Pain and fear rip my heart in two as I push back from him, trying to dislodge his hold, knowing that’s what’s about to come anyway. But he doesn’t let me. He tightens his hold and pulls me back into him. I grip handfuls of his shirt and stare up into the face I’ll miss forever when he leaves me.
My chest heaves as I whisper, “I’m not perfect, Chris. I’m not. I’m an awful person.”
Confusion pinches his features as he shakes his head. “I don’t understand, Lily.”
I lick my chapped lips, dropping my chin to my chest. I can’t look at him when I say this. Blocking out everything, I squeeze my eyes shut. My throat feels like it’s filled with glass when I cry out, “I did it, Chris. It was me.”
The swing stops moving as his foot plants on the deck. The only noise around us is the early morning sound of the wilderness waking up to greet the day.
His words sound scratchy when he asks, “What did you say?”
Slowly, I lift my head and finally open my eyes to meet his. There are so many emotions warring in his gaze that it takes my breath away. My lips part on my jagged inhale. Once I’ve exhaled the stale air from my lungs, I whisper one more time, “I did it. I… I killed him.”
“Look,you asshole, I’ll pay you the fucking money when I get the insurance. I’m not paying you before you do it. I just need the bitch gone. You failed last week with her brakes. Like how fucking stupid do you have to be?” Blake’s infuriated tone carries easily through the crack in his office door.
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I press my back against the wall, as if that will hide me if he were to walk out.
My brakes? What is he talking about? I had car trouble last week, but he told me it was nothing and his mechanic repaired whatever was needed. Besides Anna being inconvenienced by having to give me a ride home from work, it didn’t seem like a big deal.
His yelling makes me jump. “I swear to fucking god, you do not want to mess with me and the people I work for. My wife better be fucking dead by next week, or you will be.”
I press my hand to my chest as my mind tries to catch up to what I just heard. Movement within the office has me stumbling toward the kitchen, my battered body from last night making it even harder to get away quickly and quietly.
I thought getting beaten up by him last night was the worstthing that would happen this week, but how naive I was. I should’ve learned long ago that my husband’s brutality goes beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
When I get back to the kitchen, I place my palms on the cool tile of the counter, staring down at the ingredients I was prepping for dinner. Every muscle in my body tenses as heavy footsteps approach.
I swallow down my fear, knowing I need to feign ignorance.
“When the fuck is dinner going to be ready?” Blake barks.
I pick the knife back up and resume chopping vegetables. “Soon,” is all I can manage.
Blake apparently doesn’t like my answer because he barrels across the kitchen, and gripping my bicep, he spins me around violently. The motion causes me to knock the cast-iron skillet off the stove with a clatter onto the floor. It narrowly misses my foot, which I’m grateful for. Thankfully, I hadn’t started cooking, or I definitely would’ve been burned.
My entire body trembles as I stare up into the face of the man I’m supposed to love. There’s so much hatred and mania in his features that my blood runs cold. Keeping a grip on my bicep, he raises his hand and backhands me across the cheek. The bolt of pain has my legs giving out. He lets go as my dead weight yanks on where he’s holding me, and I hit the ground with a moan of pain.
As he stalks toward me, I kick my leg out, catching him in the side of the knee.
With a yelp of pain, he bellows, “You fucking bitch.”
He makes a move to pin me to the ground, but I flip over and try to scramble away from him. For the first time ever, I truly fear for my life. What if he decides he doesn’t want to wait for whoever he was talking to?
My fingers fight for purchase for anything as Blake grabs myankles and yanks me back toward him. Panic floods my system until my fingers graze something metal. Desperation has me grabbing for it as I’m pulled across the floor and flipped over onto my back. Blake’s kneeling over me, a glint in his eyes as his hands move up toward my throat, as if he’s going to choke me.
Without another thought, I swing my arm up wildly, my eyes closed tight. The heavy skillet connects with some part of him with a dull thud. My eyes pop open, and I swing again. I watch as it smacks into Blake’s temple, his reflexes slowed from his dazed state. His hand flies up to his head, and he collapses to the side with a grunt.
Grabbing the skillet, I bolt from the kitchen, locking myself in the guest bedroom for the rest of the night.
Chris blinksa few times as tears fall freely down my face.
“Why didn’t you call the police and tell them he was beating you?” Chris asks, his voice eerily calm, which tells me nothing about what he must be thinking.
Wishing I had a better answer, I shake my head. “I didn’t even know he was dead until the next morning. I thought I’d just knocked him unconscious. But that morning, I didn’t have a good reason besides fear. I didn’t trust the system to be on my side. I reacted out of fear for my life, but I can’t prove he was going to kill me that night, since he clearly was waiting for someone else to do it. At the moment, I didn’t know if getting physically abused would have been a good enough reason.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again and asks, “So you decided to cover it up?”
“Yes.” My lip trembles as a new wave of emotion engulfs me.
