“What?No!That’s not—”
“You could’ve called 911 from the café,” he continues, his voice ruthlessly calm as he lays out his case.“You could’ve called me.But, no.You chose to run to him.”He takes another step closer, his hands balling into fists at his sides.“That was your choice.”
“I didn’t have a choice!”I shoot back, my anger flaring at his unfair simplification.“Hydra, Friday night, the whole thing… it pushed him over the edge.Idid that to him!I went too far.It was my responsibility to make sure—”
“Responsibility?”Matthew whispers the word.
A look of horrified recognition dawns on his face.He lets out a short, humorless breath.“That’s it.”He looks at me, but I feel like he’s seeing a ghost.“That’s the same word she would use.”
“What?”
Matthew shakes his head, bitter anguish twisting his features.“My mother spent her entire miserable life making excuses for the man who hurt her,” he says, his voice thick with decades of pain.“Her mantra was alwaysresponsibility.Responsibility to her marriage, to her son… responsibility to endure.”He takes a shuddering step closer.“She always thought she could fix him.That if she was just patient enough, good enough,”—he gestures at me—“that her love could somehow absorb his darkness.”His voice cracks.“Is that what this is, Amy?Are you her?Is he him?Because I can’t bear to watch it happen all over again.I just can’t.I won’t.”
I stare at him.
Shocked.
He’s replacing me with the ghost of his mother.
He no longer seesme.
He’s reducing me to nothing more than a pattern he vows to avoid at all costs.
“How dare you?”My whisper trembles with a fury that makes him flinch.“You want to talk about him?About James?”I take a step forward, closing the distance he just created, my voice rising.“Let’s talk about you!You stand here judging my choices.Guess who else did that?Who else thought he had the right to tell me how to feel and what to do?Take a wild guess!”I jab the shoe in my hand toward him in blinding anger.
A dawning horror descends like a shroud over his eyes.
“You’re acting just like James.You’re no different from him,” I spit, the words venomous darts.“Trying to control me.To manage me.”I scoff, swiping the back of my hand, with my shoe still gripped in it, across my forehead.“Is that what this is, Matt?You gave me that check, so… what?A transfer of ownership from him to you?”
The fury, the pain, the fear, all vanish from his face, replaced by a look of pure devastation.He glares at me, his wide eyes glazing over with a wounded moisture.His chest rises and falls with a tortured breath.He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out.He just slowly shakes his head, dazed.
Then, something in him snaps.
He storms past me so quickly I stumble backward.I hear his heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs, each one a hammer blow echoing throughout the house.
His bedroom door slams shut with so much force the sound vibrates through the floorboards.
I flinch, a violent twitch, the sound rattling my bones, leaving a ringing silence.
I stand frozen in the aftershock.My fingers go numb.The shoes I was clutching slip from my grasp, hitting the plush rug with a dull thud.I stare at them.Then I look around this living room that was, just this weekend, filled with love and laughter.My body moves on autopilot, my feet carrying me toward the staircase.
Each step up takes a monumental effort.
I don’t even glance at his closed door.
I can’t.
Inside the guest room, I mechanically strip off my clothes, folding the bloodied silk blouse and trousers with robotic movements.I pull on my soft pajamas and slip under the covers.I stare up at the ceiling in the darkness, listening to the deep silence of the house.
He is just across the hall.
A few feet of air.
But now, an impassable chasm of hurt.
I am in Harold Bancroft’s imposing office.He is sitting behind his massive desk, his expression one of deep disappointment.
“Look at the mess you’ve made.”His words echo in the cavernous space as he points an accusatory finger at me.
