The words were still hanging in the air when the judge struck the gavel for the third time.
Bella stared at Emir, hoping he would change his mind before the final knock echoed through the courtroom. But Emir only lowered his head. His face was calm—too calm for someone who had just ended a seven-year marriage.
“We’re no one to each other anymore,” he said as they walked out of the Religious Court building. “Our fated match ends here.”
Bella stopped walking.
People moved around them. Some were waiting for rides, some were talking on their phones, and others were sneaking glances. No one knew that Bella’s world had just collapsed amid the sound of car engines and the heat radiating from the courthouse courtyard.
“I still hoped we could reconcile.” Her voice was barely audible. “I’m not giving you false hope, Emir. I’m truly ready to carry your child.”
Emir looked at her. For a moment, his eyes seemed tired.
“Why only now?”
The question struck Bella harder than the judge’s ruling.
“I was afraid,” she answered.
“For seven years, I asked you to talk to me about that fear.”
“I know.” Bella gripped the hem of her clothes. “But I thought we still had time.”
“Maybe you did.” Emir looked away. “But I ran out of time.”
Bella wanted to argue, but the words caught in her throat. All this time, she had always assumed Emir would keep waiting. She thought their marriage, even though it had begun as an arranged marriage, still had enough room to save itself.
It turned out she was wrong.
“Then I’ll prove it,” she said quickly. “I’ll stop using birth control. I’ll get examined. I’ll—”
“Don’t.”
That one word silenced Bella.
“Don’t promise something born out of the fear of losing me,” Emir continued. “I don’t want a child to come into this world just because you’re afraid of being abandoned.”
“I can learn to love the child.”
“Maybe.” Emir drew a long breath. “But I can’t go back to being your husband just to wait and see whether you’ve really changed.”
Bella looked at the ring on her ring finger. It was still there, even though their marriage no longer existed. She tried to take it off, but her fingers wouldn’t move.
Emir stepped closer before he could stop himself. Close enough that Bella caught the scent she had woken up beside for seven years—cedar soap, ironed cotton, and the faint bitterness of the coffee he always drank too fast. Her body recognized him before her pride did. Her breath shortened. The skin at the back of her neck prickled, as if it still expected his palm to rest there the way it used to when they stood in crowded rooms.
His gaze dropped to her hand. Then to her mouth.
For one long second, he looked at her the way he had on nights when neither of them spoke, when the lamp was already off and only his breathing told her he was still awake.
His fingers lifted, almost brushing the ring on her finger. Almost.
Then he closed his hand into a fist and let it fall back to his side.
Bella hated how much she had wanted him to finish the movement.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“We go our separate ways.”
“You sound like you’re talking about a business matter.”
“Because that’s what it’s felt like all along.”
Bella lifted her face. Her tears fell uncontrollably.
Emir immediately turned away. It wasn’t because he didn’t care. He knew that the slightest tenderness would make them reopen the same conversation—the conversation they had repeated for years without ever finding a way out.
“I suggest you don’t remain a divorcee for too long,” he said at last. “Not because I want to control your life. I just don’t want your family and society to use that status as an excuse to look down on you. Find someone whose life goals align with yours.”
“And you?”
“I’ll find a woman who wants to have children with me.”
The sentence should have sounded simple. But to Bella, it was like a door being closed from the inside.
Emir took a step back.
“We’re officially separated,” he said. “Don’t hope for me anymore.”
For the first time since they had married, Emir didn’t address her the way he usually did. There was no familiar tone, no affected tenderness. Even when he said goodbye, he said, “I’ll take my leave,” instead of, “I’m leaving.”
That small change made Bella realize that the end of a marriage didn’t always come with a major fight. Sometimes, it appeared in a single pronoun.
Emir walked toward the parking area. His family was already waiting for him beside a white SUV. Leonardo, his father, stood with a serious expression, while Rose—his mother—adjusted the sunglasses perched on top of her head.
Bella had come alone. Her family had refused to accompany her after learning that she still insisted on postponing pregnancy. They called her selfish. Ungrateful. Too in love with herself.
Maybe they weren’t entirely wrong.
Bella was afraid of losing her figure. She was afraid her body would change, afraid of irreversible pain, afraid of the death that might be waiting for her on the childbirth table. She had also never felt a powerful longing to become a mother.
Yet every time she tried to explain, no one truly listened to her fears. They heard only one thing: Bella didn’t want to give Emir a child.
Inside the car, Rose looked at her son through the rearview mirror.
“What were you talking about with Bella earlier?”
“Saying goodbye.”
Leonardo patted Emir on the shoulder before sitting in the front seat. “You did the right thing.”
Emir didn’t answer. He watched the courthouse courtyard slowly recede beyond the window.
“Do you regret it?” Rose asked.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Rose studied him. “If you don’t regret it, why do you look like someone who just lost something?”
Emir lowered his gaze to his hands. For seven years, those hands had been used to finding Bella beside him in bed, at the dining table, or in front of the mirror crowded with bottles of skincare products. They weren’t romantic. They didn’t say “I love you” to each other every day, either. Their marriage had begun with a family decision and endured because of habit, obligation, and the need to look good in the eyes of others.
But habits still left an empty space when they were suddenly taken away.
“I feel like a bad person,” he said.
“Because you divorced your wife?”
“Because I waited for her to change, then punished her when she was too late.”
Leonardo turned around from the front seat. “You gave her seven years. How much longer would have been enough, in your opinion?”
Emir had no answer.
Rose leaned back. “You want a family. That isn’t wrong. Bella wants a life without children. That isn’t wrong either. The wrong thing would be forcing one of you to live with regret.”
“What if I still love her?”
His mother was silent for a moment.
“Do you still love her?”
Emir stared at the road ahead. Bella’s image kept appearing in his mind—her pale face, swollen eyes, and the ring she still hadn’t taken off.
“No,” he answered.
But his voice wasn’t convincing enough, not even to himself.
In the courthouse courtyard, Bella finally sat inside her car. She took off her wedding ring, but she didn’t set it on the dashboard. The ring remained in her palm, warmed by her own body.
Her phone vibrated.
A message arrived from an unsaved number.
Don’t let Emir marry again before you learn the real reason he wants a child so badly.
Bella read the message twice.
Then, for the first time that day, her tears stopped.