The smile I give him is sad. “Try to hold on to that thought, okay?”
His only answer is to press a kiss to my hair before shifting to settle back against the headboard.
I briefly contemplate facing him, but quickly realize it will be easier not to look at him. I might be self-aware enough now to know my past wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ashamed of it on some level.
So instead, I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling, watching the lights of the city flash around me. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Nico’s hand begins a soothing caress on my hair. “Just start at the beginning.” But when I continue to hesitate, he adds, “I mean, some of it, I can already guess. So you don’t have to go into detail about the…old-fashioned values you were raised with.”
I almost want to laugh at how politely he managed to phrase that. “Old-fashioned is putting it mildly.”
“Yeah, I know that, too,” he says with a sigh.
And I feel so raw from the sex, and blinded by the late hour, that I end up just blurting out the beginning.
“Is it considered old-fashioned if my parents arranged a marriage for me when I turned eighteen? Or is it just plain crazy?”
For a moment, everything is silent. Then…
“They didWHAT?!”
This time, I do laugh, but it lacks amusement. “Insane, right?”
Nico’s face appears above me, his brow furrowed. Thankfully, his eyes are filled with pain, not pity.
“Scarlett, that’s so fucked up. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
I shrug, numb to the memory. And to the childhood that taught me that numbness is the only way to live in a house like that.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t hate the idea when they first brought it up,” I admit, thinking back to seventeen-year-old Scarlett receiving the news. “I mean, he was older and accomplished and good-looking, and a big part of me was flattered that he wanted to marry me. So I didn’t exactly fight it when my parents explained what was happening.”
Anger starts to roil in Nico’s eyes. “How much older?”
I answer with a sad smile. Too old, and we both know it.
“Anyway, like I said, I didn’t really mind the match,” I continue, picking at a loose thread in the sheets. “He was nice, and I thought he was cute, and his family’s connections helped my family. So I was happy to do it.”
What I don’t tell Nico is that my husband’s “connections” were just rich people connections. He was the mayor’s son, and my being tied to him opened doors for my parents that they wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. There was nothing genuinely “helpful” about it.
“The wedding was nice, too,” I say through a sigh, looking at the city’s shadows flashing on the ceiling. “He knew I didn’t like being the center of attention, so he organized a private wedding in the courthouse for us. No pictures, no crowds, just us. It was a sweet memory.” Then the memory sours. “We weren’t reallytogethertogether before the wedding, but the day after we signed our marriage license, I moved in with him.”
Nico’s muttered curse doesn’t escape my attention. I can see him dragging a hand down his face out of the corner of my eye. But he doesn’t interrupt.
“At the time, I didn’t really wonder why everything happened so quickly. I mean, I’d been raised with traditional values, like you said, so I knew the general order of things. I knew what his role was, and mine. None of it raised any red flags for me.” Pulling myself to a sitting position, I slide back until I’m against the headboard. “The first six months were great,” I say honestly.“He would buy me flowers, take me out to dinner, surprise me with pretty clothes. Even the—” I blush. “Even the sex was sweet. I felt taken care of.”
I wrap my arms around my legs as the harder memories start to take shape.
“But then things changed. He started to work long hours, and he’d miss the dinners I’d make for him like I’d been told a good wife should. On weekends, he’d disappear to the country club or to whatever work events he didn’t feel like telling me about. I started to focus mostly on keeping the house spotless, making better recipes, and—” I blink furiously as I force the words past my lips. “Making sure I was as attractive as possible for him.”
This time, Nico’s curse isn’t muttered. He slides from the bed and starts to pace.
To an extent, I understand his frustration. I might still be working through some of the misogynistic values I was raised and conditioned with, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of how terrible it is that an eighteen-year-old girl was skipping dinners and spending all of her money on lingerie, just to earn the love of a man who had already vowed to love her through sickness and health.
But now that I’ve started, Ineedto get the rest out. I’ve never been able to get the rest out.
“By the time I turned nineteen, sex was the only thing he wanted from me. It was the only way I could get him to pay attention to me.”
What I don’t say out loud is that this is where I got good at sex. I tried anything and everything I thought my husband might like, solely with the hope that impressing him in the bedroom might make him like me again outside of it.
