“How can I not?” I questioned. “My entire life is different, Anderson. I feel like a stranger in my own body. I’ve been making progress but today has knocked me back massively.”
“You’ll get past this,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll help you, baby.”
A shiver of discomfort ran through me every time he called me that word. I had never liked it; it was the reason Elliot never called me it. I’d made it clear years ago that it was an endearment I didn’t care for. Why hadn’t I made that clear to Anderson? Unless I had and he’d disregarded it.
“When are you coming home, Noah?”
I felt my body go rigid.
“Anderson.” I clasped my hands together, realising this was the moment I needed to tell him our marriage was over. “Don’t you feel a change in me when you’re in my presence?”
“Yes,” he almost growled. “I do.”
I stared at him, surprised at his sudden anger.
“Surely you understand that because I don’t know you . . . it means I have no feelings for you.”
He cracked his knuckles, the action drawing my attention.
“Anderson,” I continued after I cleared my throat. “Do you love me?”
“More than anyone has ever loved another person.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t believe him. He was acting strange, not like the times he’d come to the hospital late at night to visit me. He was being blunt and somewhat rude now, but what I noticed most of all were his black dahlia eyes. They were cold, hard, and if I was being honest with myself, they made me very uneasy in that moment.
“When . . . when I look around this flat and I see images of our life together, it doesn’t seem real,” I admitted as softly as I could. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Anderson, but this place . . . this life I had with you, it’s not my home any more. I’m truly sorry.”
He said nothing, he only watched me with a calm that caused tingles of worry to dance up and down my spine. I stared at him, then a small dizzy spell struck me and made me shake my head. I raised my hand to my head and rubbed. It felt foggy and I suddenly felt tired – really tired.
“I came here to ask about Bailey, but you don’t know anything,” I heard myself almost slur as I clumsily grabbed my crutches. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you but I don’t feel anything for you. I have to leave, I have to go home.”
I stood up, my legs shaking. Then I turned and stumbled forward.
“We have to get a divorce, Anderson. It’s the only thing I can think—”
My words were cut off when something slammed into the back of my head and sent me spiralling into a dark void of loneliness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NOAH
Twenty-nine years old . . .
I can’t do this any more.
I sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, flipping through a picture album that was filled with lies, pain and fake love. I stared at my wedding photos; I was standing next to Anderson and smiling, but I could see the pain and uncertainty in my eyes. It was just the two of us at our courthouse wedding . . . one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I flicked through a couple more pages and with each photo that my eyes slid over, I felt less and less upset and more and more angry.
I closed the book, picked it up, got to my feet and put it back on the table of Anderson’s office. He always kept it there within touching distance, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t look happy in any of the pictures even though I was smiling from ear to ear. He was too stupid to see what was in front of him, or he simply didn’t care. I turned and left the room I was not allowed inside, and walked down the hallway and into the bathroom.
I stared in the mirror at myself, and when my eyes took in the swollen flesh of my cheek, the usual monologue that had replayed in my head the past few years didn’t start. The reasoning I automatically made up on behalf of my husband never began. The excuses I made for why Anderson did what he did never formed and didn’t make it to front and centre in my mind. The realisation of this made me gasp. I put a hand over my mouth.
“I’m done,” I said to myself in the mirror. “I’m so fucking . . . done.”
I began to cry and laugh as soon as the words left my mouth, even as my body began to tremble.
I’d given up my entire fucking life for this man, and for what? For him to beat me whenever I questioned him or did something he didn’t like? For him to control every little thing I did, from who I spoke with to the activities I took part in? Somehow, he had even convinced me that having a relationship with my parents was toxic for me, and that cutting them out was the only option if I wanted to have an open, healthy mind.