Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
“I don’t see the point.” I step forward. “Let me clean your wounds.”
“Step away from me!” She lunges up, and the chair knocks backward as she steps on a shard of glass.
I freeze when I see it lodging itself deep in her foot, then fall two steps back. “I’m away. Just stop moving. I’ll leave and call Sam to help you, all right?”
“Don’t you dare walk away when I’m talking to you!”
My feet come to a stop again as I face her. “I’m all ears.”
She sniffles, pain turning her breathing shallow and her body shaking uncontrollably. “Did you have fun stringing me along all these months and making me believe I could be normal? Did you find pleasure in giving me hope, mending the cracks in my heart while knowing full well you’d shatter it to pieces again?”
“I find no pleasure in your pain, Ava.”
“Liar!” she screams. “Stop lying to me! Stop tormenting me! Just stop!”
She’s walking back and forth on the glass now, and I swear to fuck, I feel every shard wedging its way into my chest.
“Okay, okay…” I put both hands up in a show of surrender. “I’ll say whatever you want. Just stop hurting yourself. Please.”
It takes everything in me not to sweep her up in my arms and remove the glass from her skin. But I know if I do that, she’ll escalate. Like an unpredictable hurricane.
My gaze flits to the cabinet where I have her emergency tranquilizer shot. We planted them in every room in the house and all the cars we use.
After that time she fell down the stairs, I promised to never let it escalate that far again. All I have to do is give her the shot and everything will be okay for a while.
Until I have to make some hard decisions. Again.
Ava stops and tilts her head. “You pity me, don’t you? You feel like I’m a poor girl with a lot of issues, so you married me to feel good about yourself, didn’t you? Everything was a lie. Your words, your actions, your promises. Oh my God.”
“It’s not like that.” I take one step forward, two…
On the third, she bends over and snatches a large shard of glass in her bloodied hand, and points it at me “Stay away!”
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
I often read history books about ways the past repeats itself, oftentimes in an endless loop, but I never thought that could be literal.
And real.
Last time, my wife held a knife. This time, it’s a sharp and fucking deadly shard of glass that’s currently digging into her skin.
Blood streams over her palms and wrists then drips on the wooden floor in a sickening rhythm as she trembles, sniffles, and releases small moans of pain.
She’s an absolute mess of epic proportions, and I can’t push away the idea that I caused this by not offering her the help I can’t provide.
The help being admitting her to an institution the moment she woke up in the hospital. It didn’t matter that she had amnesia or that she looked normal. Dr. Blaine said it was merely a phase in her cycle, and her cycle is unpredictable. She poses a danger to herself and those around her.
She’s a liability.
A mentally insane person who needs proper care.
Even her parents agreed with the doctor. Ariella and Cecily, too. Hell, my own mother has been constantly begging me to change my mind. Not to mention Henderson and Sam.
Did I listen?
No.
I saw the girl who looked at me with heart eyes and pent-up emotions and decided to take a different approach this time.
Allow her to live normally. To spread her wings and feel like ordinary people do.
And I thought things were going well. She came out of her shell, she liked me again, and she looked at me as if I was the only one she needed. Due to her memory loss, she wasn’t as paranoid or scared of me because of the murder. She forgot I’d coerced her into marriage, rehab, and quitting her bad habits.
She came back into my orbit like she was always meant to.
It wasn’t until now that I realized I could have possibly, probably made a massive mistake.
I remain silent and so still, I stop breathing for a while so as not to alarm her.
Ava’s inhales and exhales deepen like an injured animal before her eyes widen. “Oh my God…no…no…no…”
“What’s wrong?”
“No…oh God…” She bends over, hugging her stomach as if she’s been shot there.
“Does it hurt? What is it, Ava?”
She straightens with stiff movements and stares at my chest with wide eyes, fresh tears streaming down her face. “I…I asked you to let me go and you…you said no and I…I…I stabbed you! The scar in your abdomen is because of me.”
“You didn’t mean to. I tried to disarm you.” I speak so carefully, my voice is barely audible.