Sweet Romance12 min read
"Divorce, Fried Chicken, and a Thousand Small Loves"
ButterPicks13 views
"I want a divorce."
I froze with a drumstick halfway to my mouth. Grease ran down my chin, and I blinked at the voice.
"What?" I said, because you can't trust words that come from the man you live with when they're that short and that cold.
He said it again. "I want a divorce."
I swallowed. "You—when did you get back?"
He didn't answer me kindly. He only looked like someone trying to decide whether to be angry or to be hurt. "I'm serious."
I shrugged, as if a couple of words could unbalance our marriage like a scale. "Fine. If that's what you want."
He turned and left. The door made a heavy sound when it shut.
I stood there with my plate and a slow bruise in the middle of my chest, and I told myself, "This is a mood. He'll come home tomorrow and he'll be clingy again."
But Garth hadn't been home for three days. He hadn't texted. He hadn't said he missed me. Garth Kristensen was the kind of man who liked to be near, always—so three days of distance felt like a storm.
I went to his office like it was something you do when the weather gets wild. Like repairing a loose tile. When the assistant opened the door and saw me, his eyes flew between me and the inner room.
"Mrs. Kristensen," Philip Schwarz said, too polite, too nervous. "Garth is in a meeting."
"Then I'll wait," I said, stepping inside.
There he was, curled around a woman in a red dress—Katalina Chambers, later to be named an "assistant," though she looked like she'd been dressed to be looked at. When he turned, the warmth in his face wasn't gratitude. It was flat, like bread that had sat out too long.
I planted myself like a flag and asked, "Who is she?"
Garth didn't answer. He held the woman tighter, like she could become a shield.
"So that's it," I said. "You're leaving me for her."
"No." He sounded distant. "This is—it's stupid."
"Fine. Then we'll divorce. Tomorrow, nine a.m."
I slammed the door so hard the glass trembled. Philip looked pale enough to be a ghost. "Mrs. Kristensen—"
"Don't," I said, and walked out fast enough to spill grease on a hallway carpet.
I didn't go home. Instead I went to the bar I used to work at, and I drank like I was refilling a wound. Grover Munoz, the manager who'd seen me through nights when a customer refused to pay, came over.
"You're drunk," he said.
"I am not," I lied and drank again. "Garth can divorce me. I'm not afraid of being alone."
Grover sighed, and when he called someone, I kept talking to anyone who would listen. "He said divorce. Can you imagine? Leaving me, the queen of fried chicken? Do you know how good the new recipe is, Grover? It's life-changing."
"You're hungover, Lacey. Go sleep."
I didn't. I called Garth. He let me talk for thirty seconds, then hung up.
Then the phone line clicked to dead. I poured another glass and cried because men like Garth always knew the right time to hurt. He was the heir to a company in A City, a man who could have been cold and distant; instead he had been weirdly gentle, like someone who didn't quite fit his suit. I had been a delivery girl who knew how to fix a pipe. We married. He called me "wife." I called myself lucky, or greedy—I wasn't sure which.
I wasn't used to love. Love was something other people talked about in movies. For me, love used to be rationed like bread. I had learned fast: fix the problem, grab the pay, move on. But somewhere, among the city lights and spilled drinks, I started to care about Garth the person. Or about the way he laughed. Or maybe about the dinners we shared. I couldn't tell.
"Do you love him?" Juliet David asked me one morning over bad coffee.
"I don't know," I said honestly.
She slapped the table. "If you don't know, figure it out. He said divorce. He said it because he's hurt. Ask him."
I tried. He was in France, or so Philip told me; he was supposedly tied up with a big deal. I bought a plane ticket like I was buying a remedy—one way, to go wake him up from whatever fog he had fallen into.
On the plane I folded my hands around a worn bouquet of roses my mother had given me. Sylvie Becker—Garth's mother, smiling like she believed in fairy tales—had put me in a car and shoved the roses into my hands. "Give them yourself. You don't need anyone's permission to be brave," she said. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be the kind of woman who didn't drown in doubts.
When I arrived, my feet were sore, my French was nonexistent, and the roses were dying. A small child knocked me over and the bouquet spilled, petals like dull confetti. I caught sight of Garth farther away, his face a cliff.
"Lacey," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Fix the divorce," I answered. "We talk. We fix things."
He looked annoyed and guilty all at once. "I have a meeting."
"Everything is always meetings with you," I said. "At least come back to the hotel and we'll—"
He took me back. I thought he'd soften. The hotel lobby turned into a stage the next day when an exotic woman—Katalina—walked in, draped in scarlet and sun, and I watched Garth press himself into her like a man who had rehearsed indifference.
"Katalina!" I cried, and walked up, heart making a mess in my ribs. "What are you doing with my husband?"
Katalina said, "Go away," in a language I didn't care to learn.
Garth flinched. "She's—it's not what you think."
"Isn't it?" I dropped the roses into his arms. "You told me you wanted a divorce. Then you hold a woman like a cushion. Then you expect me to say 'oh okay'?"
He tried to explain in a voice that trembled. He fumbled. "I was jealous," he said finally. "I wanted to see if you'd react."
"So you set me up?" I said.
"Not—it's complicated."
I stomped. "Fine. If you want to play games, I can play. Leave me alone."
He followed me into our hotel room that night like a dog on a leash and I found, in the dark, that I didn't have the courage to push him away. He kissed me like someone who had been starved. He said, "I can't lose you."
But in daylight the next fight was worse. "Do you love me?" he asked.
"Love?" I said. "I'm not a poet."
He said, "You choose fried chicken over me."
"Of course. If I'm hungry, I pick the chicken." I flinched at my honesty, like it had claws.
He slammed the door. He left. The call button blue slid over my phone and kept cutting off. He was offended that I hadn't shown him a love he could read in placement and sacrifice and constant performance. He wanted a heroine of small gestures and I had been a practical woman with grease on her chin.
"Then show me," he said at one point, voice small.
"Show you what?" I demanded.
"Show me love."
We kept arguing. We kept making up. He would sulk, I would sulk. He would do something ridiculous—like get his assistant to stage a scene—and I would react.
The thing is: Garth had never been mean. He had been careless, yes. He had hurt me on purpose once—when he said "divorce" like it was an errand. But big and terrible? No. For a while, I wanted him to be punished—because the pain in my throat wanted justice more than it wanted honesty. So the universe did me a favor in a way I hadn't expected.
The punishment came at the company banquet. Everything glittered. "Don't embarrass me," Garth whispered as we stepped into a flood of light and noise. I was wearing a basic dress because I didn't want to look like an attempt. He wore a tie that looked like it had learned how to smile. I wasn't ready for the reveal.
"Mrs. Kristensen!" someone called. Matteo Schneider, who later confessed he'd been the wedding's best man, sidled up and started telling stories I didn't need. "You remember the red dress stunt?"
I blinked. "What stunt?"
Before Garth could move, Philip—myn't-so-friendly assistant who had been sweating since I was in France—cleared his throat and produced a file. "Ladies and gentlemen," Philip said loudly, "there's a matter I think we should clear up tonight."
"Garth, what is this?" I hissed, but my voice did nothing to stop the lights turning toward us.
Philip opened the file. It was full of dates and messages and receipts. "This isn't just a misunderstanding," he said. "Mrs. Kristensen, you deserve to know the truth."
Garth's face was folding in on itself. "Don't—"
"Let him speak," I said. The crowd quieted because something raw was in the air like the smell of rain.
Philip read. "On March 2nd, Mister Kristensen arranged a prank. He paid an actor to pose as a romantic rival during a private meeting. He hired Katalina Chambers—"
The name landed like a plate dropped on ceramic. Katalina, who had been standing a little away, looked small all of a sudden. The guests murmured. "—to sit on Mr. Kristensen's lap in order to provoke a reaction from Mrs. Kristensen. Screenshots, messages, and payments are right here."
The room did not stay calm. "What?!" someone near the buffet hissed. "Sick."
"Why would he—" a woman behind us whispered.
Garth's mouth opened and closed like he was trying to fish a word out of deep water. "I—thought she didn't notice me," he said finally, voice raw. "I thought—I'm an idiot. I wanted to see if you'd react."
"See if I'd react?" I repeated. "You set me up like I was bait."
Garth's eyes shone. "I was jealous. I was scared. I thought if you saw me with another, you'd come back to me. I didn't want to lose you. I—"
"You didn't want to lose me, so you humiliated me," I said. My hands were white where they gripped the clutch. "You think that's love? You think that's proof? You staged my heartbreak."
"Stop it," he said. His voice dropped. "Please stop. Please."
People were taking out phones. A woman two tables away began to film. "This is—" she said. "He did this?"
A man snapped photos. The air shifted; curiosity flared into a kind of communal justice. Someone clucked their tongue. "That's cruel."
Garth's expression changed again: from guilt to anger to a child's confusion. He tried to laugh, a brittle sound. "I thought—oh God."
Katalina, who had been silent, stepped forward. "I didn't know it was a setup," she said to the crowd. "I thought it was part of a—an ad shoot. He paid me. I—"
"Paid you?" someone echoed.
I shoved the roses he had given me years ago into his hands and then threw them on the table. "You played with my face," I said. The roses fell apart, their heads rolling like defeated balloons.
Around us, the crowd's tone morphed. They loved a scandal that had heart. "Shame," an older woman murmured. "To use someone like that."
A younger man clicked his tongue. "That's phony. Play-acting poverty to catch a heart. Miserable."
Philip kept reading aloud messages he'd found—arrangements, payment details, scheduling. The evidence felt like a bandage tearing away. Garth went through phases in front of everyone: stunned disbelief, then frantic denial, then a brittle, animal panic where he only wanted to fix it. "I didn't mean—" he kept saying.
People watched. Some cheered me on quietly. "You stand up for yourself, girl," a waitress whispered. Others felt sorry. "He looks broken," someone said. But the first wave was outrage: "How could he?" "What pathetic jealousy."
Garth dropped into a chair. He rubbed his face like someone trying to wipe a smear off glass. He tried to laugh again and choked. "I thought if I staged it you'd be jealous and come back," he said in a voice that snapped like a rope. "I thought you'd be furious, but know I'm the center of your life—"
"And you think humiliating me proves that?" I asked.
He pressed his palms to his eyes, then looked up. "I wanted you to choose me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The crowd had opinions. "Public confession," someone said. "Public lesson."
I stepped back. My chest was raw. "Do you have anything else to say?" I asked.
He stood and met my eyes. "I'll explain. I'll apologize. I'll do anything."
Katalina's face had gone pale. She looked at me and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"You don't get to play the victim," Philip snapped. "You were hired."
Garth sobbed then—sudden, wet—like the ceiling had opened. "Forgive me," he whispered. "Please."
There, under the chandeliers, with laughter and silverware clinking around us, with phones like little windows broadcasting the moment, Garth Kristensen was stunned by the consequences of his trick. It fit the rules I had been told about punishments: public, prolonged, changing faces.
He first tried to justify: "I thought—" then denial: "No, no, it's complicated," then collapse: "Forgive me." The onlookers reacted: some took his side—"He looks like he regrets it"—others condemned him. A few recorded. A woman in a sequined dress stood and said, "You owe her more than an apology. You owe her dignity."
Garth's father, Calder Ewing, who had been at the banquet with Sylvie, finally stepped forward. He folded his arms and looked down at his son—at the man he'd raised and trained to navigate a boardroom. Silence, then his voice: "This was a stupid thing to do."
Garth's shoulders crumpled. "I know," he said.
The public punishment did not become a legal proceeding. It became something worse for him: public shame layered with the sound of other people's justice. People he had signed contracts with flicked their eyes away. A few colleagues whispered in corners. The press—there were always press people around—filed towards their tables. Someone called out, "Will Mrs. Kristensen press charges?" as if the world expected blood.
I turned toward the exit. The crowd parted like water. Garth grabbed my arm. "Don't go," he begged.
I looked at him. "Why should I stay?" I asked. People watched. He was falling to pieces. He looked like a man who had been revealed naked not physically but morally, and he did not have a shield.
"I'm sorry," he said for the thousandth time. "Please, tell me what to do."
I felt something shrink and then, slowly, bloom: not forgiveness, not yet, but a clear, cold decision about what I deserved.
"You staged me," I said. "You used me for your test. You made me the joke."
"I know, I know." He seemed smaller than the man the world called a prince of business. He had been reduced to a boy.
"Then here's what happens next," I said. "You make amends. You tell everyone the truth. You stop pretending it's some romantic gesture. You don't let me be a prop. And you—" I steadied myself. "You decide if you want to be a husband who can be trusted."
He nodded like someone hearing an assignment.
The rest of the night was messy. Some people applauded my restraint. Others felt sour. The cameras kept rolling. The story spread like it always does: quick and sharp.
For Garth, the humiliation was several layers. He had to face his parents' disapproval that night—Calder's disappointment and Sylvie's stunned embarrassment. He had to watch board members' faces shift when they realized their leader had played a ridiculous domestic game in public. He had to hear people laugh at his expense in corners of restaurants. He felt the small death of dignity, and people watched him shrink.
And for me, standing in the flood of light, I felt something else: the truth.
After that scene, nothing was really the same. We did not divorce the next morning because life is rarely that tidy. Instead, there was a long slow pull—some nights icy, others warm—where we began to rebuild.
He stopped trying to bait me. He called things by their names. He began to show care in small, honest acts: taking my hand before I reached for a tray; making me tea when I said my back hurt; standing in a grocery line with me and holding my bag. It wasn't fireworks. It was ordinary—like putting a kettle on and watching it sing.
"I hate that you broke trust," I told him one night when he rubbed my shoulders in the kitchen.
"I hate that I scared you," he said.
"Then stop being clever," I replied. "Stop thinking tests are love."
He blinked. "I don't know how to be anything else."
"Then learn." I smiled, a small, tired thing. "You are not too dumb, Garth. You're stubborn. Use it for good."
Over time we found the kind of language that worked for us. Instead of extravagant proofs, we carved out small rituals. He learned that taking off his jacket and laying it over my chair meant more than a red dress stunt. I learned that sometimes love looked like an extra slice of pizza saved for later. We argued like people who are secure that arguments will end; we made up and kept the funny stories to tell.
"Do you remember the banquet?" Juliet asked later, when we sat on a park bench and watched a child tiptoe on the grass.
"Every detail," I said. "Especially the part where my roses met carpet."
She smirked. "You made him pay."
"I didn't make him," I said. "He paid himself."
The truth was messy: he had hurt me like a fool. But watching him squirm and plead had also been a kind of reckoning. People who play games in the lives of those they claim to love often get undone by their own tricks. The banquet didn't fix everything—it only forced honesty into the light.
After the shame came work. Garth had to do the slow, humiliating labor of apology: calls to people he'd embarrassed, messages to colleagues, and a public statement of regret that wasn't a press release but a conversation with me where he revealed his real fear: losing me. He cleaned up the mess he had made by speaking plainly in private and making gestures in public that were small and true—a meeting canceled because I had a cold, a stupid movie watched together when he had a million reasons not to be distracted, a late night when he didn't fall asleep without telling me he was sorry for the game.
We did not become perfect. We became, instead, something that made sense: two flawed people agreeing to try. At some point I stopped counting the fried chicken as betrayal and started seeing it as a language of its own—my way of remembering what life tasted like. He stopped staging heartbreak and started scheduling dinners.
Months later, people would still talk about "the red dress incident" like it was an origin myth. Some told it as a cautionary tale about jealousy; others told it as a rom-com moment that almost went wrong. In the middle of those telling, Garth and I built a life that had arguments, tenderness, and a small son who liked to pat his father's cheek as if the world had already taught him to be affectionate.
We never forgot the public moment that forced us to choose. It stayed as a bruise that taught us to be more careful with each other. I kept my fried chicken stash. He kept his bad habit of forgetting to text back. And when he did something thoughtful—like reheating my food or taking the trash without being asked—I would look at him and think about the shock of that banquet, the way a man had become small and had to work his way back to dignity.
"Do you remember what you said when you proposed?" he asked one evening, half asleep, his head on my shoulder in our living room.
"You promised, 'If I break my word, let me be miserable,'" I said, smiling.
He laughed. "And you said yes anyway."
"I did," I said. "I did because you kept trying—even when you were wrong."
He tightened his arm around me. "I will keep trying," he whispered.
I felt the truth of it like the warmth of food after a long fast: messy, necessary, and oddly comforting.
The End
— Thank you for reading —