Chapter 8 - The Charm OffensiveI spent Monday night at a quiet boutique hotel near Elena Ruiz’s office. For the first time in four years, I slept through the night without waking up to the knot of anxiety that usually sat in my stomach.
When I woke up on Tuesday morning, my phone showed sixteen missed calls and twenty-four text messages from Garrett.
Garrett: Maya, please come home. Let's talk about this like adults.
Garrett: I talked to my mom. She agrees she was overstepping. We can fix this.
Garrett: I love you, Maya. Don't throw four years away over money.
Garrett: I bought your favorite orchids. Please come home.
I ignored the messages, showered, and walked to Elena’s office for our nine-thirty appointment.
Elena was sitting behind her desk, sipping espresso, when I walked in. She looked at my serene face and raised an eyebrow.
"You look remarkably well for someone whose birthday dinner turned into a family intervention," Elena noted, sliding a yellow pad across the desk.
"I slept eight hours," I said, sitting down. "They left. But Garrett is trying the emotional appeal now."
"Of course he is," Elena said smoothly. "Stage one was intimidation. That failed because you had facts. Stage two is manipulation—promising change, appealing to nostalgia, blaming his mother. When that fails, stage three will be legal desperation."
Elena opened a folder on her desk. "I’ve drawn up the thirty-day Notice to Vacate, along with a formal Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. Do you want me to process the divorce filing today?"
I looked out the window at the Phoenix skyline. Four years of marriage, countless dinners where I was made to feel small, hundreds of subtle digs about my job, my personality, and my boundary-setting—it all crystallized into a single, quiet realization.
I didn't hate Garrett. I was just entirely, completely done with him.
"File it," I said.
Elena nodded with a approving smile. "A process server will deliver the Notice to Vacate and the divorce summons to your condo at two o'clock today."
"What about the forty-seven thousand dollars he took from the joint account?" I asked.
May you like
"We will list it as dissipation of marital assets in the financial discovery," Elena explained. "Since the funds came almost entirely from your separate earnings and were transferred to a third party without your consent, the court will offset his share of any remaining joint assets to repay you."
"Good," I said. "Now let's talk about changing the locks."
