One Hundred Reasons To Walk Away

For three years, I documented my husband Ashton's neglect in a secret ledger I called "The Song of a Hundred Reasons." Each forgotten anniversary and dismissive glance was a point deducted from a hundred. When the points hit zero, I would walk away.

The final reason came not as a quiet slight, but as a deafening crash.

When a massive chandelier fell towards us in a restaurant, Ashton didn't hesitate. He shoved his "best friend" Bailey to safety, shielding her with his body while I was left to be crushed.

I woke up in the hospital with broken ribs and a severe concussion. He never visited.

Instead, he spent a fortune on a private med-jet to fly Bailey to a luxury retreat for her "panic attack." Her well-being was paramount; mine was an afterthought.

That was the final reason. I signed the divorce papers from my hospital bed and never looked back.

Two years later, holding a Grammy for my hit album "Song of a Hundred Reasons," he showed up, begging for a second chance.

Chapter 1

Elise Lynn POV:

The day I found the ledger was the day my life started its slow, painful re-write. It was buried deep in the back of Ashton' s massive, chaotic desk drawer, under a stack of old project blueprints and a half-eaten protein bar. I was looking for a pen, a mundane task in a marriage that had become nothing but mundane.

The cover was plain, a thick, dark leather, almost like a diary. It felt heavy in my hands, a silent invitation to something I knew I shouldn't touch.

But curiosity, like a venomous snake, had already coiled around my insides. I opened it.

"The Song of a Hundred Reasons."

The words were written in delicate, precise script on the first page, just like me. My stomach clenched. This wasn't Ashton's handwriting. This was mine.

Beneath the title, a set of rules. My rules. Rules I had forgotten I ever wrote.

Each entry logs an instance of neglect.

Each instance deducts one point.

Total points: 100.

When the points reach zero, I walk away.

I snorted, a dry, bitter sound that echoed in the silent mansion. A 'Song of a Hundred Reasons' ? How melodramatic. How perfectly me at some distant, naive point in time. I closed the book, about to put it back.

Then, a flicker of something in my periphery. Ashton' s phone, vibrating silently on the corner of the desk. A text message notification. From Bailey.

"Server failure. Project compromised. You' re my only hope, A."

My fingers tightened around the ledger. The memory of the text from Bailey, the urgent, proprietary tone, sliced through the thin layer of indifference I usually wore. It was a paper cut, small but sharp. I opened the book again, this time with a different intention. My eyes scanned the pages, skipping through the early, hesitant entries. They were neat, orderly. Little paragraphs detailing forgotten dinners, missed anniversaries, the times he' d gazed over my head while I was speaking, his mind clearly miles away with her.

Each one a tiny pinprick, but added up, they formed a growing bruise.

"Forgot our anniversary dinner for a 'crisis meeting' with Bailey, then blamed me for not reminding him."

"Said my new song was 'fine' without even listening beyond the first chorus, then spent an hour on the phone with Bailey discussing the nuances of her new algorithm."

"Ignored me completely at the family gala, introducing me as 'Ashton's wife' while gushing about Bailey's latest tech breakthrough to the board."

I felt a cold, hard knot of something unfamiliar twisting in my gut. This wasn't paranoia. This was documented truth. My truth.

I remembered the early days of our marriage, how I' d quietly cataloged these slights, believing that if I could just show him, he would understand. He would change. How foolish I had been.

I heard his car pull into the driveway, the crunch of tires on gravel a familiar sound that used to bring a flutter of anticipation, now just a dull thud of dread. I quickly snapped the ledger shut, shoving it back into the drawer.

He strode in, tie askew, eyes already on his phone. He didn' t even see me standing there, a ghost in my own living room.

"Ashton," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

He startled, looking up as if surprised to find me in his house. "Elise. You' re home. I thought you were out."

"No, I'm here," I said, the words tasting like ash. "Waiting."

He didn' t ask what I was waiting for. He never did. He just nodded, already turning back to his phone. "I have to head out again. Bailey's project is in trouble. Catastrophic server failure."

Catastrophic server failure. The words felt like a punch to the gut. Not because of the server, but because of the name attached to it. Bailey. Always Bailey.

I watched him go, the image of his retreating back, always chasing her, burning into my brain. My hand instinctively went to the desk drawer, pulling out the ledger again. I flipped to the last page, the one I hadn't dared to look at. The next blank line.

I stared at it, my heart a dull ache in my chest. The words were already forming in my mind.

He left me again, for her. A catastrophic server failure is more important than me.

I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me. The knot in my stomach loosened, replaced by a cold resolve. This wasn't melodrama. This was survival. And I was going to survive.