October 7, 2026

The first punch landed clean enough to make my wife smile.2026

Someone else yelled, “Welcome to the real world, old man!”

I tasted blood where my molar had cut the inside of my cheek.

Across the blue mats, Claire stood with her arms folded beneath her chest, watching the man she had been married to for fourteen years get punched by the twenty-eight-year-old man she had been sleeping with.

She didn’t look frightened.

She looked relieved.

As if Derek’s fist had confirmed something she had been telling herself for months.

That I was weak.

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