Raymond was waiting for me. It was like something straight out of the cheesiest soap opera you’ve ever seen. Picture a dark living room, me tiptoeing through with my high heels in my hand, and then the voice slicing through the darkness—“Where have you been”—and the lamp clicking on, Raymond in his matching pajamas, his scowl, his bristling mustache, his white-hot rage.
The six weeks since then have been more of the same. It’s all anger, all the time, 24/7 like CSPAN.
Kill him? Ha! I hardly have time to even look him in the eyes without feeling like I’m going to get knocked into next Tuesday. He’s suspicious of every single thing I do. If I sneeze wrong, I get an angry glare and a snarled warning to get my shit together. God forbid I drop something or show up late to an appointment.
I’m farther away than ever before of achieving what I entered this marriage to do.
At this point, I’m just focused on surviving.
The nights are still sleepless. But what I think about as I watch the ceiling fan revolve has changed.
It’s no longer just Raymond’s dead body I picture, or me standing over it with a satisfied sneer of revenge painted on my face.
A new player has entered the chat, and his name isMatvei.
The Blue-Eyed Bastard. Haunter of dreams, savior of damsels, kicker of asses. He’s justice in human form, and I can’t stop thinking about him to save my life.
Tonight was particularly bad. Raymond had dragged me to yet another dreary function with various important so-and-sos, people I couldn’t care less about but who had opinions that apparently mattered a great deal to my dear husband.
I knew my role at these events: stand at his side, look pretty, and don’t say a fucking word.
The last part was the most important.
Normally, that’s fine by me. I never care about these people and they don’t care about me. Some of the other wives try to make conversation, from time to time, and I don’t blow them off, but they realize pretty quickly that I’m not like them.
Tonight, though, it seemed like the world was content to leave me alone. I drifted along at the country club in Raymond’s wake as he gladhanded politicians and traded dirty jokes with wealthy entrepreneurs. I only ever chimed in when directly spoken to. Otherwise, I just laughed at Raymond’s punchlines and sipped my champagne silently.
Untilthe moment.
A newly elected city councilman was making the rounds. When he got to us, Raymond made a big deal of having a waiter come refresh the man’s whiskey. Then, pulling him aside, Raymond offered condolences for what I gathered was the recent passing of the man’s cousin or aunt or dog or something.
“Terrible thing, terrible thing,” Raymond said, shaking his head. He clapped the councilman on the shoulder. “But it’s no use wallowing. Best practice is to look to the future. The dead don’t get any less dead no matter how long you sit with them.”
The councilman nodded in a strange way that I realized with a pang I recognized. Just sort of bobbing his head once and swirling the liquid around in his glass without drinking it. His eyes, I noticed, were puffy and a bit red, like he’d been recently crying.
He wasn’t putting on a show. Whoever he’d lost, it had devastated him.
Something in me fired up before I could snuff it out.
“I lost a sister, actually,” I blurted. In the corner of my eye, I saw Raymond’s head snap in my direction. His hand on my hip turned into a claw of warning.
The councilman peered curiously at me. “Oh, did you? I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too. It’s been five years and it still… yeah.” I shrugged. “I just wanted to say that I know how bad it hurts. May your loved one’s memory be a blessing to you.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat and looked around nervously like someone might be watching. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“How do you move past it?”
“Oh, I haven’t,” I said without thinking. “Raymond just prefers I do my wallowing quietly.”
The councilman blinked in confusion. Meanwhile, Raymond’s claw climbed up to the small of my back and dug in. “My wife has a dark sense of humor,” he chuckled. “Would you, er— Would you excuse us a moment, Councilman?”
His fingers pressed in harder as he steered me toward the exit. I kept smiling, but I knew what that pressure in my skin meant:
I was going to pay for that snark.
