Page 75 of Fragile Twisted Vows
“It didn’t last long. I was in and out of the house and he didn’t care to see me. When I joined basic training, I never saw him again. I didn’t care to. I only cared about finding her, my birth mom,” I say.
“And did you?” she asks quietly, her voice still icy, still cold.
“Yes. While I was deployed in Mexico on a mission,” I say, and she sniffles.
“And then what?” she asks, and I inhale hard and fast, ready to tell her all of my truth, ready to bare it all, because she’s been nothing but vulnerable for me since the day that I met her.
“Then I joined the cartel that she worked for. And when the second leader died, my good friend, I took over.” I explain, but she doesn’t seem shocked. Doesn’t seem fazed or surprised in the slightest.
In fact, she just looks sad. Defeated. Betrayed.
“And how is that supposed to help me, huh?” she sneers. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, Damien? Supposed to relate to you?”
“No.”
“Good, because I fucking don’t. I don’t relate to you. Because I would never do something like this to you!” She cries, tears pooling in her bright blue eyes. She swipes at them angrily.
“You knew. You knew everything, this entire time and yet you did nothing,” she bites, and I nod.
“I know.” It’s all I can say.
“You watched them treat me like an outcast, abuse me day in and day out, and yet you did nothing.” She seethes and I nod again.
“I know.”
“You knew I didn’t belong there, you knew they were lying to me, that you were lying alongside them, and yet you did. Fucking. Nothing.” She enunciates, the words sharp like a knife as she launches them at me.
“And when you found me there, with my rapist on top of me, you beat him to death and you did nothing for me. You did nothing.” She cries and slowly, I nod.
“I know.”
“You killed him and instead of coming to check on me in the hospital, you hid his body in the Hudson river with my sister,” she says, and I look into her eyes then, long and hard, before I nod slowly, confirming her suspicion. Though, I’m not sure where it came from. I had no details about her attacker.
“So, Megan was right then,” she scoffs and I see red, wanting to know exactly what happened when she ran into Megan the other week.
“What did she say to you that day?” I glare and she gives me a humorless smirk.
“Nothing. That happened this morning, when she was walking around on the sidewalk in front of your penthouse. She confronted me when I went to grab coffee from the delivery driver. There’s every sordid detail for you, since you know, no more lies right?” she hisses, and I want to get on my knees and apologize to her right now, but I’m too concerned that Megan was outside of my apartment this morning.
“Tell me, did you fuck her once or twice yesterday? Before you came home and fucked me?” she growls, and my eyes widen in confusion at her, my head snapping from left to right in shock.
“What the hell are you-”
“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s too late for that now,” she growls, and I try to approach her, but she backs away instantly with a finger raised.
“Don’t. Don’t you come near me. You can’t lie your way out of this one. I see right through you. She told me you did and I smelled her perfume on your jacket this morning,” she hisses, and I want to shake sense into her, make her see that I really am telling the truth.
Then again, why would she believe a single word I say from here on out?
I’ve betrayed her too much, hurt her too badly.
“You’re not even sorry either. And why should I expect you to be? You don’t confront your demons, nonetheless your shitty, manipulative behavior. You won’t even talk to me about that night, because you’re a fucking liar. A god damn coward-”
“Enough!” I bark, wanting the insults to stop, no matter how much I deserve them. To be truthful, it’s not the insults I wish to block out. Once again, it’s mentioning that night.
That horrible, awful night that has haunted me for three(?) years.
“I don’t talk about that night because it killed me too, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? That I had fallen in love with my wife’s younger sister, a woman that was too young for me, a woman that I was forbidden to acknowledge? It haunts me still, Lucy. Your screams, your pleas, the sight of your pants around your waist, the blood dripping from your head,” I pause, choking on my words as the memory hits me like a Mac truck.
