It cracked the way voices crack when someone is choosing anger because the alternative is crying in front of their employees—and possibly squirting on the carpet that cost more than most people's cars.
His wedding ring caught the fluorescent light as his fist clenched—gold band, simple, probably bought during a moment of sincere optimism that now felt like a cruel cosmic prank.
For one half-second, before the rage assembled itself into something he could wear like armor, his face wasn't fury. It was hurt.
The raw, naked face of a man who had just heard the woman he married say he was nothing. That he had never been enough. That someone else was giving her what he couldn't—even half of it—and doing it loudly enough for the entire floor to take notes.
Then the rage covered it. Fast. Violent. Like a hand slamming over a wound that was already bleeding out his entire sense of self-worth.
