The Starter Wife Chapter 1

"My childhood best friend, Leo, has depression.

It’s the kind of depression that requires him to be coaxed into eating, held to fall asleep. The kind that made him slice at his own wrist with a penknife that one time he couldn't get hard.

It wasn't until the arrival of the woman who was clearly meant to be his savior—the protagonist of his redemption story—that I realized I was just a supporting character. An insignificant extra.

So, I quit.

When Leo tried to cut his wrists, I sharpened the knife for him.

When he threatened to jump from the balcony, I opened the window.

And in the middle of hate-fueled sex, I called him a minute man.

As I saw the heroine of his story nearing the completion of her quest, I took the initiative and asked for a divorce.

That’s when Leo grabbed my waist, his voice a raw shout. ""How do you think my depression got better? Don't you have any clue at all?""

* * *

I knew Leo was different from the time I was still running around in diapers.

While I was climbing trees like a little monkey, he’d be in his room, silently shedding tears. When I was slinging a tiny backpack for my first day of preschool, barely able to recognize the letters of the alphabet, he had already written one hundred and eighty suicide notes.

The reasons for wanting to end it all were always different.

From accidentally stepping on an ant, to losing a single strand of hair, even wetting the bed in the middle of the night—they were all justifications for why he couldn't go on living.

And at the end of every single note, he’d write the same line:

【Dear Mom and Dad, if I die, please leave everything I own to Clara.】

At seven, ""everything he owned"" was a small box of a thousand paper stars, painstakingly folded from candy wrappers.

At ten, it was the Christmas money he’d saved up all year.

At sixteen, it was a binder full of his perfect, straight-A report cards.

That’s right.

Even with his crippling depression, he was still a bona fide genius who aced every class.

By the time we were twenty-two, his most precious asset had become me—his beautiful wife, Clara.

That's why every time I looked at the listless, half-dead version of Leo, who sometimes lacked even the energy to properly tie a noose, I would erupt in helpless fury.

""What right do you even have to be depressed?"" I’d demand.

""Your family's company is practically a national chain, you're so ridiculously good-looking that talent scouts have tried to recruit you, and you sailed through school without ever getting less than an A+. What the hell do you have to be depressed about?""

Hearing me say that, his innocent, deer-like eyes would mist over, the corners turning red. He was one bitten lip away from whimpering, ""I want to die.""

But instead, he’d say, ""You're right. Besides being handsome, rich, brilliant, and married to a perfect wife, what else do I have going for me?""

He’d sigh dramatically. ""My life is such a failure.""

And then he’d reach for a penknife to drag across his thigh. It wasn't because his arms were too sensitive; it was because I’d been away on a business trip, and his forearms were already a latticework of pale, scarred lines, with no clean space left.