[...] I knew what I was going to tell him, the most desperate thing I could possibly tell him, as if even in the depths of indignity I craved something worse.

The problem isn't that you're married, I said. The problem is that I love you and you obviously don't love me.

He took a deep breath in and said: you're being unbelievably dramatic, Frances.

Fuck you, I said.

I slammed his bedroom door hard on my way out. He shouted something at me on my way down the stairs but I didn't hear what it was. I walked to the bus stop, knowing that my humiliation was now complete. Even though I had known Nick didn't love me, I had continued to let him have sex with me whenever he wanted, out of desperation and a naive hope that he didn't understand what he was inflicting on me. Now even that hope was gone. He knew that I loved him, that he was exploiting my tender feelings for him, and he didn't care. On the bus home I chewed the inside of my cheek and stared out the black window until I tasted blood.