"You want a divorce?"
Cormac's voice is flat while the clerk slides the clipboard toward us.
"I—" I look at the line where my name sits in cramped black ink. My hand trembles over the pen. The room smells like sanitizer and stale paper. The clerk taps a laminated rule card and doesn't look up.
"Sign here," Cormac says. He hands me the pen like it's a tool he no longer needs.
"I thought we could talk," I say, and the words come out thin.
The clerk clears his throat. "There's a thirty-day reconsideration period. Forms can't be processed until then."
My laugh is too small. "Thirty days," I repeat. "That’s—"
"Sign," Cormac says. He slides his hand across the form in a precise motion and signs. His handwriting is tight and cold.
"I can't sign like this," I say. "We have shared bills. My comic—"
"Sign," he repeats. He doesn't look at me. He folds his jacket over his arm like someone closing a book.
My nose warms. It starts with a pinprick and floods into a hot, metallic taste.
"I need a tissue," I tell the clerk. My fingers go to my face and then blood is on my knuckles.
"Oh for God's sake," the clerk says. He reaches for a box of tissues and drops it on the counter like it's heavy. "Keep it off the papers, please."
I don't make it to the tissue
