Chapter 9
Juliette
It was almost one in the afternoon, which meant I’d have to get started on dinner planning soon. Something plain and healthy for me. Something hearty and rich for Gordon.
The house was quiet. It always was this time of day.
It was a beautiful day—sunny, but not too hot.
Warm, but not too overpowering. I imagined being outside for a moment, feeling all that heat pierce my skin again.
I had only got to feel it for a second when the mailman showed up.
I had pulled the door open and let all that warmth pour in as he slid a stack of envelopes into my hands.
I liked being outside. I liked being in the sun, feeling open air, my skin getting all tingly and hot. I liked being away from high ceilings and big rooms that felt freezing no matter the day or month or year.
I moved down the staircase, my footsteps quiet even though I knew I was all alone.
Gordon didn’t like loud. He didn’t like noise.
I hated that. That I had been put on pause ever since he put that hideous ring on my finger.
And even now, even with him at work, it was like his finger was still on that button. The fact made my skin itch a little.
I entered the living room so I could get to the kitchen, and that was when I stopped in my tracks at the sight before me.
At the vision of who was on my couch. Bridger, with his legs stretched out as he rested his dirty boots on my very expensive coffee table.
Rude. Unapologetic. Messy. He hadn’t changed at all.
He had a few envelopes sat on his lap—the ones I had brought in earlier—while his fingers lazily grasped at a letter, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. The scent of smoke surrounded me. I’d have to light at least five candles to get rid of it. To get rid of him.
“How do you keep getting in here?” I snapped.
“Your husband really can’t get you pregnant?” was his answer. Lazily, he held up a piece of paper, and when I squinted, I could just make out the words ‘Vaud Fertility Center’ written across the top.
“Give me that!” I stepped forward, about to snatch the paper out of his hands, but he tossed it to the floor. “It’s illegal to open other people’s mail!”
He snorted. “How come he can’t get you pregnant?”
Eyes widening at his sheer audacity, I shook my head at him. “How come you keep breaking into my home?”
“It’s real fucking easy getting in here,” he said casually. “You need better locks.”
“What do you want? Haven’t you terrorized me enough?”
“This isn’t terrorizing, Juliette.”
“What do you want from me? Whatever you want, just steal it. Take it and go away and get out of my life like you were supposed to.”
“How come he can’t get you pregnant?” he asked again, eyes moving over to me. They lingered on my face for a too long moment before they lowered past my chest and then to my hips.
“Why would you ask me something like that?” I asked with gritted teeth, hating how warm my face felt.
That dark look in his eyes was the reason.
I could already feel myself falling back into the past: into late, late nights where he had me in his car, me sitting on his lap after I had snuck out, his big hands on my hips as he took me with the look he was giving me now. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“I already know you’re not the problem,” he mumbled, eyes stuck on my hips. “There’s no fuckin’ way you’re the problem.”
“You need to get out before he comes home! What’s he gonna do if he sees you here? He’s gonna see your face.”
“Sweetheart, what did I tell you about that? You think I’m scared of your husband?” His eyes narrowed, that deliciously addictive smell of smoke still in the air. “Call him. Bring him in here. I’d love to talk to him.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
“You married him pretty young,” Bridger said. “You were eighteen. Not too long after you know what.”
My eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
“I mean, was there even any grieving time, or did you just jump on to the first rich dick you could get your hands on?”
“My personal life is none of your business.”
“You didn’t wait long to find someone else.”
“What’s your point?”
“I get carted off to prison, and then a few months later, you’re married to some rich asshole old enough to be your daddy.
Was that your plan, Juliette?” He stood up and snatched the smoke from his lips, the opened envelopes on his lap falling to the floor.
“What was I? Just you testing the waters before you got the man you wanted?” He took a slow step my way, and I couldn’t find it in me to take one back.
“Huh? You wanted to rebel and fuck some guy your daddy hated just to get it out of your system before you settled down? What was I? Just something for you to try and use and send back when you got bored?”
My lips trembled. How could he think that? “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I do. I was in prison and you were walking down the aisle to him.” His voice was getting louder, that casual, lazy tone suddenly gone. “That’s what happened. I was sleeping on fucking cement, and you were in here, in this fucking mansion, married to some old fuck who can’t even knock you up.”
“Stop!” I snapped. “You don’t know anything about me anymore and you haven’t for a long time. You can’t just barge in here and think you still know me, Bridger.”
And that hurt to say, more than I realized it would. I felt a lump in my throat at the visual Bridger had given me. He had only been eighteen when it all happened. When he got sent to prison, alone and cold and all on his own, but that was a punishment he had earned.
“I know enough,” he said, shoving the cigarette back between his teeth.
He blew out a long trail of smoke, and I could have sworn he was doing it on purpose.
“I know that you couldn’t fucking wait. The second they got rid of me, you pounced.
And I remember you saying…” He chuckled lowly, all dark and humorless.
“I remember you saying that you didn’t give a fuck about money.
That you didn’t wanna marry some rich guy, that you didn’t care about how I couldn’t give you all of this.
This life and this stupid fucking house that your husband can’t even protect.
You said that to me. And then the second I was outta your life, the second I was behind fuckin’ bars, what do you do?
You marry the first rich asshole that looks your way. ”
My head barely shook. “That’s not what happened.”
“Bullshit,” he bit out. “I didn’t mean a fucking thing to you. You married him weeks after I got sent to prison. You barely fucking waited. Looks like you had no problem moving on at all. Guess I wasn’t as important to you as you were to me.”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about!” I cried out. I wanted to tell him. To scream at him about how heartbroken I was when I found out what he had done to me, how distraught I had been, how I had cried every day for a month straight.
I wanted to tell him how marrying Gordon was a punishment for me ever falling for a guy like him, how it had turned into some business transaction that made my parents look even better than they already did, but he didn’t deserve to know about all the pain he put me through.
He didn’t get to have that satisfaction.
“Were you waiting for me to go to prison?” he asked, eyes narrowed. “Huh? Were you counting on that or did it all just work out for you, Juliette? Maybe you were rooting for something like that to happen.”
“You are so…” I turned away from him, not quite able to look at his face anymore. My hands wrapped around myself, eyes warm and wet with tears. “You’re the one who messed up and you have the audacity to tell me all of that?”
“You still believe that shit?” he asked. “You still believe I destroyed your painting?”
“I don’t just believe it. I know it.”
“You believed your fucking parents over me. I thought you hated them. They sure as fuck hated me. Hated me enough to force me behind bars so I’d stay away from you.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I asked with a bitter laugh.
“You know I’m telling the truth.”
“There was evidence, Bridger. There was proof you did it. That you ruined my painting because… because…” I threw my hands up in frustration, remembering those cruel words from his letter, the only one he had ever sent me, the one that broke my heart and that I still kept like a complete idiot.
“Because I never meant anything to you apparently. You come in here telling me that I used you, but that’s exactly what you did. You were the one who hurt me.”
“You don’t know what your daddy’s capable of, huh?”
Lips trembling, I held in a cry, my back still to him as I remembered that night after dinner. Me in the car with Gordon. His hand in my hair, yanking at my locks so hard my scalp still hurt. My dad watching it all with an amused glint in his eyes.
Bridger didn’t know a single thing about my life, my misery, my need to leave as soon as I could. How all that money I had been saving to escape was gone in a second flat thanks to him.
It all hit me fast, and I let out the choked cry I had just barely been holding in. It was a pathetic sound, all strangled and strained, echoing there in the too big room. My shoulders shook as I wrapped my arms around myself tighter, wishing so badly that I didn’t have to comfort myself.
Bridger sighed behind me, staying quiet for a long moment. “I didn’t touch your painting,” he finally said, his voice gentler now.
“Your fingerprints just magically showed up there?” I asked bitterly. “In my art classroom? I know you’re good at breaking into homes, but the security measures that place had were pretty impressive.”
“I wouldn’t ever do that to you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Why would I hurt you like that?”
“You tell me.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“You know I needed it,” I said, hating how much my voice was wavering. “You know what it was for. For school, for college, to get—”