Chapter 1

My husband used a coin toss to decide who controlled our money. Heads, I got my pay back. Tails, his ex-wife kept control of it.

Over the past year, I'd lost twelve times in a row. I had to wait for Vivian to send me money to buy groceries and forward her the utility bills before I could pay them. Even buying a box of tampons meant explaining why I'd already used up the ones from last month.

Why did his ex-wife get to decide how Nathan and I spent every dollar in our own home?

But whenever I questioned him, he'd wrap his arms around me, patient as ever.

"Vivian always handled this stuff. If I take it all away from her right after the divorce, she'll think I can't wait to erase her from my life."

"Just give her a little more time, okay? Win next month, and you get the account. Then she won't have a reason to be upset."

Then, on my birthday, he flipped the coin again at the restaurant table.

Tails.

Vivian smiled, picked up the bank card in front of me, and left with her arm linked through Nathan's.

I sat there alone until a waiter came over. "Ma'am, I think your husband dropped this."

He placed a coin in my palm. Both sides were tails.

I hadn't been unlucky. Nathan had never given me a chance to win.

He could keep his rigged coin and his ex-wife. I was done being his wife.

...

I closed my hand around the coin. As I stood up, the waiter reminded me that the bill hadn't been paid.

I'd been paid just the day before. At Nathan's insistence, I'd already transferred the money to the household account he'd told me to use. Vivian had the card, and all the payment alerts and login verification codes went to her phone.

There were only a few dollars left in my own account.

I called Nathan. I'd barely mentioned the restaurant bill when Vivian took over.

"Claire, I told you we've already had enough extra expenses this week. Why did you order dessert?"

I looked at the cake on the table, with a candle in it.

"It's my birthday."

"So? You think the budget doesn't count just because it's your birthday?" She laughed. "Stay there. I'll pay when I'm finished. Maybe next time you'll remember to ask first."

It was my paycheck.

And she was using my own money to lecture me about how to celebrate my birthday.

"Nathan," I said. "Did you hear what she just said?"

"She's just trying to stop you from wasting money." He already sounded impatient. "We're going to her parents' for dinner. Don't ruin everyone's evening."

Before we got married, he'd always booked this restaurant in advance for my birthday. He remembered I didn't eat oysters and didn't want almonds on my cake. Last year, he'd proposed right beside this table.

Now he was leaving me here to have dinner with his ex-wife and her parents.

"I want a divorce."

There was a moment of silence, followed by Vivian's laughter.

"Here we go again. Is threatening you with divorce the only thing she knows how to do?"

Nathan sighed.

"You just lost a coin toss, Claire. You can try again next month. There's no need to take it this far."

He hung up.

I looked at the coin in my palm, with tails on both sides, and finally understood: the next month he kept promising me was never going to come.

The restaurant manager didn't rush me out. He even brought me a glass of water. Vivian didn't call to pay until they were almost ready to close. By then, the food in front of me was cold, and the candle had burned out.

I left the untouched cake on the table and whispered, "Happy birthday, Claire."

When I got back to our apartment building, my key card didn't work.

I tried again. The reader still flashed red. Then a message appeared in our three-person group chat.

"Vivian forgot her visitor pass today, so I gave her the spare key card. She said you'd lost yours and asked the front desk to deactivate it. You can get a replacement tomorrow."

I looked at the card in my bag, the one I'd had with me the whole time, and sent Nathan a photo.

All he sent back was, "She got mixed up, that's all. Ask the front desk to let you in. Don't start another fight."

The person on the night shift didn't recognize me. I sat on a bench outside the lobby while he contacted the building manager to verify that I lived there. My phone's lock screen lit up. In the photo, Nathan was on one knee in front of me, holding a ring.

Then Vivian posted an update.

She had her arm linked through Nathan's as they stood between her parents, all four of them close together. The caption read: With my family.

I closed the photo and found the contact information for a lawyer a client had once recommended.

"I need to end my marriage. Please tell me what I need to do."