The muscles in his jaw pulsed as he drew in a slow breath, hands fisted. Regret knocked at my conscience, scolding me for saying those things to him, but I didn’t let it in. I stood brave and strong, willing to accept his reaction. The days of regretting my feelings were over.
“You’re right.” His forehead wrinkled as he nodded slowly, gaze dropping to his feet. “I can do better. When my term is over, I will make more time for family, especially the kids.”
Hope.
There it was. I craved that hope.
“I want that.” I salvaged a smile from that tiny spark of hope. “I’d started to give up hope that we would have children.”
“Oh …” Graham lifted his gaze to me. “I mean Franz and Anya.” He reached for my face and my whole body hardened like a statue. “People with leukemia don’t have babies.” On a shrug, he brushed his thumb over my lips. “You can’t wait forever to start treatment because you told Ronin. The clock has started. Even if he doesn’t tell Evie, he’s going to expect you to fight this. So if you weren’t prepared to be sick and unable to participate in future plans with the rest of us, if you weren’t prepared to spend your days in bed resting, if you weren’t prepared to lose your hair, then you shouldn’t have told him.”
Pulling his hand from my face, I grimaced. “Ronin saw the bruises. What was I supposed to tell him? His mind immediately went to the idea that you’re abusing me, Graham.” Anger escalated my voice. “How does that make you feel? Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to keep that a secret from Evelyn. So do you have a better idea to explain what he saw? Had you been in my shoes, what would have been your explanation?”
“I’m not upset with you for telling him. I’m simply stating the facts.”
“I hate the facts,” I seethed, but my anger didn’t stop the tears. “Don’t you hate them too? Don’t you ask yourself how we got here? How our big dreams turned into this? When you see this…” I twisted my back to him, lifting my shirt to show him my colorful skin “…does it make you cringe? Does it break your heart? Do you seriously not ask yourself, how did we get here?” I dropped my shirt and faced him again. “Because this isn’t fair.” All my emotions rushed out into a wet, blubbering mess. “I didn’t ask for this life! I don’t want this life! So stop acting like this is my fault. Like I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.”
With quick steps, he backed me into the wall just outside of my bedroom. His arms stretched over my head, pressed to the wall to cage me in with his body. I held my breath as I’d come to do quite often in his presence.
“Look at me.”
I stared at his chest for a few more seconds before lifting my gaze to his cold eyes.
“I was in a good mood. I’d like to stay in a good mood. Can we forget about your issues for the night?” He sucked in a long breath and blew it out slowly. “Now, I’m going to get caught up on some work downstairs. Why don’t you take a bath and I’ll be up later and make everything better.”
I wouldn’t have sex with him. He couldn’t make everything okay by sticking his dick inside of me after using the term issues. He liked to ride the line. Blame me for things that weren’t my fault.
Twist reality.
Cast doubt.
Flaunt hope.
And slay dreams.
After he let me out of his body cage, I took a bath behind a locked bathroom door and settled into bed. I retrieved my journal from under my mattress and transcribed the events from the previous days. Graham liked to make me think everything that wasn’t perfect in his life was somehow my fault. So I put the words we said to each other in writing to reread them again and again, thinking that if I somehow had done something wrong, I might see it more clearly after my mind had a chance to settle. By the time I finished writing page after page of my miserable life, my eyes hurt and so did my hand. After securing the journal in its hiding place and double-checking the lock on the bedroom door, I shut off the light and prayed for dreams of a better life.
But the thing about dreams that really sucked was they were often interrupted by real life—a king who kept keys to all the rooms in his castle.
In spite of my intentions to hold strong, I didn’t say no—not aloud. In my head, I screamed it. In my head, I packed my bags and left. In my head, I never came back from Germany during my wanderer days after college. Evelyn never had the opportunity to convince me to give Graham a chance. In my head, I held on to a piece of dignity.