Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Day by day.
Month by month.
Shred by shred.
It seemed as if there was nothing left of him.
And soon, there would be nothing left of me as well.
“Why are you asking me that?” I questioned, unable to keep my body from trembling at the audacity of his offenses.
My mind incessantly shifted for what felt like the tenth time, watching Tristian make his way to the bar. Nothing could have prepared me for the string of events that happened next. One right after the other.
Not my past.
Not our past.
Not his anger or his hatred.
Or his love for me that destroyed us both.
My vision tunneled; all the blood drained from my face as I continued to watch his every step.
His every move.
Until he began searching for what I already knew was missing.
For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. No one moved, including me. There was an undeniable sense of awareness penetrating through the room when he demanded, “What did you do?”
The despair in my voice recoiled off the walls that were now caving in on me. My heart jackhammering its way up through my throat. “Tristian, please…” I begged, for I didn’t know what.
Our pain mixing as one, belonging together. Entwined through the past and the present, the good and the bad, his darkness, his demons, through the life and future we never had.
I didn’t stop my tears. I couldn’t. Not with him.
Not right now.
For the first time in all our lives, I was scared…
Of. Him.
Truly.
Blindly.
Madly.
He glared at me, fully aware of what sentiments he was pulling out of my body.
His truths were killing me far more than all our lies put together.
“Eden, I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. What. Did. You. Do?”
“I dumped all the liquor down the drain; that’s what I did.”
“You know I can just buy more, right?” he countered, in a condescending tone I didn’t appreciate it.
“Not in this house.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me. You won’t drink in our home anymore.”
“Is that right,” he declared in a sharp pitch that set my nerves further on edge.
“Yes. That’s right. You won’t drink in our home again,” I repeated, accentuating the last word.
“And who’s going to stop me? You?” he mocked in a patronizing voice. “Last time I checked, I pay the bills, I provide the roof over your pretty little head, I buy you those clothes, those shoes, the fucking jewelry you never wear! I do everything for you, and still, you can’t even spread your legs for me.”
I gasped, stumbling back from his verbal blow. “Oh my God, Tristian. Who are you?”
“I’m your husband! Have you forgotten it already?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Huh? You’ll put your hands on me? It can’t feel any worse than hearing you speak to me like this! Like I mean nothing to you! I don’t even know who you are anymore! The man I married, the one I fell in love—”
“Bull-fucking-shit! You never loved me!”
“Tristian! Have you lost your mind?” Several tears formed in my eyes as I took in his accusations and what they meant to me.
To us.
Showing my vulnerability, I let him witness me cry without blinking the tears away like I usually did. I wanted him to see them, feel them, feel me.
My heart.
My soul.
My life.
He was holding it in his hands.
Me.
All of me.
Every last part of me.
“Actually, my dear wife, I finally see clearly.”
I shook my head, hanging on by a thread. “Why do you keep doing this to us?”
I broke down, my chest locking up. My eyes blurred with fresh tears, barely allowing me to see his handsome face. My lungs caved in, and I was suffocating in my own misery.
In our love.
In everything he’d ever meant to me.
Uncontrollable tears streamed down the sides of my face. My chest heaved, rising and falling with each rigid breath, with each beat of my heart, with each word that escaped my lips. I stood there, trying to hold onto our lives, to our memories, to the future that we may never have.
Had we been damned from the start?
In one swift motion, he chucked his empty glass to the wall beside me. It shattered instantly, sending shards of glass in all directions.
I jolted out of my skin.
He looked at me.
But it was no longer him.
I didn’t know the man staring back at me.
And I was beginning to think I never had.
Even though he was intently glaring right at me, he didn’t say a word. He just stood there in the shadows, once again lost in his own purgatory in a way I’d never witnessed before. I took him in, his unruly hair draped over his face, obstructing his view, only being able to see through the slits in the strands.
It didn’t matter. I could still see his dark, cold, beady eyes penetrating deep into mine, igniting a profound reaction within my heart. The fury he’d been drowning in only fueled the way he was seething at me. It was then I realized he wasn’t looking at me.