely heartbroken, completely alone, and she didn't want this to be real. And it wasn't, at least not to her, until she walked in and saw a familiar man sitting on the couch.
Dolly's eyes widened in shock, standing still as she noticed everything about him that she had once known so well. The way his face was buried into the book he was reading, the way his hair was falling forward, the way she knew he was wearing the grey T-shirt that she had bought him for his birthday, everything was the same as it always had been.
"I didn't think you still had a key." She spoke up, watching as the light from the hallway reflected on his face, the room dark, 'he must've been sitting in the pitch black' she thought as she took in the room.
"I wanted to say goodbye," he finally spoke, the voice that she knew so well and once found so comforting and loving was now foreign and cold-sounding. The Tim she had married was gone, and the man on the couch with the eyes that looked completely emotionless at her presence wasn't him at all.
"You already said goodbye, the other week, at my car," Dolly replied as she tried to read his face in her slightly tipsy state.
"I know," he said softly, a wave of sadness washing over him, "But that's before I found out that you're going back to New Jersey." He said, he couldn't even look her in the eyes because they reminded him of all the memories he had of her.
"Oh, who told you, Angela or Stanley?" She questioned as she felt his eyes finally set on her face.
"Why does it matter?" he asked softly, the eyes she used to be so charmed by now just empty, cold and distant, almost as if she was looking at a stranger rather than the man she had married.
"Why does it matter?" he asked softly, the eyes she used to be so charmed by now just empty, cold and distant, almost as if she was looking at a stranger rather than the man she had married.
"Well my dad already knows, so you don't have to tell him like you did with the divorce," Dolly spoke up, feeling as if it was ice running through her veins.
"I see," he said softly, as if that made the pain of her moving any better, when it just made it worse, "When are you planning on leaving?"
"A few months, I decided I'm gonna let you keep the house, I won't need it, I'll be moving back to Jersey so..." She trailed off, his face dropping.
"And what, you're going to let me... keep the house?" he asked with a faint look of pain as if the thought of something so important to him being left behind brought a deep cut to him.
"Yeah, I won't be here, would be a shame to let it just sit." She bit her lip.
"You're just going to leave me with this? Like it's nothing?" His voice wasn't harsh, or cold, or aggressive, but it was filled with a hurt she had never thought she'd hear in his voice.
"And if I sold the house I'd have still been in the wrong Tim, so what was I meant to do?" Dolly's tone started to slightly raise as he did.
"You're leaving," he said softly, almost as if he couldn't force himself to speak any louder, "This is home, this is the life we used to have together. And you're just going to let me have it? You're going to let me sit here alone in our empty house?"
"What do you want from me, Tim?" She asked the question that'd been weighing on her since she handed him the divorce papers the first time.
"You." He finally forced out, his voice barely above a whisper, "Do you just expect me to be alright in a few months? How am I meant to move on?"
"You'll get over this Tim, and you'll find another woman-"
"Another woman-" he finally yelled at her, his voice breaking as he continued, "Another woman? You think there's just another woman out there who I'll love as much as I love you?"
"Yes."
"No one could ever compare to you, I'll never love another woman as much as I loved you, no woman could ever replace you."
"She doesn't need to replace me, because you'll love her in a different way," Dolly spoke, her tone cold but her eyes telling a different story.
"You're not listening to me are you?" he asked her, "I don't want another woman, I want you."
"Not enough."
"What?" he asked, his voice raising as an angry tear fell from his face, "Not enough?"
"I love you, I love you so damn much."
"Not enough Tim." She repeated.
"So I didn't love you enough? I tried my hardest for over ten damn years." He scoffed, standing up from the couch.
"If you loved me enough you'd be willing to try other options to have children but you can't get over that fact so it's clear that it's not meant to be." Her voice was merely above a whisper as he walked closer to her.
"So now it's my fault we couldn't have children? You're putting all the blame on me?" he said, his voice a cold whisper, "You're saying I didn't love you enough because we couldn't conceive?"
"I'm not putting the blame on you, I'm telling you that you won't love me enough as the woman who will give you children." Her voice grew louder as did his anger.
"And that's all you're worth? Are you just some baby maker? And my love is based on how many kids I can produce with you?" He walked closer to her, practically seething with rage.
"That was clear when you refused to speak to me for months." She laughed in fury, her chest heavy with rage.
"Maybe that was because I was upset?" he asked, his voice raising in reply, "Is that too hard to understand? I was hurting too, maybe you can't see that."
"And you seem to forget that I was too," She practically screamed at him, "I lost everything, I felt disgusted with myself, for being so vulnerable."
"We were both hurting," he finally screamed at her, "But I've been so patient with you, this whole time and all you're thinking about is yourself. We both went through it and are still going through it, and all I got is a woman who is just determined to make me as miserable as she can."
The room grew silent at that as she raised her brows at him, her mouth agape as her body heaved with a jolt that was almost as if she was reacting to the shock of his words.
He saw her shock and realised he'd gone too far. "Look I... I didn't mean that," he sighed, taking a step closer, "But I'm upset too, I don't know how else to explain all this."
She turned away from him, not making a sound, grabbing all the pictures off of the mantelpiece and handing them to him.
He took the pictures in his hands, looking at their smiling faces in all those pictures and wondered how things could have gotten to this point. He tried to speak again, but all his words fell into a stammer that he couldn't get out.
Dolly's silence was the final thing that broke him. The two of them stood there, staring at each other, saying nothing, before he turned and walked out of their house, his eyes filled with tears and a hurt that would never heal.
Dolly didn't process how long she stood there, looking at the empty room, neither did she process the bottle of pills she held in her hand as she looked down at them, popping open the lid she took one.
Antidepressant had been a blessing yet a curse, the insomnia was the worst, it was when she felt the most alone, questioning how she spent her years, maybe if she should've walked away sooner if she hadn't put up with the silence as long as she did, would she still be in this mess?
Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, most of which she couldn't understand, her only answer to these thoughts was the pill which she swallowed and put the bottle away and climbed back into bed. She didn't even try to answer the million and one questions in her head, she didn't want to. She let herself wallow in a self-pitying pool of despair to try and numb this pain inside of her, and all she wanted was sleep. She didn't want to think about anything at all, she didn't want to think.
She lay there. The room was pitch black, trying not to sob. She was tired, so damn tired, but she didn't want another moment of silence. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come, for the exhaustion of the past days to come crashing down on her body. But she didn't sleep.
She waited, eyes closed, body still. She felt the tears falling down her face, she still didn't sob, she had cried that out of her system hours ago. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally exhausted. Everything in her hurt so much, everything in her was numb and broken, and she felt so lost in her loneliness.
It felt like the end of the beginning, maybe it was a sign for her to turn a new leaf, maybe leave everything she'd grown comfortable with, after all, what was there to keep her here anymore?
Everything felt meaningless, everything felt as if it was falling away. She felt as if her life was just a waste, there was nothing left for her here, and everything that made her who she was had just faded away. It didn't seem like her life was going to get any easier or any better, she felt no hope for the future, she just wanted anything to numb the pain.
It all felt too real to her now, but she got her wish, she'd get a divorce and she now realised she'd never been so terrified for the future.
The future had never felt more dark and the void was only growing inside of her. She felt herself spiralling down and there was nothing she could do to stop it. As much as she knew she needed to be strong and pull herself out of it, her mind was too clouded and her body too exhausted to even try to help herself. She was lost, so utterly lost.
But as she felt four fluffy paws crawling on her all she could think to herself was at least she had Ralph.
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