The air in the kitchen was thick enough to choke on, smelling of burnt coffee and the sharp, metallic tang of a resentment that had been simmering for 365 days. Frankie was used to turbulence, he’d flown birds through South American storms that would make most pilots piss themselves, but this? This domestic static was worse.

The argument had started over something pathetic. A toy left on the stairs, a missed phone call, the way the floor creaked under his boots. It didn't matter. What mattered was the weight of the last year pressing down on his chest, a suffocating heat that made his skin crawl every time he walked through his own front door.

"You’re never here, Frankie!" You screamed, your voice cracking in the way that usually made him want to reach out and pull you in.

But today, he just felt cold. He felt empty. He looked at you, really looked at you, and realized he’d been mourning this relationship while still living inside of it. He thought about the kid sleeping down the hall, the girl he loved more than his own life, and realized that staying for her was just teaching her how to live in a house made of glass and gasoline.

"Maybe I don't want to be here," Frankie snapped, his voice low, vibrating with months of suppressed adrenaline.

"Then go! Go back to the jungle, go back to your brothers, go wherever the fuck you want!"

"I want a divorce."

The words exploded. They hit the floorboards like live grenades.

Frankie flinched at the sound of his own voice, but as the echoes died out, he didn't feel that sickening lurch of regret he’d expected. Instead, he felt his lungs expand for the first time in months. His heart rate, which had been spiking at an uneven 110, leveled out into a steady, rhythmic thrum.

He’d spent a year rehearsing this in his head. He’d imagined it over drinks with Benny, imagined it while staring at the ceiling of a motel room, imagined it while holding his daughter and feeling like a fucking fraud. He’d planned for a sit down talk. A calm, rational dissolution of a life.

Instead, he’d just gutted the room with four words.