“Don’t try and talk to me, Nova. Don’t you get it? I hate you. You make me sick.”
“Then… why are you with me?” I try to back down, but it barely works. His large frame overshadows mine. “Why don’t we just stop being married? Then you can find someone you really want to be with.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he sneers angrily, spittle flying out of his lips. “You’d love me to leave you. Then you could get a nice hefty payoff and you could carry on without me.”
“I don’t want your money. It hasn’t ever been about the money.”
“Oh, come off it. Poor little orphan girl wants a comfortable life. Typical story.”
“No, that’s not anything I’ve ever wanted. I’m not like that and you know it.”
“I don’t know anything about you. I thought I did, once upon a time, but the nice girl I married turned into a bitch. Now, you’re nasty and manipulative. I know you just want to get your grubby hands on my cash. How do you think it would look in the business world if I can’t even hold my marriage together? Do you think anyone would respect me if they learned that you’ve vanished? Taking half my money? My stocks would fall, and the company would fall apart. But maybe that’s what you want, for me to lose anything.”
I need to try, just a little bit. If I can do this in a way that makes it not messy, I would much rather it go down that route. I don’t want to tear Jeremy’s life apart, nor do I want to shock him with this. He’s left me with no choice so far, but perhaps if he’s feeling this way there might be a way to make it okay again.
“I would do it however you want to. Blame me, say you met someone better, don’t give me anything…”
“It’s starting to sound like you don’t want to be with me anymore.”
He knows I don’t, he just wants me to say it, so he can react. That’s the last thing I want him to do!
“I just think… it would be better for you…”
“To be a failure,” he snaps. “That’s just fucking perfect. What sort of supportive wife are you?”
“I’m not trying to…” Desperation consumes me. I can’t say anything right! “I’m sorry.”
“I just don’t get you, Nova. I give you everything that you want and you’re still ungrateful. I plucked you from a miserable, shitty life and showered you with everything. Now you’re acting like you don’t even like it.”
“I’m not ungrateful, I appreciate everything that you’ve done, I know you didn’t have to…”
“So, why are you behaving like a toddler? Why are you throwing your toys out the pram?”
The feelings that were so valid only a moment before shrinking into oblivion. I guess it is wrong of me to worry about what I want when Jeremy is going through such a hard time. Whatever’s going on, he has been good to me in some ways. I should just continue to divorce him through Zane. Clearly, if he’s so worried about his reputation, that’s going to be horrible enough. Until that happens, I should try to be a nice person…
“I’m sorry. I’ll be better now.” My voice is calmer, more considered. “You tell me what you need me to do to make your life a little easier and I’ll make it happen. Even if it’s only something to eat.”
“Your fucking cooking would make my day a million times worse.”
Don’t rise, he wants you to rise to it. Keeping calm is the best thing to do here.
“Okay, well how about a drink. You have that brandy, don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer, so I take that as a confirmation that this is what he wants. I try to creep through the gap so that I can start the journey to a better night, but I don’t quite make it.
“You aren’t going anywhere.” It seems that Jeremy isn’t quite done with me yet.
“That hurts,” I plead, trying to peel his fingers off my arm before any permanent bruising is left behind. I know that he won’t want that, anything which can be seen by the public will just wind him up. “Please stop.”
“You don’t ever listen to me, Nova, that’s the problem with you.” Fire flashes behind his gaze. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terror-struck before. “I hate you, but you have to stay here, I can’t let you go.”
“You can let me go, it doesn’t need to be problematic, honestly.”
“Why don’t we go to your favorite little place? The one you think I don’t know about for some reason.”
My heart stops beating, and it refuses to restart. He shoves me towards the stairs, never quite pushing me down, but I constantly feel the fear that I might tumble all the way down. Jeremy laughs, wanting me to feel that. Then he takes me to the cupboard under the stairs, my secret hide-out, the one place where I feel safe. Somehow, he knows this is where I take solace from the nightmare he’s created around me.
“You can go in there.” He pushes me hard, smacking my head against the low door frame. “And you can stay in there until you stop all this talk about shattering the life we have together.”