Maybe my dick would stay hard if it wasn’t forced to fuck you every night. You’re so stupid, every time you open your mouth it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. You ungrateful little cunt. You can’t even make and serve a meal without fucking it up.
That last one was just the beginning after I accidentally overcooked the roast. He picked up the slightly too well-done food and tossed it across the kitchen, splattering grease and meat and vegetables everywhere. The platter shattered. He continued to stand there, yelling at me, berating me, telling me how worthless and stupid and ungrateful I was. Forcing me to clean it all up on my hands and knees. Making sure I got every last spot of food or chip of the dish. He didn’t care when I cut my finger on a shard and bled. That was yet another insult to him. Another reason to call me stupid and clumsy and careless.
There was no laughing off the meal or saying don’t worry, babe, we’ll just get takeout tonight. It wasn’t even ruined, just more well-done than he liked.
I told my mother, and she blew it off. Told me it was my responsibility to make a nice home and cook well for my husband. It’s your job to be the best wife you can be for him, she had said. What about me? Didn’t I deserve him to be the best husband he could be for me? That wasn’t important to her, though.
Speaking of… Jesus.
“Hi, Mom,” I answer, already guessing David sent her a text or something. This is insane.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to the people you claim to love?”
Awesome.
I pace around the island in my kitchen, already needing to leave for school, but not wanting to talk to them as I walk. I like to start my day on a positive note and dealing with my ex-monster and my unloving, greedy parents isn’t that. Thankfully my sister washed her hands of me years ago or I’d have to deal with her too.
“Why don’t you just tell David to fuck off? I did.”
“Ellery Jane Chambers, you will not speak to me that way. I am your mother. David has officially cut us off. Completely. The car is gone. We can’t pay off the credit card. Now our condo is threatened.”
I shake my head at that. “What are you talking about?”
“He was giving us a hundred and fifty grand a year, Ellery, and now that’s stopped because you divorced him!” she screams into the phone, furious in a way I’ve never heard her before. My stomach tightens, and my heart pounds.
“Why would he give you that kind of money?” I knew absolutely nothing about this.
She clears her throat, trying to rein in her voice, when my mother is clearly on the edge. “Because we had a deal with him, but now that deal is over because you walked out. It’s over. We have nothing left. Nothing to use as leverage since I can’t even find the—” Her words cut off sharply.
“What? What can’t you find? What leverage?”
“Listen to me, Ellery. Your father and I need that money. You will do as I say and go back to him. After all we’ve done for you since the day you were born, you owe us.”
I want to ask why they even need his money. Last I checked, Dad retired early with a full pension. I’m also tempted to ask what they’ve done for me, because it hasn’t been much, but I keep my mouth shut. All I had in the world was Erika until I lost her. I didn’t have my sister, and my parents couldn’t be bothered with me. Hell, they hardly acknowledged my existence. When I lost Erika, everything fell apart for me. I got myself a cheer scholarship to the University of Miami and left without looking back.
Then David came along. Swept me off my feet. Made me feel seen and special and loved in a way I never had before. My parents made an effort to be involved in my life after I said ‘I do,’ and I wasn’t stupid enough to wonder why. Now that reason is even more glaring.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t go back to David. I’ll help you figure something out or maybe I can even help with some of your bills, but David and I are over.”
“Then you leave me no choice.”
And then my crazy mother hangs up on me. I’m reeling, spinning her words around in my head. Clueless about what she means by leaving her no choice, but there isn’t a whole lot she can actually do about this. I’m not going back to David.
We’re divorced, and this is over.
They can’t touch me. They can’t get to me here.
Still, I can’t help the trembling in my hands as I close and lock up my door. The burning sensation in my nose from tears I will not shed over them. I take another steadying breath.
I usually like to go to the coffee shop in town before I head to work, but now I don’t have time. What I really need to do is buy a car, but now, after all that, it feels wrong to use my settlement on anything. My salary at the school is all I’m using right now, but it’s not enough to buy a car. I suppose I could lease one.
Maybe I should send my settlement money to my parents and be done with the lot of them. For good.
Suddenly my scarf feels like it’s strangling me as I rip it from around my neck, only to drop my keys. I move to pick them up when the first of the tears hit my cheeks. I am not crying. I’m just… a little flustered. But it’ll pass.
All of this will.
I dip into a squat, snatching my keys and giving myself a second to catch my breath. And when I stand up, wipe the damn tear from my cheek, and turn around, I squeak out a surprised yelp, nearly dropping my keys for a second time.
Landon is parked in front of my house in his black Range Rover, the passenger window down and his green eyes fixed on me as he leans over the console in my direction, studying me. Great. Exactly what I need to start this day off on an even more stellar note.
“I’m not in the mood to fight with you today.”
“Are you okay?” he calls back instead.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You looked upset.”
How on earth could he have seen that? Was he watching me when I came out? How long has he been parked there?
“I’m fine.”
His hand grips the wheel, and he turns to face the front windshield, but he doesn’t drive off. His jaw is locked tight, and he looks like he’s stuck in some kind of indecision I can’t understand.
Unfortunately, I have to walk to the end of my walkway and down the sidewalk, past his car, and I silently plead with him to drive away. Of course he doesn’t. Landon Fritz doesn’t seem to do anything I want him to. And when he does, I hate him all the more for it.
“Do you need a ride?” he asks just as I make a show of pretending like he’s not sitting in his car watching me with an intensity that has the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention.
“No.”
“Elle, get in the car, and I’ll drive you to work.”
“I’m fine.”
“So you keep telling me, but I can see you’re not. Come on. You’re already late.”
“Where is Stella?”
“I dropped her at school already, but I had to run back here to grab my laptop. Please get in the car.”
“No, thanks.”
“I won’t speak if that helps.”
“You hardly ever do.”
I hear him chuckle lightly and that sound has me stopping to look at him if for no other reason than because the last time I heard it was that night in the hotel. Not since. Not once since because the man does not laugh or chuckle or smile hardly ever.