Prologue
Amelia
Ithought that love was supposed to be a happily ever after with the one you loved. The one that you chose to spend your entire life with, to create a family, create memories, and love until your dying breath. Fate was supposed to give you the person to call your own. But I guess fate chose differently for me.
Love was never supposed to hurt in any capacity. Love was supposed to be protected and respected. Then again, I guess the scars and the pain spoke to that lie. Scars that would never fade and remain present from the moment you woke up to the moment you closed your eyes.
I chose someone I thought would fit this perfect picture in my head, the idea that kept hope alive. Who would show me that life was full of dreams and adventures. Someone to laugh at my jokes or the chaotic ways I looked at the world. Or even telling me that they were proud of me and kept cheering me on.
I was blinded by hope, and then life changed to where I waited for him to sleep it off before I could scurry off to the bathroom and wait to shed tears that had been hiding. I wished that Icould turn back time. To warn my younger self that fate would be wrong. To save on the pain and the heartache that followed.
I couldn’t show him that I was broken inside and out. That’s what fed him to rear his cruel face. He overpowered me, showed me that I was weak and I’d never be anything else to him. I had to face myself in the mirror, look at the person I had become, fearful of her shadow. I shook my head, asking myself how could I let this happen? How could I have been so blind?
I saw the girl in the mirror. She wasn’t the bright person she had grown up to be. She wasn’t the woman that would rather spend the day in the sun on her family’s property than cower in the dark. She wasn’t the wild dreamer that walked this Earth. She was the woman with a red mark on her face from anger rather than from a gentle touch. Her bright eyes no longer shined but darkened from the past.
I was the woman with the tears silently rolling down her cheek with her hair a mess from his fingers tangling themselves in it.
I was supposed to smile. I was supposed to believe that all would be possible with love on my side.
What I was left with was nothing but heartache, bruises, and a mask to show the world. I wondered if the light would ever return in my life.
I was left with the ache for freedom. But freedom came with a cost, and threats to make it harder to believe in leaving. I shoved that thought of loving him again deep down and aimed to work toward the freedom I craved. Even if that meant I had to work for his freedom from his demons.
His freedom would mean one signature on a paper that meant more than any riches of this world. I was left with all the weight to carry, to atone for his sins.
Then after two years of our marriage, Chris got himself in a bind with loan sharks from his gambling debt. And yet I was the only one working since Chris had been bouncing from job tojob. He had found every way to tell me it was all my fault. He’d say I didn’t praise him, giving him the extra push he needed to succeed. He’d say that if it wasn’t for the miscarriage and me ending up in the hospital that he could have worked. He’d say because I didn’t love him enough that it was his fault he was gambling, trying to find other pleasures in the world.
I could have left, but not with everything tying me to him. I was the one that got screwed over.
There would be no more love, no more promises of a family, no more promises of growing old.
Gone was the promise of tomorrow and the charm I fell for. Instead, I was living with the nightmare of the one I thought I chose.
In the end, I was young. Young and blinded.
But I had to grow up. I had to survive. I had to find a way out. Because I didn’t know how much longer I could take the pain and suffering. I needed to survive; I wanted so much out of this life.
So, I would live, and I would fight. And I would pray that I would not end up in jail for setting my house on fire with Chris in it. Because the way I see it, he was dead to me. He was just the demon that came to torture my soul. I would never want him, love him, nor ever go back to him. I was divorced from him for a long time, but he was never going to let me go, not until everything was cleared.
One signature, one paper, one step closer to the light.
Chapter 1
Amelia: Five years later
If I was a deadly sin, I think I would be glutton. I must crave the punishment from a twelve-hour shift if I was wanting to do it all over again the next day. No matter how the shift ended, I was either full of energy or on my last brain cell and needed sleep.
Maybe that was dependent on the days. Some days you could tell what type of day it could be, others, you better hope and pray you survived until the end and await your reward. And I knew what waited for me. If you thought it was my bed, you would have lost money.
That’s funny considering the situation I was in. Money. I guess I never considered my deadly sin to be greed. Maybe envy, but never greed.
I cracked open my second energy drink within twenty-four hours, took the morning dose of my ADHD medication, and I was a brand-new woman. The crash and burn would happen after I took care of my last patient of that day. With the extra opportunity, I would have been a step closer to getting a signature, closer to getting out a hole that I never dug.
You would think that as a nurse I would learn better habits. Then again, glutton for punishment.
The bright sun was more of a gift from walking away from interior harsh lighting. I always missed the feeling of the sun on my face, the sudden warmth that made you want to close your eyes and look up into the blue sky. It was the little things that made you smile, that you never wanted to take for granted.
It had been almost two months since I met with a fiery, stubborn, and odd woman that laid in a hospital room with a supposed “accident”. But once I saw Lt. Greene standing by a crew of men that waited for the news of one woman, I knew it wasn’t a typical accident. I didn’t pry, and yet curiosity was a bitch.
