The General's Replacement Doctor Wife

Chapter Twenty-five

Silence greeted Olivia when she walked into the house.

It wasn’t the peaceful kind.

It was chaotic, almost deafening, filling the hollow spaces of her heart with an ache that tears couldn’t cleanse. There was no husband waiting with affection in his eyes, no familiar voice calling her name. No parents asking whether she had eaten, whether she was all right.

No one was waiting at all.

She was meant to be alone. Or perhaps she deserved it.

That was how life worked, wasn’t it? Some people were handed everything: love, certainty, a place to belong. Others learned to live with empty hands. And sometimes, if you were cruelly favored, you were given just enough to hope, but never enough to keep. 

She walked into the bedroom she once shared with Clayton. Her gaze fell to the empty side of the bed where he used to sleep. How many nights had she lain awake, staring at his back, convincing herself that if she remained there for him, he might wake one morning and see her differently? That being the last face he saw before sleep and the first he saw at dawn might make him learn to care?

She had clung to the fragile belief that love could grow with time. It hadn’t. Love was not a seed you could force into bloom.

Olivia laughed at herself. She had been naïve. If he couldn’t love her before, he never would. Certainly not with Caroline around.

She changed into her sleepwear, pulling on one of Clayton’s old oversized shirts he no longer wore. Then, she slid beneath the covers and lay still, staring at the ceiling.

Her thoughts drifted to the life she wanted for her baby. A life utterly unlike her own. A life filled with certainty. A childhood where love was given freely, not begged for. 

A simple, happy, ordinary life.

Just before sleep claimed her, she made up her mind.

If fate had written her a cruel story, then she would refuse it. She would fight against circumstance, against loneliness, against whatever stood in her way.

The word "divorce" no longer frightened her.

It would hurt, of course it would. It would be messy, uncomfortable, and painful. But pain was no stranger to her. She had been living with a quieter, lonelier version of it for years.

What truly terrified her was staying. Remaining in a life that rationed affection, that asked her to shrink herself to survive.

So she made the decision.

She would set herself free.

—

Clack… clack.

The sound sliced through the stillness of the night, pulling Olivia from the depths of her dreams.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She noticed the faint outline of Clayton's coat draped over the accent chair where he always left it.

He was home.

As she wondered where he could be, she heard voices just outside her bedroom door. It was faint, but it was enough for her to recognize that one belonged to her husband and the other to Mr. Hilton.

Her heart began to hammer in her ribcage. What was her father doing here at this hour?

She swung her legs over the bed. Her palms pressed over her chest, willing her heart to slow its relentless pounding. She took a step, then another, until she finally reached the slightly opened door.