“This is all a misunderstanding…” she says.
“HE’S STILL INSIDE YOU!”
“Mat, calm down. You’re overreacting,” Rhys chimes in irritatingly calmly.
Dr Price climbs off him and frantically starts putting on her clothes. Rhys pulls on his boxers but doesn’t bother with anything else. My head bangs worse than ever, and I feel faint. I feel my way to the armchair, hating how weak I feel and look at the moment.
“Are you alright?” Dr Price asks, reaching out to touch my head.
I swipe at her outstretched arm. “If you touch me, I’ll break every single one of your fingers.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Mat,” Rhys says from the sofa.
“Fuck you,” I say, my head in my hands.
“Excuse me?”
I’ve never spoken to Rhys like this before, but my pain has dramatically reduced my tolerance.
“I said ‘Fuck. You.’ And you,” I say, pointing at the blonde looking between the two of us, unsure of what to do next. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
She nods quickly and runs barefoot past us and out of the front door. I take a minute to process the fact that Rhys has cheated on me again. Is this the first time since we got back together? Or has he been screwing other women the whole time? And then the worst question enters my mind: is this my fault?
“Can we talk about this like adults?” There’s a bite to Rhys’s tone which indicates he’s annoyed with me… Maybe thiswasmy fault?
“Is she the first since we got back together?” I ask, my head still in my hands. The brightness of the room is too much for me to handle, so I keep my eyes shut.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why is she the first?”
“Why did you sleep with someone else? Again?”
He lets out a long breath, and I hear him move to sit on the coffee table in front of me.
“Look, I feel like a dick bringing it up when you’re hurt, but… You haven’t been interested for weeks, and a man can only go for so long. I had to get it somewhere – you were giving me blue balls! It wasn’t fair. I tried to hold off, I really did. But you’venot been looking your best lately, so other women started to turn my head. When you were in that hospital bed with your face banged up, next to Jas looking smoking hot, I couldn’t hold back anymore.”
I slowly lift my head from my hands and look him in the eye. He looks at me sympathetically.
“You slept with her because I wouldn’t sleep with you because I didn’t trust you after the last time you slept with someone else?”
Rhys thinks about it for a second, then nods his head in confirmation.
“And, also, because I look like crap after sustaining an injury?”
“Well, let’s be honest, Mat… you’ve not been looking your best for a while…”
“I want a divorce,” I tell him, my voice deceptively calm.
That shuts him up. He looks at me, a million emotions on his face: he’s surprised, confused, angry, speechless, all at once.
“No, you don’t,” he says finally.
“I do, actually.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I have chance to think them through. This isn’t a fully formed plan by any means, but it’s too late to turn back now.
“Let’s be realistic, Matilda.” Rhys’s calm voice turns to a nasty sneer. “If you divorce me, that will be it for you. You don’t have a hope in hell of finding anyone else to put up with you! Imagine you on dating apps or in a bar, where the attraction is based entirely on what you look like. No one would come near you. Not unless they have a fetish for fat, ugly hags.” Though I’ve heard these things before, and I think them all the time myself, hearing them now stings like a bitch. “Just… go shower, take a nap. We’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”
