Chapter One
“Mommy! Mommy!” My daughter crying and screaming my name jarred me from my sleep. I quickly sat up and caught her just in time as she jumped into my arms.
“Ava, what’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked, one of my arms wrapped around her body while my hand rested on the back of her head as I tried calming her down.
She just buried her head deeper in my chest as she pointed behind her. I looked up to the door to find my husband standing there with a belt in his hands. My brows furrowed at the sight because we didn’t discipline Ava that way, so I wasn’t sure why he had a belt.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“She’s hardheaded,” he barked, “and that’s the reason why!” he used the belt to point. “You coddle her too much.”
“She’s six, Aldrick.” I frowned. “She’s a baby so she sensitive, and she processes things diff?—”
“She’s not a baby, Leila, and she doesn’t listen. I asked her four different times to turn the damn T.V. down and that fucking song that she plays over and over off, and she acted as if I wasn’t saying anything to her.”
“Did you say it to her like that?” I frowned.
I didn’t curse at my child, and I didn’t put my hands on her. Aldrick didn’t either, at least I didn’t think that he did, but him standing there with a belt in hand recalling what Ava had done told me differently.
She’d never told me that he hit her or cursed at her, but it was also very rare that she was alone with him. The only reason she was today was because I laid down to take a quick nap after being up since five getting the tree up and making breakfast for Aldrick and his team. He was the foreman for Atlyn City Construction, and they came by to have breakfast this morning.
Ava stayed home because she’d been complaining about a stomachache and had a slight fever. I was exhausted by the time I laid down because on top of everything, I had pulled the decorations out to get our house ready for the upcoming Christmas holiday.
“It doesn’t matter how I said it. I’m an adult and her father. She needs to mind when I tell her to do something.”
“Yes, she does, but that can be solved by the three of us having a conversation.”
“No, it’s going to be solved by her getting her ass whooped,” he countered. “We both got whippings when we were kids, and we turned out just fine. She’ll be okay too.”
“You are not hitting her with that belt, Aldrick.”
Ignoring me, he said, “Get over here, Ava.”
My baby’s hold on my neck tightened and I returned the gesture by holding onto her tighter too. When he realized that she wasn’t coming willingly and I wasn’t letting her go, he came over and tried hitting her while I was holding her.
When he swung the belt, I did my best to grab it while trying to protect our child, but he was able to swing it and hit me a couple of times before I finally got a good hold on it.
“Are you out of your mind?!” I roared, snatching the belt away from him. “She’s six! And you were going to hit her like that?! She’s a child! Our child!”
He stood over us, staring menacingly before he scoffed. “I can’t do this anymore.”
My eyes narrowed at his back since he’d turned to walk away. “Do what? What can’t you do, Aldrick?”
“This! This marriage! This mess!” he pointed to me and Ava. “I don’t even fit into this and honestly, I’m tired of dealing with it, Leila.”
“Dealing with what, exactly, Aldrick?” My frown deepened. “Surely not anything concerning our child because youdon’tdeal with that. No appointments. No meetings. No specialists. Nothing with her schooling. I do all of thatalone!”
“I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
“And I did?!” I exclaimed.
“I told you to terminate when the doctors told us that it was something wrong with her,” he shrugged. “You’re the one that wanted to keep her.”
“Because she was our child that we made out of love!” I fired back. “At least that’s what I thought.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” He mumbled and walked over to the nightstand on his side of the bed, going inside and pulling a stack of papers out. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and tonight is just the confirmation that I needed…”Petition for Divorcestood tall while everything else seemed to blur when he handed them to me. “We haven’t loved each other in a very long time, Leila, and I’m sick of pretending that we do.”
“Y-you want a divorce?” I whispered, glancing up at him. “After ten years—you’re leaving?”
