Chapter 2 Courtroom Hearts

# Chapter 2 — Courtroom Hearts

The worst part about divorce isn't signing the papers. It's the waiting. The sterile courthouse hallway with its polished floors reflecting fluorescent lights, the distant echo of voices announcing cases and lives being divided like assets. Two years ago, I sat on one of those uncomfortable wooden benches, watching the minute hand tick forward on the wall clock, waiting for my marriage to officially end.

Caleb was late that day. Twenty-three minutes late. I remember counting each one, wondering if he wouldn't show at all, if some part of him was fighting against this finality as much as I was.

"You look like you could use this," Sophie said now, handing me a glass of wine as we sat in my apartment. Three days had passed since the invitation arrived, and I'd finally worked up the courage to tell her the full story.

"Thanks," I murmured, taking a long sip. "Where was I?"

"The courthouse. Your divorce."

I nodded, the memory sharp and clear despite my attempts to blur it. "Right. So Caleb finally shows up, looking... God, Sophie, he looked terrible. Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes. For a moment, just a moment, I thought he might say he'd changed his mind."

Sophie tucked her feet under her on my couch. "Did you want him to?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe. Things weren't good between us for a long time, but ending it felt..." I struggled for words. "It felt like admitting defeat."

My phone buzzed with a text. My cousin Mia: *Just heard the news! So weird about Caleb and Rowan. You okay?*

I put the phone down without answering. The news was spreading through the family now. Soon everyone would know, if they didn't already.

"Anyway," I continued, "we barely spoke during the proceedings. Just yes and no to the judge's questions. It was so... clinical. And then it was over. We walked out of the courtroom, and he said—" My voice caught. "He said, 'I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed.'"

Sophie's face softened. "Oh, Hazel."

"I told him it wasn't his fault. That we just wanted different things." I laughed bitterly. "Apparently what he wanted was my step-sister."

I took another sip of wine, larger this time. "I found out yesterday how they met. Or rather, when they first 'officially' connected."

"How?"

"My cousin Mia told me. She saw them that day at the courthouse. After I left, Caleb stayed behind. And Rowan was there."

Sophie frowned. "At your divorce proceedings? Why?"

"That's the part that makes me sick." I set down my wine glass before I could break another one. "She claimed she came to support me, but never found me. Instead, she ran into Caleb in the hallway. Apparently, she was crying—'so upset' about my divorce—and he comforted her."

"She was crying about *your* divorce?" Sophie's disbelief mirrored my own. "That's..."

"Calculated," I finished for her. "She knew exactly what she was doing."

I hadn't seen Rowan in nearly a year before that day. Our relationship had always been complicated—the classic story of a blended family that never quite blended. When my father married her mother, Judith, I was ten and Rowan was eight. From the beginning, Judith made it clear whose side she was on, and my father was too conflict-avoidant to intervene.

"So she used your divorce to make a move on Caleb?" Sophie asked, pulling me back to the present.

"According to Mia, they exchanged numbers that day. He was 'concerned about her' and wanted to 'check in.'" I made air quotes, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "They started meeting for coffee. She would ask about me, about how I was doing. Playing the concerned step-sister while working her way into his life."

Sophie shook her head. "And he fell for it."

"Completely," I confirmed. "Mia says everyone in the family could see what was happening, but no one said anything because..." I trailed off.

"Because?"

"Because they all thought it was for the best. That Caleb deserved 'someone stable' after being with me."

Sophie's outrage was immediate. "That's bullshit! You're the most stable person I know!"

I smiled weakly. "Not according to my family. To them, I've always been the difficult one. The one who chose art over business, who moved away for college, who 'broke poor Caleb's heart' by filing for divorce."

I didn't add that the reason for our divorce was Caleb's increasing resentment over my decision not to have children right away. How his gentle pressure turned to passive-aggressive comments, then to full arguments. How I found myself drowning in a life I wasn't ready for, with a man who no longer saw me, only the future mother of his children.

My phone buzzed again. This time, a notification from our family group chat. I opened it with a sense of dread.

It was a photo. Rowan and Caleb at what looked like a family dinner I hadn't been invited to. Rowan beaming in a navy blue dress, her hand possessively on Caleb's arm. Caleb smiling—not his real smile, I noticed, but the polite one he used for photographs. Below the image, my mother's message:

*"Finally, a son-in-law I'm satisfied with."*

The words hit me like a physical blow. I turned the phone so Sophie could see.

"Jesus Christ," she breathed. "Your mom actually wrote that? Knowing you'd see it?"

I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.

"That's it," Sophie declared, taking my phone and typing rapidly. "I'm responding for you."

"Sophie, don't—"

Too late. She hit send and handed the phone back to me. I looked down to see her reply:

*"Glad to know where I stand, Mother. Congratulations on your recycled son-in-law."*

"Sophie!" I gasped. "I can't believe you just did that."

She looked unrepentant. "Someone needed to say it."

My phone immediately lit up with responses:

Judith: *Hazel, there's no need for that tone.*

Mia: *😬*

My father: *Let's all take a breath here.*

And then, worst of all, Rowan: *We were hoping you'd be happy for us, Hazel. This negativity is exactly why Caleb needed someone more supportive.*

"I can't do this," I whispered, turning off my phone. "I can't face any of them."

Sophie moved next to me on the couch, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "You don't have to. Not tonight."

But I would have to eventually. The wedding invitation still sat on my desk, taped together but intact. A reminder that in six weeks, I would stand in a church and watch my ex-husband marry the step-sister who had methodically replaced me in his life—and in my family.

"You know what the worst part is?" I said quietly. "I still miss him sometimes. Not even the relationship, just... him. The way he'd bring me coffee in the morning. How he could always tell when I was overthinking something. The sound of his laugh."

Sophie squeezed my shoulder. "That's normal, Hazel. You loved him."

"And now he's with someone who probably never loved him at all," I said, the realization dawning on me with sickening clarity. "This isn't about love for Rowan. It's about winning."

I just didn't understand yet what game we were really playing.