I pushed because I wanted him to snap. I wanted him to take me, to get it over with. I wanted him to take me so I didn’t have to give in myself, so I didn’t have to feel anything scary. I was pissed that he kept making me lose control, kept making me want him, while he stayed in complete control. It was my turn to push him past his breaking point, like he did to me on our honeymoon and again on the table. I didn’t care if it hurt. I know it makes no sense, but somehow, making him lose control let me feel like I held the power, even when he took control of me and had his way with me.
If he took me by force, I could keep hating him. I’d have a reason.
I do have a reason. I have so many reasons, so why does it hurt so fucking much that he left?
Things were just starting to get better between us. I thought we really had a moment the other night, when he let me take care of him. But then I had to go and push him the next day, because I loved what he did to me the night before when I pushed it.
Worse than anything he did is secret I told. It’s the truth, but it’s a truth no man could handle. Why did I tell him? I’ve never told anyone. I didn’t want anyone to know, didn’t want them to look at me differently. That’s why he really left. Of course it is. No one wants to know that about his wife. Maybe he didn’t even consider me a virgin. Did he leave because he felt deceived, because he didn’t get someone untouched after all? Or because he thinks I’m tainted and scarred in the worst imaginable way? Or because he realized he’d been consigned to a life without sex?
Now he’s run off to probably find some slut who will want to fuck him all the time and make him feel like a man again.
I know that’s totally unfair. A girl who wants to fuck him isn’t a slut, she’s normal. I only call girls that to make me feel better about myself instead of feeling like I’m broken for not being able to do what they can. The truth is, I’m jealous as fuck of girls like Lizzie. I mean, look at my husband. It’s so unfair. When I remember kneeling in front of him, looking up at his body… It was like some kind of marble statue come to life. What girl wouldn’t want to fuck him all day, every day? Even I halfway want to fuck him, and I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone. I’ve never even gotten wet for a guy before him.
Sure, I made out with a bunch of guys in high school, but it wasn’t about getting turned on. It was for the rush of saying no, of knowing I was the one in control this time. Kissing boys let me explore that while knowing I was safe, that if anyone ever didn’t want to stop, I had a safety net in the form of a two-hundred-pound bodyguard with a gun.
But King… God, what is wrong with me? I had someone good, better than any other guy I could have gotten.
No wonder he wants out of this. He deserves someone who wants to fuck him, someone who lets him fuck her, not a frigid mental case like me. I couldn’t just appreciate that my father married me to a young, hot guy. I didn’t try to make it work. I had something to prove—that I was in control, not him. But I didn’t just do that. I was a total bitch, and I kept being my bratty self, intentionally disrespecting him.
But not everything is my fault. He fucked up worse than I did.
He hurt me. He deserves to suffer for that. He deserves all the guilt, not me.
He’s the one who went too far. He took me with no remorse. He wasn’t gentle. He knew it would hurt, and he didn’t care.
And after he’s ruined me, now he walks out.
Maybe I always knew he would do that, too. Some part of me has been waiting for it all along. Not so I could be free—in truth, what do I need with freedom? To party and get drunk?—but because I knew that he wouldn’t stay. If my own mother wouldn’t stay, why would anyone else?
I sit there and pick the glass out of my feet for a while. Then I get dressed, not bothering with makeup today. When I bend to retrieve a shoe, I see the wedding band gleaming from amid the shards of mirror on the floor. I’m so mad I can’t think straight when I see it. How dare he kick me out?
I shake out my shoe in case of glass shards, then pull it on before snatching up the ring.
I should have been the one to take off my ring. I should have been the one leaving. After what he did, he has the audacity to tellmeto leave? Even after what he did, I was going to make it work. I was going to get a maid today.
Well, fuck that. He can clean up this mess himself. As for his ring, he didn’t want it.
I storm into the bathroom, throw it in the toilet, and flush.
Still not satisfied, I storm around the apartment throwing shit again until I’m too exhausted to go on. If King wants me gone, fine. I’ll leave his fucking ass just like he wants. Of course that’s what he wants. He wants someone like Lizzie, who knows what she’s doing, who owns her body and her sexuality and drowns him in it. So let him go find her. I’m fucking done.
I pack my bags, throwing everything in without folding it. I leave my wedding dress in the closet. Let him look at it for the rest of his life the way I had to look at his ring today.
I’m startled by a knock, and when I look at the time, I realize it’s already time for my lunch date with Bianca. I’d forgotten all about it. I sigh and open the door.
She comes strutting in with her bag swinging on her wrist and her heels clicking on the floor, only to pull up short. “Damn,” she says, glancing into the kitchen, where I took great pleasure in shattering every single one of the wedding dishes we got. If he doesn’t want the bride, he sure as fuck isn’t keeping the presents. “Did a hurricane come through here last night, or were you and that delicious man of yours doing it on every surface in the apartment?”
I snort. “Hardly. We got in a fight.”
“Makeup sex, then?” she asks, wiggling her brows. “How is he, anyway?”
“A complete brute,” I say, filled with a smug satisfaction that I’m telling the truth. I always knew he would be, and I was right. I wanted to prove something, and I did. In the end, that means I won, even if he is the one who ended it.
I won’t think about that part.
“That bad?” Bianca asks, looking delighted. “Oooh, let’s burn his clothes.”
“Tempting,” I say. “But I can’t do that.”