"You're hurting me," I tell him, though he hasn't touched me yet. "This whole marriage—you're hurting me."
"And you're disappointing me," he counters. "My colleagues ask about you. They wonder why you're so distant at events, why you won't make an effort. Do you know how that reflects on me?"
"I'm not an accessory."
"Yes, you are." He says it simply, matter-of-factly. "That's exactly what you are. A beautiful, expensive accessory that'ssupposed to make me look good. And lately, you're not even doing that."
Something inside me breaks. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet snap, like a thread pulled too tight for too long finally giving way.
"Then divorce me," I hear myself say. "If I'm such a disappointment, such a failure as a wife, then divorce me."
He blinks. Rain drips from his hair into his eyes. "What?"
"You heard me." And suddenly I'm not scared anymore. I'm angry. Five years of swallowed anger rising up my throat like bile. "Divorce me. Take the house. Take everything. I don't care anymore. I'd rather have nothing than spend one more day performing for you."
Gabriel's face does something complicated. Shock, maybe, or confusion that his perfectly controlled wife just cracked open in front of him. Then rage floods in, hot and immediate.
"You ungrateful—" He grabs my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "After everything I've given you—"
"You've given me nothing but a cage!" I wrench my arm back, but his grip tightens. "Let go of me!"
"No." He pulls me forward, off the railing, spinning me around so we're both facing the drop. His arm comes around my waist, locking me against his chest. "You want to leave? Fine. We'll leave together."
Terror floods through me, cold and sharp. "Gabriel—"
"Shhh." His breath is hot against my ear. "Don't worry. I'm not going to jump. I'm just making a point. You see that down there?" He forces my head forward, making me look at the churning ocean far below. "That's what you're choosing. That'swhat freedom looks like—cold, dark, and drowning. Is that really better than staying with me?"
My heart hammers against my ribs. His arm is iron around my waist, his body solid behind mine, and we're standing so close to the edge that my toes are at the very lip of the terrace.
"Let me go," I say, and my voice is shaking now, all that momentary strength evaporating. "Please, Gabriel. You're scaring me."
"Good." He tightens his grip. "Maybe scared is what you need to be. Maybe then you'll remember who's in charge here."
The wind gusts harder, nearly knocking us both sideways. Rain pelts my face. Below, waves crash and thunder. And Gabriel's arm is still around me, still holding me at the edge, still proving his point.
I think about my parents. This land, these cliffs—they chose them because my mother loved watching storms roll in from the ocean. They'd stand at these same windows with me between them, my father's hand on my shoulder, my mother pointing out the lightning. Safe, warm, and loved.
They died three years before I met Gabriel—a car accident on a wet road not unlike this one—and left me everything. The house, the money, and the loneliness that made Gabriel seem like salvation instead of the trap he was.
He insisted we live here after the wedding. Said it made financial sense, that his bachelor condo was too small for a married couple. I didn't realize until too late that he wanted my house specifically—so he could take it apart piece by piece, and make me watch him erase my parents from their own creation. So he could threaten to take it from me in court and turn my inheritance into leverage.
Gabriel was supposed to fill the loneliness I felt after my parents died.
Instead, he hollowed me out.
"Say you're sorry," he demands, his voice rough against my ear. "Say you're sorry for disrespecting me, for hiding things, and for making me look like a fool."
I should apologize. I should say whatever he needs to hear so he'll step back from this edge and let me go. I should perform contrition the way I've performed everything else in this marriage.
But I don't.
"No," I whisper.
"What?"
"No." Louder now. "I won't apologize for wanting to be human. For needing space to breathe. For—"
He spins me around violently, his hands on my shoulders, shaking me, spinning us both in his fury, his rage making him reckless. Now I'm stumbling toward the center of the terrace and he's the one near the edge, shaking me violently. "You will apologize! You will show me the respect I deserve!"
