I take deep breaths to try and steady myself before sitting on the back patio.
How am I going to explain this to Charlie? She adores her father and will be devastated without him around. Maybe we can find a way to make it work for her sake. She deserves to have both her parents in the same house. I have to do my best to hold on to him. For Charlie’s sake.
The sound of the back door opening draws my attention, and I turn to watch Craig step out of the house.
I quickly wipe my tears from my face and try to hide it so he can’t see that I am crying. That’s all I’d need is for him to see more tears fall from my eyes. But it’s too late. He lets out a breath and stands over me with a look of pity on his face. “Please don’t be sad, Blake.” He takes a seat across from me and leans forward. “I’m setting you free. Can’t you see? I am opening your cage and allowing you to fly.”
I raise my brow. “How am I to fly when you’ve clipped my wings?”
He shakes his head. “You get to be yourself again. The real Blake instead of Craig’s wife. Go out with your friends and have fun. Live your life like you always wanted to.”
“What friends? You made me get rid of all of my friends over the years. You have always told me that I was the only person you ever needed and that we didn’t need friends. There are only so many times that friends invite you out for a get together and for me to tell them no, because I know it will upset you, that they just give up on the friendship.” More tears well in my eyes.
“I no longer know how to be Blake. Don’t you get it? You have turned me into the woman I am now and forced me to live a life where you were my only person. But it was worth it because I was your wife. That meant something to me.” I pound my chest. “Yet you are so willing just to give me up and toss me out like a piece of garbage. You want to abandon me!” The tears begin to flow again. “I have done everything for you.” I sob.Fucking everything!“I cook. I clean. I take care of our child. I make sure you are sexually satisfied in every way possible. Hell, I even do sexual things for you that are so outside my comfort zone just to make sure you are happy.” The memory of the time he tied me up and used me like a whore, not even letting me get off because it ‘was his fantasy’, flashes in my mind and I have to stop the bile from rising in my throat.
I lean back in my chair. “I have lived every day since we got together, learning exactly how to please you and be the perfect woman for you.” I throw my hands in the air. “This is what I get for that. You abandon me like I have meant nothing. I have accepted you for all of your faults, Craig. Do you truly think anyone else will? I know all of your baggage. All of your trauma. Hell, I know all of the terrible things you have done over theyears, and yet, still, you believe there’s someone else better for you out there.”
I am heartbroken. So many years were wasted on a man who quickly tossed me aside when he was no longer happy instead of communicating with me about anything. Sure, I have seen the change in him. The random bursts of anger toward me over the smallest things. How he no longer acknowledges me at the dinner table, always too busy playing on his phone or talking to someone else. The way he puffs out his chest and rolls his eyes the second I start talking to him, like I am the bane of his existence. But I always held onto the hope that he would go back to my Craig. To the Craig I fell in love with all those years ago, the man who made me feel like a queen. The man who made sure I was always taken care of and loved me so fiercely.
I know it is naive to think that he would ever be capable of such a thing. But, I was young when we got together. Hell, we both were. And beneath all of the hatred toward the world, I used to see a softness in him. I was his person. I was the one human being on earth that he didn’t hate. Now, I don’t know where I stand. The feeling is heart wrenching.
“We haven’t been good for a long time, Blake,” he sighs. “I know you have seen it. This has nothing to do with another woman. I… I just want to be Craig. I don’t want to be a husband anymore.”
I knew he was selfish; he has always been this way. But at least before, he always made us a priority. Now he wants to just step away, like we didn’t build a life together all these years.
“What about a dad? Do you think your responsibilities just go away because you leave?” I snap at him.
“I would never abandon her, Blake, and you fucking know it. I am a great father.” He stares at me for a moment before walking toward the door to the house. But before he goes inside, he turns a sad expression toward me. “I may be a shit husband, but youknow how I was raised, Blake. I would never do that to our child. It’s how I know that what we have is no longer love. You don’t abandon the people you love.”
With that, he leaves me to wallow in my own self-pity.If I am now no longer good enough for him, who’s to say that one day Charlie won’t be either?
As I walk hand in hand with Charlie down the street, I think back on things. It has been months since the night Craig told me he no longer loved me. We promised each other to work it out for Charlie’s sake, but I can tell his heart isn’t truly in it. It isn’t even because he has been mean. It’s because he has chosen everything and everyone over me. He never wants to spend time with me anymore. He always wants to go hang out with his friends, and to top it all off, he has started drinking.
Drinking, just like his father did. Will he become violent with me now, too? Or will he end up drinking himself to death?
I have thought about ending my life in more ways than I care to admit. I have felt worthless and unloved. I spend my days when I am alone without him, staring off into the abyss. I feel nothing. I'm just trying to ground myself to keep from falling off the edge.
I feel like I am being pushed and pulled in different directions at all times. I never know where I stand in this marriage or even my own house. One second he is telling me he doesn’t love me, and we are better off friends, and then the next second he tells me if he leaves, he would still be around lurking in the shadows to kill any man who dares touch what is his. He claims me, yet doesn’t want me for himself. I just don’t understand how to survive right now. How do I play this game that he is so insistent on playing?
I can’t wear what I want to or listen to the music I wish to listen to. God forbid I smile at anything that doesn’t have something to do with my husband. I would get accused of cheating on him and wanting to leave. Or worse, called a whore or something else that demeans me as a woman.
I just have to stay strong for my five year old. That is my true motivation in life. I need to get a plan in place if Craig decides I am no longer worth his time and casts me aside for good.
Chapter 1
Blake
Ambulances blare in the distance as I look at the crumbled motorcycle that I hit with my car just moments ago. The rider is a groaning heap on the side of the road. My child is screaming in the back seat of my car.
He came out of nowhere. One moment, we were driving along this old highway, listening to our favorite music, and the next, I was slamming on the brakes, trying not to kill this poor man.
As the sirens get louder, I snap out of my shock-induced haze and quickly rush to the rider's side. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
He rolls onto his back, and I am met with a pair of vibrant green eyes and a long, scraggly beard. Stunned by his handsome face, I almost miss the scowl he has pointed directly at me. “Do I fucking look okay?” He glances down at himself.
His pants are shredded from sliding across the asphalt. His helmet is all scuffed up, and he only has one boot on. “Is anything broken?”
He scoffs and sits up. Then, he slowly stretches out each arm and leg, testing each limb.
