CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE PAST
I stirred, but my eyes remained shut.
For a few moments, I lay there on my side, aware I was rousing myself out of a deep sleep. I was almost too tired to commit to waking up, but then a sharp ache radiated from my hip. Instead of a soft mattress beneath me, there was something hard and painful.
I knew before I opened my eyes that I must have been on the floor. The familiar scent of varnish and cedar tickled my nose.
It wasn’t possible that I was at Oliver’s cabin.
Just last night, we’d come back from his reading and argued at the house. I’d said some things…
Flashes of Oliver’s darkening face hit me.
Oh, fuck.
I must have said things I shouldn’t have.
What were they exactly?
“It’s just philosophy, Oliver!”
“Just philosophy?”
“You can’t blame me for not knowing!”
“You’ve had years to pay attention.”
“Then let me go back.”
“Back where?”
“To school!”
I was clearly still dreaming, so I continued to lie there, waiting for it to be over. Waiting to wake up in my bed. To whatever rubble awaited me after our fallout.
But the sharp pains continued up and down my body until I slowly rolled onto my back, letting out a soft groan.
The sound escaping my throat jolted me fully awake.
My eyes whipped open.
Unfamiliar darkness stared back at me.
“To school?” he’d retorted, shocked. “We agreed you’d be here. You said you wanted to start a family with me.”
“I haven’t fallen pregnant yet, Oliver.”
“You said you were happy at home.”
“I need a life, too! I can’t spend every day waiting around for you.”
“You could have at least read my book—”
“I don’t care about philosophy, Oliver!”
Oh, God.
Did I really say that?
Panic bubbled up inside me. I looked around, my nose wrinkling because this was indeed Oliver’s cabin. The window blinds were drawn, but muted light flooded through the creases.
It didn’t look like morning sunlight.
“Oliver…” My dry mouth pushed out his name as I attempted to sit up. The second I moved, my vision spun and I collapsed back down.
A strange sound cut through the air.
A deep clank that sounded every time I tried to move.
What the hell was going on?
Why was I so tired and dizzy? I hadn’t consumed alcohol, but what if I’d had another blackout and drank without remembering?
Oliver would never forgive me.
“Philosophy is your thing, your passion—your life! Not mine!”
I winced at the memory and tried to move again. The same sound followed. It happened every time I moved my leg.
My breaths came out fast and hard.
What the hell—
The room was still spinning when I heard the door open. I turned my head and watched Oliver step through.
I knew it was him because I recognized his casual clothes. I’d washed and ironed them numerous times. The fitted dark polo I could never manage to get all the pilling out of and the gray khaki pants.
“Oliver?”
He came to me, and his hands were all around me. Running through my hair. Delicately holding my hand.
Tears slipped from my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know what I was sorry for, but I knew I had done something wrong.
I always did something wrong.
Always had something to fix.
But why was I here?
I was so confused. Something had happened last night. I had done something awful—
“Shh,” he whispered. “Close your eyes and sleep. You’re still coming off the pill.”
“What pill?” My words sounded slurred and panicked.
He didn’t respond. He kept giving me delicate touches. A stroke up and down my arm. A tender touch over my eyes so that I shut them.
My body relaxed under his touch as more tears slid out.
Whatever I had done, he was still here. He was still doting on me. He didn’t hate me.
But God, I hated myself.
I fell back asleep.
It was so very dark.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, trying to get my head to clear. I felt woozy, like I might vomit. My stomach gnawed at me.
How long had it been since I’d eaten?
I licked my dry lips and groaned as I tried to turn onto my side. Whatever was on my leg made a scraping sound.
I tried to sit up and touch it. To see what it was, but my body didn’t cooperate.
Too tired, too out of it, I lay there waiting for Oliver to come back. But time seemed to drag, and every second felt claustrophobic and desperate.
What was wrong with me?
The door creaked open. I watched Oliver step inside.
“Oliver?” I cried out. “What’s wrong with me?”
He didn’t respond straight away.
I squinted, trying to understand what I was seeing. He carried two oil lamps. He set one down within my reach on the floor. The other he placed just beyond it, its dim flame casting long shadows across the room.
“Oliver, what happened to the lights?”
Was there an outage?
He didn’t speak to me. He stood there, unmoving, watching me.
I wondered at that moment if this was a dream—a nightmare, more like. My head was so cloudy, I thought I must still be sleeping, and so I watched him in return, waiting for the dream to end.
Time stretched in a way that felt tangible. My stomach tightened and my bladder felt heavy. My head pounded, and my thirst was so strong I kept licking my lips.
Everything around me was too real to be a dream.
Thinking that—realizing it—made the situation all the more horrifying because…I didn’t understand.
“Oliver,” I whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
Clarity came slowly, and my body seemed to start working again because when I tried to move, I was able to turn.
I slowly began to sit up. My eyes finally left Oliver and ran over the room. Over the thin pad beneath me. Over the revealing pink robe that showed my arms, cleavage, and most of my legs—
I let out a horrified cry when I saw the metal digging into my ankle.
Chains.
The fright washed over me so strongly, I couldn’t breathe.
“Oliver—what is this?” I shrieked.
I clumsily attempted to lean over and touch the thick chain around my ankle, but the world spun and I paused.
Nausea slammed into me, born from thirst, hunger, and the worst goddamn fear I’d ever felt.
I dry-heaved.
“Oliver? What the hell?”
“You’ll get used to it,” he said, his voice eerily empty.
I froze, bile burning the back of my throat as my raw eyes returned to him.
“What are you… Oliver, why am I in fucking chains?”
“I need to know where you are. This guarantees I’ll find you in this room when I return.”
I struggled to understand him, too filled with anger now to make sense of it.
“What the fuck?” I started to shout, my astonishment twisting into rage. “This isn’t fucking funny, Oliver! Get this fucking thing off me!”
He didn’t react to my hysterics. If anything, he remained unmoving, his face eerie in the dim light as he looked over every inch of me.
“You embarrassed me,” he said evenly. “You made a fool out of me in front of everyone, showing them how little you knew. Do you know what that was like? To be a philosopher—a mentor—with a wife ignorant of the most basic philosophical teachings that shaped the human mind?”
I shook my head, not bothering to grasp his words. My whole focus was on the fucking chain around my ankle.
“Let me go, Oliver. Get this fucking thing off me—”
“That will never happen again,” he cut in coldly. “You will never humiliate me like that again.”
Rage pulsed inside me, so tangible and fierce I could taste it on my tongue.
I was shaking. Unable to keep my breaths steady.
The claustrophobia of having the chain on me and being too weak to even move made me scream, “Oliver, I swear—I swear to FUCKING GOD—if you don’t get this fucking chain off me in the next ten seconds, I will leave you. I’ll take Rowe—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said calmly. “Rowe is mine now.”
My rage turned venomous.
“Yours?” I spat. “YOURS?”
“You remember August, don’t you? When you lost control that night?
When you destroyed the living room and threatened to hurt me?
You can’t deny it. You wrote the apology letters.
You told Dr. Carlisle about your violent, abusive outburst. It’s all documented.
In your own words, you have a history of explosive behavior. ”
What—
I shook my head, horror dawning as I realized I couldn’t recall the events leading up to this very moment.
It was similar.
Too similar.
“You drugged me,” I whispered. “You made me think I did it.”
There was no way.
He was lying.
That couldn’t be true.
Yet when I looked at him, at the calm expression he was giving me, I realized it was.
“Oliver?”
I felt my heart splinter, the pain so intense it was like being slowly cut in half.
The betrayal was so unexpected.
“Who are you?”
He smiled, and it chilled me how alive he looked in that moment.
“I am your husband, and now your mentor. And you will be my perfect wife.”
I began to shake uncontrollably.
“Oliver, please. Please tell me this isn’t real. Tell me this is a dream. Please, Oliver. Please don’t be real. Please.”
“Reality is subjective. You’ll learn about it very soon.”
I cupped my ears, shaking my head. “Oliver, stop. Just stop. Just let me go. Please, just stop this.”
“You will stay here,” he continued, ignoring my pleas. “You will be given one glass of water each day for the next three days. The lamp beyond your reach will eventually die. The one beside you is yours to control. Use it carefully. This room, as you’ve noticed, gets awfully dark without light.”
I leaned over quickly and tugged at the chain, panic rising. “This isn’t real—”
“You will read the texts I’ve given you, and you will answer my questions when I return. If you fail, the lesson will be extended. You will learn through experience that suffering is how understanding takes hold.”
“This isn’t fucking real.”
“I want you to succeed,” he said. “I want you to become the best version of yourself. I should have begun these lessons sooner, but I mistook your submission for understanding. That was my mistake.”
I stared at him.
“I promise you, Daisy, you will be enlightened by the time we’re done. Because I love you. Because you are it for me. Because I don’t want anyone else.”
I heard nothing.
Accepted nothing of what he was saying.
I glared at him, spitting out, “Oliver, don’t you fucking dare do this! DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE! This is fucking abuse, Oliver! I will never forgive you!”
Unperturbed, Oliver leaned closer.
“Don’t think of me as your abuser,” he whispered. “Think of me as your mentor. Seneca failed Nero. I won’t fail you. You will learn Plato. You will learn Seneca. You will become perfect.”
He tossed a worn book onto the ground beside the lantern and turned to leave.
I started shouting at him. I called his name, swore, tried to kick even though everything hurt when I did.
Oliver didn’t look back.
The door shut behind him, and the lock clicked loudly as the flickering lamp cast its taunting glow just beyond my reach.
I screamed until my lungs were raw.
Until I was hiccupping and vomiting bile.
In the end, I was left alone in a dimly lit room with the cold words of Seneca for company.