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champagne problems.
She felt like a failure.
A divorce was never in her cards . . . at least, that’s what she thought when she married Stone all those years ago. They were so, so in love with one another . . . but . . . he loved drugs more. Loved the life of the club more. Loved everyone but Lennon and the kids more. It became more and more clear as each day passed; each night he never came home, and on the days he did, the smell of liquor on his breath and his bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils always told her where he had been. It didn’t matter to him that she no longer felt safe with him around, or that she feared for the safety of her kids. It didn’t matter to him that she was slowly falling out of love with him each time he came back with new track marks decorating his skin like ugly reminders of the monster he turned into.
The only thing Stone ever cared about was Stone.
And when he didn’t come home for a week straight, Lennon knew there wasn’t much else to fight for.
She sighted ‘irreconcilable differences’ for her reasoning. Told her lawyer that the spark just wasn’t there anymore, and said it wasn’t work keeping the kids in a toxic environment any longer. She could have told the truth . . . said Stone was abusive, and he chose drugs over his family, but silly Lennon wanted to protect him like she always had. Because she hoped somewhere deep down, the Stone she knew would come back to her.
“If you could just sign here . . .” Her lawyer says softly, pointing to the dotted line above her printed name. The pen shook in her hand, and it took a moment for her to gather enough composure to glide the ball over the paper, her signature scribbled on the line as defeat took over. “I know this isn’t easy,” Jonathan offers a sympathetic look when Lennon sets the pen down. “But once we have Stone’s signature, it’ll all be over.”
It’ll all be over.
The family she worked so hard for. The life she built from the ground up with a man that she thought was her knight in flannels and motorcycle jackets, the relationship she put so much love into . . . it’ll all be over.
She was foolish for believing a man like Stone Walsh could turn his life around for a woman like her.
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