“Are you sure you want to know this?”
“No.” I shake my head, but she takes my hand.Fuck, she had to deal with that piece of shit for thirteen years? I finally shrug a shoulder. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Any time he thought I wasn’t paying him enough attention, he’d threaten to kill himself. He did it often, and as you know, that’s why I’d go back to Seattle when I was visiting here, or get off the phone with you. It wasn’t just you, either. He hated it when I talked to my mom or any of my friends. He’d find a way to manipulate the situation and make me feel sorry for him. I didn’t see it at the time. I truly thought he meant what he was threatening. That he was suicidal, and after finding my dad, I just … I couldn’t risk it.”
“Christ.”
“I’m going to skim over some things because otherwise, we’ll be here all night. The gist of it is, he played the role of supportive bestie really well. After you and I broke up, he was Mr. Dependable. Ate ice cream with me, consoled me, told me how stupid you were.”
She gives me a half smile, and I huff out a laugh.
“He played the part. For five years, he wasjustmy friend. We weren’t always roommates, but he lived close by. Then he got cancer.”
My eyebrows climb at that.
“And he told me that his dying wish was for me to marry him.”
No.Absolutely fucking not.
I stand and pace the bedroom, needing to punch something. I can’t sit still.
If the next words out of her perfect mouth are to tell me that she married another fucking man, I might lose my goddamn mind.
“I told you,” she says with tears in her voice. “You don’t want to know this, Brooks.”
“Fuck.” I push my hands through my hair and then stare at her. “Finish it.”
“Brooks—”
“Just say it.”
“Come back here.” Her voice is so shaky, and she’s so upset, I couldn’t resist her if I wanted to. So I climb back on the bed and take her hand again. “He said that he’d been given one year to live, and he wanted to spend that year with me. He manipulated me into marrying him.”
“You fuckingmarriedthat prick?”
She nods, pressing her lips together.
“Then he miraculously went into remission.”
“Jesus Christ. Did you not go to his appointments with him?”
“Oh, I did. But Justin was wealthy, and he could pay a doctor to say whatever he wanted. So for the next eight-ish years, whenever I told him that I wanted to separate, he’d eitherattemptto kill himself, or his cancer was back.”
“That motherfucker.”
“We had separate bedrooms.”
My eyes fly to hers in surprise. “Why?”
“Because he was so sick, and he said he needed to rest. Which worked well for me because sex with Justin—” She shakes her head, and I feel nauseous. “Just, no. And that’s all I’ll say about that. He was controlling. He was manipulative. And honestly, I think I was a prize for him. It’s not that he was so head over heels in love with me that he couldn’t live without me. He just decided at some point that he wanted me, and figured out a way to make it happen, and decided that he’dwon.He never said that, but that’s my gut feeling.”
“Is he why you react the way you do to being startled?”
Her eyes close again. “Yeah. He liked to scare me. He did it all the time, and then he’d laugh and laugh. He was cruel. He isolated me from everyone. By the time he died, my mom was gone, but I never really talked to her much anyway. My old roommates stopped checking in to see if I wanted to get together. I was histhing.For the most part, he left me alone. I couldn’t tell you the last time he touched me. Not just sexually. When he was mybestie, as he called himself, we’d hug or he’d touch my arm, that sort of thing. But later, no. He didn’t touch me at all.”
She swallows, and I can tell that we’re nearing the end of the story.
“How did he die, baby?”
