“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll do what you want!” She gasped out, and I swear my fucking heart broke in that moment. I thought it was broken before, but this? Her cowering from me. ME. Her thinking my suggestion was some order she had to follow or suffer the consequences of? Fucking hell.
I dropped to my knees in front of her, maybe a metre away, because I was afraid of getting too close.
“Glory, please… I’m sorry,” I whispered, desperate to edge closer, but just as determined not to damage her further. How the fuck was this all that was left of her?
Emotion was burning its way up my throat, clawing its way, dousing my earlier anger with horror and pain. This was what I just did to her. I yelled. I scared her. I added to all the awful things she’d suffered, and made her feel worse.
“Fucking hell, what have I done?” The words burst ragged and raw from my throat, leaving me sounding gruff and raspy. I fucking broke her.
I didn’t fight the tears that poured from my eyes as I edged closer on my knees. I didn’t fight the sob that rose from my throat, as I berated myself viciously for the way I’d acted. I didn’t stop edging closer either. I couldn’t. I needed to hold her, to comfort her. To prove I’m not him. To prove I wasn’t the monster he was.
“Oh god… Glory, I’m sorry.”
She was scooting back from me, her arms still held between us, like she needed to defend herself from me. From her best friend. From the only man who’d loved her the way she deserved, because that fucker certainly didn’t. I should have fought for her back then. I should have done something.
“Please!” She whimpered, reaching the carpeted hall, and huddling in the doorway. Fuck. What should I do?
I tilted my wrist, scrolling through phone numbers on my watch, finding Micro eventually, despite the blurring of tears as I tried to read and type.
Me: She needs help now. Please send the therapist. I think I broke her.
Thank fuck for this stupid thing, because my phone was in the other room, but I couldn’t move right now, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to scare her further, by stepping over her.
“Glory, please, just take a breath. Any breath, please.” She was gasping shallowly, her hands gripping the doorframe for dear life, her knuckles white and tensed so brutally they must be aching already.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She shuddered again, her head dipping lower. Fuck. Was she passing out? Was she not getting enough air?
“Glory?”
She shook her head, trying to breathe in larger breaths.
“No,” she whispered, tucking herself closer to the doorframe, like it was her saviour now. It killed me to see her this way. It killed me to know that whatever I was feeling, she was a million times worse off. What horrors were replaying in her head? What terrors had she been through to make her this way?
My wrist buzzed, and I tilted the watch to read the message.
Micro: In hand. It’s going to take them about an hour and a half. Lissa can call while they travel?
Jesus, was that even going to work?
I watched Gloria trembling in the doorway and knew I couldn’t get my phone for that. Not right now. Sure, the watch could take the call, but it didn’t seem discreet enough. Hell, even approaching her with it could make her panic again anyway.
Me: Can’t get her to the phone. Tell them the code to get in is 4259. The keypad’s on the door.
Fuck me. Now to keep her as calm as I can until help arrives, at which point it’ll either help, or she’ll kill me in the physical sense too. At this point, I’d willingly endure that just to see some animation from her.
Gloria
It was like beingtrapped in a box, like I’d been put away for so long that I couldn’t even see the edges, or any way out. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t Sean, but inside my head, inside my heart, all the places Sean had burrowed into and rotted from the inside out, I knew I had to watch my behaviour. I had to be the perfect wife, perfect housekeeper, perfect cook, perfect everything. Any kind of failure was too dangerous. Never disappoint. Never show him up. Never ever embarrass.
“Glory, please, look at me,” he begged, and I knew it was Nate. I knew it was someone who’d never hurt me, but I think there was a part of me who believed it was never that simple. Men have expectations, and they’re always capable of losing their temper. He’d yelled. He’d yelled because I got it wrong. That was the first step with this stuff. I knew enough to know that now.
“Please. I’m here, Glory. I’m nobody to fear, I promise.”
I scrambled back as he reached for me again, and I knew I was being irrational, pathetic, cowardly. I wished I could be what hewanted me to be, but it’d take time to learn his wants and needs, and then I could please him. Make him proud of me.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered, scrambling up from the floor and heading behind the counter. No. He was getting something to hurt me with! I lurched to my feet, darting away from the kitchen, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to hide.
