Chapter 4Smoked Out of My Marriage

"Did you find anything else?" Larry asked me over the phone.

"What's left to find? Curtis's birthday is next week, and Diana already RSVP'd to his party."

"What about you?"

"She hasn't mentioned it to me."

The limited-edition Zippo had been delivered to her office three days ago. I only knew because the shipping notification had popped up on our shared Amazon account. Diana hadn't said a single word about it.

On Thursday night, she came home much later than usual. She was wearing a new dress I’d never seen before, and a delicate silver necklace rested against her collarbone.

"Why so late tonight?"

"Just a team dinner."

She kicked off her heels and started walking toward the bedroom. As she brushed past me, a distinct scent drifted through the air.

It wasn't her usual perfume.

It was a faint, lingering mix of tobacco and cedar clinging to her collar.

"Diana."

"Yeah?"

"Your clothes smell like smoke."

She looked down, sniffing her collar, and frowned. "Someone was smoking at dinner. I probably just picked up the scent."

"Who was smoking?"

She gave me a look—that familiar expression of annoyance she tried so hard to mask. "Thomas, there were fifteen people there. How am I supposed to remember who was smoking?"

"Was Curtis there?"

She paused. "Yes, he was. Why?"

"Was he smoking?"

"I didn't pay attention."

"That scent on you doesn't smell like a passing drift. It smells like you were sitting right next to him."

She brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and turned to face me directly. "What are you trying to say, Thomas?"

"I’m saying you have a nodule on your lung. You shouldn't be sitting in a cloud of smoke."

"It's not like I'm breathing it in all day, every day. It was just one evening—"

"One evening? Diana, I went through Curtis's Instagram. Every single time you two are in a photo together over the last six months, he has a lit cigarette. Every. Single. Time."

Her expression went completely cold. "You went through his profile? Are you insane, Thomas?"

"Whether I'm insane doesn't matter. What matters is that you forced me to quit smoking for eight years, and then turned around to buy another man an engraved sterling silver Zippo."

The living room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence for what felt like five seconds.

Diana's gaze shifted. The annoyance faded, replaced by a coldness I had never seen in her before. "Did you go through my Amazon orders?"

"The delivery notification popped up on our shared account. I didn't have to search for it."

"So C.W. is Curtis. So what? It's his birthday. What’s wrong with getting a colleague a gift?"

"Buying him a lighter is encouraging him to keep smoking. You have a growth on your lung, Diana. Don't you see the problem?"

"Those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other!" She finally lost her temper, her voice rising. "Those are his lungs, not mine! I bought him that lighter because he collects them. It has nothing to do with whether he smokes around me!"

"Then let me give you a reality check. A woman who claims she can't stand the smell of smoke buys a luxury lighter for a man who constantly smokes in her presence, while banning her own husband from touching a single cigarette for eight years. That is the definition of a double standard."

Diana stared at me, her eyes drilling into mine. "Thomas, is this really about the cigarettes, or is this about Curtis?"

"It's about the fact that your rules for me don't apply to him."

"Of course they don't apply to him! He's my coworker, and you're my husband. The boundaries are entirely different. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

"The problem is that you are infinitely more forgiving of him than you ever are of me."

She blinked, caught off guard for a second, before letting out a sharp, mocking laugh. "You're a grown man throwing a tantrum over this. Aren't you embarrassed?"

"Sure, let's say I'm embarrassed."

I stood up, pulled her medical report from beneath the coffee table, and threw it down in front of her.

"Then look at this and tell me who should be embarrassed. I spent hours reading medical journals. Nonsmoking women with regular exposure to secondhand smoke are two and a half times more likely to develop pulmonary nodules. And the only person who routinely smokes around you is Curtis Wells. Not me."

Diana stared at the medical report, her lips parting slightly, but she couldn't find her voice.

"Eight years," I said, my voice sounding flat, as if it were echoing from a vast distance. "I quit for eight years to protect you, and in the end, I wasn't the one who put you in danger. But you can't even admit it."

She looked up, her rims turning red with unshed tears, but her voice only grew colder. "So what is your point, Thomas? Are you blaming Curtis? Or are you blaming me?"

"I'm not blaming anyone."

I looked straight into her eyes, finally letting go of the words I had kept locked away for so long.

"Diana, I want a divorce."