“No!” My father pushed me away and started to stand. “You’ll have to kill me before you ever lay a hand on my daughter.”
“I got no problem with that, old man.” He turned towards the door and looked over his shoulder. “One week—then I’ll be back for both of you.”
Once the man was gone, I helped my father over to his chair. It didn’t appear that anything was broken, but he was in pretty rough shape. Based on the red marks on his chest and face that were sure to bruise, it looked like the man had treated him like a human punching bag before I intervened. My father wasn’t weak by any means and could normally hold his own, but the man I found standing over him was nearly twice his size.
I tended to his wounds the best that I could and gave him a couple of pain pills that he had leftover from his hernia surgery. He washed them down with a beer and it wasn’t long until they started to make him sleepy. I got him to the couch before he finally passed out. Everything was spiraling out of control and I felt like I had no way to stop it.
Chapter 4: Grady
I pulled my wedding band off and tossed it in a bowl on the kitchen table once I got back to my apartment. I definitely wasn’t going to stay married to Monica. The marriage was a sham built on nothing but her devious plans and a couple of Rohypnol pills. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I dosed her drink, but the plan had went better than expected. She was legally my wife and that meant she would never marry my brother. Even if he was foolish enough to believe she was drunk and didn’t mean to marry me, he would no longer be able to look at her like the sweet little virgin she pretended to be. I knew she wasn’t sweet and I doubted she was even a virgin. It just seemed like another part of the ploy that she used to get my brother wrapped around her finger.
I hoped my brother would thank me one day, but I knew he would hate me for a while. My family might even disown me. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down on the couch, flipping through c
hannels on the television. My phone lit up and I leaned over to see my mother’s number.
“Hey Mom.” I slid my finger across the screen and put the phone to my ear.
“How could you?” It sounded like she had been crying, but she was also very angry. “Your brother is a wreck!”
“Monica is nothing but a gold digger. She didn’t love Dane. She just wanted to get her hands on his money once he signed his contract.” I let out a sigh and leaned back against the couch.
“She was a sweet girl before you ruined her!” My mother’s voice had a bite to it that I hadn’t heard in years.
“I didn’t ruin her. She was ruined before any of us ever met her.” I let out another sigh. “I know you don’t understand it right now, but I did Dane a favor.”
“Well consider yourself uninvited to the NFL draft!” The phone went dead.
I wasn’t going to that anyway.
A FEW DAYS WENT BY and things seemed to settle down. I stopped getting angry messages from members of my family and Dane’s friends. I hit up the strip club a few times and watched Maria dance, lusting after her as she took off her clothes for the crowd. I was surprised I didn’t hear anything from Monica. I expected to have a lawyer serve me with divorce papers within twenty-four hours, but it was complete silence on her end. I didn’t really use social media, but I searched out her profile and saw that she hadn’t posted anything since before we got married. Everything I had convinced her to load while she was wasted was gone.
I flipped over to my brother’s profile and saw nothing but religious quotes about betrayal, love, and infidelity. He was taking things about as well as I expected, but at least he had his faith to keep him company while he got over Monica. I continued drinking beer and watching television until it was almost time for bed. I picked up my phone and flipped through it as I walked towards my bedroom. I landed back on Monica’s page and I saw that she had posted something.
“Fuck the world. I’m done.” Next to her message was a broken heart.
I sat down on my bed and stared at the screen for a couple of minutes before putting it on the charger and laying down. I remembered everything about the night I spent with Monica. When the drugs mixed with alcohol, all of her inhibitions disappeared and she was actually tolerable for once. Her message haunted me as I tried to sleep. If she was planning to do something stupid, I definitely didn’t want it to rest on my conscience. I looked at my phone again and saw a few responses to her message, mostly just concerned friends, although a few of them were cruel and blamed her for what she did. I got out of bed and put on my clothes.
I might not give a shit about Monica, but I didn’t want her to do something stupid. I didn’t need a coffin on my conscience, even if it was her own damn fault that she ended up in the position to begin with.
I walked outside and got on my motorcycle. I knew where Monica lived, because my brother had mentioned that she grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood. It took me a while to find the mailbox in the dark, but I finally found one with Adamson in faded white paint. There was a light on in the window, so I walked up to the front door and started knocking.
“Monica?” I hit the door a few more times after I didn’t get a response.
“Who is it?” I heard her voice from the other side of the door.
“It’s Grady—open up.” I tapped the door a little lighter since I knew she could hear me.
“What the fuck do you want?” She pulled the door open and stared at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and there was smeared mascara underneath them.
“I saw what you posted online.” I pushed the door open and stepped into her house. “What did that mean?”
“What do you care?” She walked towards her living room and I saw several boxes lined up on the floor.
“I’m not going to pretend to feel bad about what I did.” I followed behind her and stopped once I was standing at the doorway of her living room. “I just don’t want you to do something stupid because your lie got exposed.”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid.” She picked up a couple of items and placed them in the box closest to her.
“So what, then?” I looked around the room. “You’re just packing everything up and moving away?”