by Robinson, M.
Not his wife.
Not his brother.
Not his son.
I couldn’t believe he was taking this tone with me after all the bullshit I had put up with this last year alone. I forced myself to keep my emotions in check, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good to react.
It never did.
“Who are you wearing the robe for, Eden?” he questioned, standing in the living room of our home with me.
Chills ripped through my body, freezing every nerve and muscle and leaving every part of me unable to move. It didn’t help my disposition, although there was no controlling the emotions he was pulling from me. The only sounds I could hear were my pounding heart, and my thoughts and memories hammering through my mind. Taking me back to another place in time. Ever since the night in his office where I’d told Tristian the truth, and he left, he hadn’t come back home the same man.
Day by day.
Month by month.
Shred by shred.
It seemed as if there was nothing left of him.
And soon, there would be nothing left of me as well.
“Why are you asking me that?” I questioned, unable to keep my body from trembling at the audacity of his offenses.
My mind incessantly shifted for what felt like the tenth time, watching Tristian make his way to the bar. Nothing could have prepared me for the string of events that happened next. One right after the other.
Not my past.
Not our past.
Not his anger or his hatred.
Or his love for me that destroyed us both.
My vision tunneled; all the blood drained from my face as I continued to watch his every step.
His every move.
Until he began searching for what I already knew was missing.
For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. No one moved, including me. There was an undeniable sense of awareness penetrating through the room when he demanded, “What did you do?”
The despair in my voice recoiled off the walls that were now caving in on me. My heart jackhammering its way up through my throat. “Tristian, please…” I begged, for I didn’t know what.
Our pain mixing as one, belonging together. Entwined through the past and the present, the good and the bad, his darkness, his demons, through the life and future we never had.
I didn’t stop my tears. I couldn’t. Not with him.
Not right now.
For the first time in all our lives, I was scared…
Of. Him.
Truly.
Blindly.
Madly.
He glared at me, fully aware of what sentiments he was pulling out of my body.
His truths were killing me far more than all our lies put together.
“Eden, I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. What. Did. You. Do?”
“I dumped all the liquor down the drain; that’s what I did.”
“You know I can just buy more, right?” he countered, in a condescending tone I didn’t appreciate it.
“Not in this house.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me. You won’t drink in our home anymore.”
“Is that right,” he declared in a sharp pitch that set my nerves further on edge.
“Yes. That’s right. You won’t drink in our home again,” I repeated, accentuating the last word.
“And who’s going to stop me? You?” he mocked in a patronizing voice. “Last time I checked, I pay the bills, I provide the roof over your pretty little head, I buy you those clothes, those shoes, the fucking jewelry you never wear! I do everything for you, and still, you can’t even spread your legs for me.”
I gasped, stumbling back from his verbal blow. “Oh my God, Tristian. Who are you?”
“I’m your husband! Have you forgotten it already?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Huh? You’ll put your hands on me? It can’t feel any worse than hearing you speak to me like this! Like I mean nothing to you! I don’t even know who you are anymore! The man I married, the one I fell in love—”
“Bull-fucking-shit! You never loved me!”
“Tristian! Have you lost your mind?” Several tears formed in my eyes as I took in his accusations and what they meant to me.
To us.
Showing my vulnerability, I let him witness me cry without blinking the tears away like I usually did. I wanted him to see them, feel them, feel me.
My heart.
My soul.
My life.
He was holding it in his hands.
Me.
All of me.
Every last part of me.
“Actually, my dear wife, I finally see clearly.”
I shook my head, hanging on by a thread. “Why do you keep doing this to us?”
I broke down, my chest locking up. My eyes blurred with fresh tears, barely allowing me to see his handsome face. My lungs caved in, and I was suffocating in my own misery.
In our love.
In everything he’d ever meant to me.
Uncontrollable tears streamed down the sides of my face. My chest heaved, rising and falling with each rigid breath, with each beat of my heart, with each word that escaped my lips. I stood there, trying to hold onto our lives, to our memories, to the future that we may never have.
Had we been damned from the start?
In one swift motion, he chucked his empty glass to the wall beside me. It shattered instantly, sending shards of glass in all directions.
I jolted out of my skin.
He looked at me.
But it was no longer him.
I didn’t know the man staring back at me.
And I was beginning to think I never had.
Even though he was intently glaring right at me, he didn’t say a word. He just stood there in the shadows, once again lost in his own purgatory in a way I’d never witnessed before. I took him in, his unruly hair draped over his face, obstructing his view, only being able to see through the slits in the strands.
It didn’t matter. I could still see his dark, cold, beady eyes penetrating deep into mine, igniting a profound reaction within my heart. The fury he’d been drowning in only fueled the way he was seething at me. It was then I realized he wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking through me.
I don’t know why, but I found myself wanting to stay lost in his eyes, enraptured in the blaze that was searing into my skin. As much as I was terrified by what might happen, I couldn’t look away; I was trapped by his catastrophic hate.
He was luring me in with his dominating stare, pulling every emotion from my body like it belonged to him as if we were the only two people in the world. Every passing second between us was another thought, another emotion, another memory for both of us. We were physically there with one another; our minds were somewhere else entirely.
Making me question what or who he was truly seeing in front of him.
Were we back in his office?
Had we ever left that room?
“Tristian—”
“Come here,” he ordered in a stern tone. Overpoweringly struggling with whatever was taking his whole world captive in his mind.
I wanted to move, to walk away, and never look back, but I couldn’t get my feet to step in any direction. My heart screamed for me to go to him, although my body declared war, determined to ultimately win the internal battle erupting inside of us and all around us. Awakening every last demon that had laid dormant for so many years.
Him.
Me.
Romeo.
I clenched.
Locking up.
Staying firmly rooted to the place I stood.
I surrendered to my hesitation for however long I could, seeking refuge within myself. Still, I stayed put. Willingly held hostage in his haunted composure.
In his tormented gaze.
In his s
eedy demeanor.
And he knew it too.
He was getting off on it.
The power.
Over me.
He cocked his head to the side, reading me like the back of his hand. “You scared of me, Red?”
I stood taller, angling my chin up. Challenging him. A hint of amusement passed through his eyes, but he blinked it away, and it was gone. Making me think I’d possibly imagined it, needing to cling onto some sort of connection with him.
My heart was lying out in front of us as I started to walk toward him. Each step precise and calculated, each stride more unsettling than the last. I felt like I was making my way over to a stranger, unable to run away.
Wanting.
Needing.
Waiting.
Holding my breath with every last fiber in my being. I couldn’t breathe the entire fifteen steps it took to get to him.
I knew because I counted them.
It was the only way to keep myself from passing out over the sensations I couldn’t control for the life of me.
Cautiously, he eyed me, taking in every last curve of my body and inch of my skin. Almost as if he was trying to memorize me, engrain me into his heart and soul.
Where was I before this?
There wasn’t one nook of my figure he hadn’t taken in. Anxiously, I waited for his eyes to stop and look deep into my gaze. All it would take was for him to sincerely look at me for one second, to see how I felt inside. To put an end to this.
The way he was treating me.
Talking to me.
Looking at me.
Making me feel abandoned and frightened.
Triggering shivers to course down my spine and back up again. He must have noticed the shift in my demeanor because his eyes finally connected with mine.
Right when I was standing in front of him, he slipped his fingers through the knot of my robe, untying it. Ever so slowly opening the silk, similar to unwrapping a present.
Was I his gift?
Or his nightmare?
My eyes never wavered from Tristian’s as he began skimming his fingers along my collarbones to the sides of my breasts and over to my beating heart. He lingered there for a moment, continuing to slide them down the center of my ribcage until placing his entire hand over my pussy.
I sucked in a breath.
“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”
Before I could respond, he leaned forward, close to my lips. Wrapping his arms around my waist. He held onto me for dear life, so tight, so hard, so strong.
So fucking unnerving.
My heart pounded harder against my chest.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
All the blood bled from my body, and my stomach dropped to the ground when I felt cool metal against my chest.
Not just my chest.
Over my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” —Dark Knight
Eden
“Oh my God, Tristian. What are you doing?” I jerked back. “Where did you even get that? Why do you have a gun, and why do you have it pointed at me?”
“What, Red? You scared now?”
“What are you saying? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to see if I could make you love me.”
His whiskey breath assaulted my senses. I knew it. He had been drinking before he got home. “You’ve been drinking.”
“You drive me to drink.”
“Tristian, you don’t know what you’re doing. How drunk are you?”
“Enough to where I’m finally seeing you the way I need to.”
“Put the gun down. I’m your wife. Do you hear me? I’m your wife, Tristian.”
“You’re my wife when it’s convenient for you.”
Tears flooded my eyes, and I instinctively stepped back, but he gripped onto my hair from the nape of my neck, roughly yanking it back. It felt like he was trying to tear my hair out. My eyes widened, and I would have sworn my heart stopped.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, barely above a whisper, though a huge part of me already knew the answer.
“I told you. I’m trying to make you love me.”
“I do love you.”
“LIES!” he shouted, making me jump from the sharp tone in his voice.
“You’re scaring me. Please put the gun away, and we can talk. Your son is in this house. He’s here right now. Don’t do this.”
His eye glazed over, and he let me go.
One by one, I took in everything he wanted me to see, not knowing what I wanted to focus on more. Hours seemed to pass us by, our past colliding with our present and destroying our future.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
Not even me.
Or Romeo.
I stumbled on my footing, desperately trying to catch my bearings. My body quivered, creating goosebumps all over my flesh.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
The walls were caving in on me.
The room was spinning faster and faster, harder and harder, around and around, over and over with no end in sight. My whole world tilting on the verge of crashing. Abolishing everything in our path. I couldn’t stop any of it. My emotions went from one to the other, feeling empty.
Terrified.
Ashamed.
Guilty.
I gazed up at him with pleading eyes and a devastated expression, but he backed away with caution. I didn’t know if it was for my protection or his. As his eyes searched for mine, for a few moments he had returned to me.
He was Tristian again.
My Tristian.
That was the first time I’d seen him all night.
It was the first time I’d seen him since I told him the truth in his office.
It was the first time in what felt like an eternity that I wanted to run to him, seek shelter in his arms, in his embrace, in his heart beating in the same symmetry against mine. I wanted to show him how much I loved him.
I still loved him, right?
After all this…
What he’d done.
What I’d done.
How sorry I was, hoping he’d understand. I could get through to him. Feel him as my husband, who used to be my very best friend. He meant everything to me. However, nothing could have saved me from this type of darkness he inflicted in my heart and soul.
I was frustrated.
Bewildered.
Not knowing what to do or how to do it.
Memories of our childhood made itself known. The boy I had grown up with. The one who’d protected me. Confided in me. Stood by my side. He was in every year of my life. I’d never imagined he’d turn into this monster, this demon, this violent man who put his hands on me while holding a gun over my heart.
Had he always been this way?
Was he trying to seek revenge for always being second to Romeo?
Hurt me?
Embarrass me?
Break me until there was nothing left for him to ruin?
I thought about all of this in a matter of seconds, minutes, hours…
I didn’t know. It all tumbled together, forming one big cluster of what-ifs, and where did we go from here?
Should I leave him?
Raise Naz in a broken family?
He didn’t deserve that. He was a good boy, the best boy; he needed his mother and father together. I wouldn’t raise him to believe love didn’t exist. I’d seen what divorce could do to children, experienced it with friends. They weren’t the same. Something inside of them changed, and I wouldn’t do that to Naz.
He was a victim in all this.
My mind spun.
I wanted to scream.
To run.
To hide from the truth staring me right in the face.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything…
When we heard, “Mama!”
My petrified stare flew to my boy.
“Mama!” he yelled again, running into the living room in his pajamas.
I didn’t hesitate for one second; I hurried over to him and picked him up. Not looking back once, I hauled ass out of the house into the garage.
Placing Naz into the passenger seat of my SUV, I ordered, “Naz, get into your booster seat for me, please.”
“Mama, what happening?”
“Nothing, baby. Just please get into your seat and buckle up as fast as you can,” I pleaded, trying to make my voice sound calm when I was freaking out. I opened the garage as Tristian stormed out.
“Eden!” Tristian banged on the window, bringing both our attention over to him.
His eyes went from me to the lock on the door. Instinctively, my hand hit the lock before he could open the door.
“Eden! Unlock the door!”
“Mama! What happening?” Naz asked, his voice sounding like mine.
“Baby, please put your seatbelt on.”
“Eden!” Tristian banged on the window; he was going to break it.
With a shaky hand, I turned on the ignition. Throwing my car into reverse, I got the hell out of there.
Tristian didn’t back down, continuing to bang on the window until I heard a sickening cracking sound.
“Don’t do this! I’m sorry! Eden, I’m sorry!”
“Mama! I scared, Mama! I scared!”
“It’s okay. I’m here, Naz. We’re almost out of the driveaway.”
Why did it have to be so damn long?
“Eden! Stop the car and open the fucking door!”
“Mama!”
With each bang of Tristian’s fist against the window, it mimicked my rapid thoughts, my shuddering core, my crushed heart and soul. He chased us down the driveway; it was hard to speed out of there, the design of our driveaway was too narrow, and I couldn’t hit the gas as much as I wished I could. Until I was finally able to throw the gearshift into drive and hightail it down the street.
Leaving behind Tristian.
Our home.
The one I had made us out of so much hope and possibilities.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” —Tom Hiddleston
Eden
Only when I had driven a few blocks with no sign of Tristian following me did I dare to take a deep breath. Did he even realize what he’d done? Did he understand what had just happened? I shook my head. Even if he ever did, it would be too late. I wouldn’t be able to trust him again.