Chapter 11 #2
“You don’t love me, Trigger, you never have because if you did you would have torn this world down to find out if I truly did have an affair.
Instead you took it as a way to fuck my high school bully, to sow the oats you never got to,” she scoffs, “Just sign the stupid papers and set me free from this heartache, from this agony you seem to love keeping me in.”
My jaw ticks as my anger builds.
I get it, I fucked up, and I know she won’t want to hear that I only pictured her. That while yes, I had a wandering eye, I never once thought about fucking someone else, but she can’t throw us away, not after seventeen years, she fucking can’t.
“Do you really want to do that, Ashley?” Dr. Chimes asks, and I look at my wife, who nods, and I swear, I’m about to boil over.
“I didn’t care about the jeans and the flannel clothes on my wedding day, I didn’t care that I didn’t have an engagement ring or my parents around.
I didn’t care that his parents hated me, all I wanted was him.
Tell me Dr. Chimes, after giving your whole life to a man, him becoming your very existence, would you go back to your cheating husband who chose a mistress for an entire year believing you cheated without any proof? ”
Dr. Chimes looks down, clearly not able to answer her question, and I finally snap.
“Then give me the fucking proof, Ashley, instead of trying to force yourself to move on with that prick!” I boom, not able to keep it in as I stand and shout, “If you are so fucking innocent in the demise of our marriage, why did you stop sleeping with me, huh? Why did you pull away from me? Barely speak to me? Shower the few times you allowed me to touch your body?”
Ashley stands up and finally, she opens her mouth, but what I hear has my knees buckling and my heart stopping.
She screams, “Because I was raped!”
No, fuck, please, no, she wasn’t, she can’t…
Her tears instantly fall as she looks me in the eyes and chokes, “I was raped, Tyler, the night you were supposed to meet me outside of work, the night your mama,” she spits Mamma out, “Lied about being ill, I was raped by a man wearing a denim cut while his friend sat on my back so I couldn’t fight back. ”
Breathing becomes non-existent and the urge to die hits me hard when she admits, “One of the secrets I wanted to tell you that night was that I was thirteen weeks pregnant. I-I lost our baby, the trauma caused me to miscarry and when I called your phone, in shock and in pain, needing you, your mistress answered. She explained that you’d gone to look after the child I trapped you with, a child you didn’t want, interrupting you watching her and Hazel get each other off.
” A sob releases from her as I stand frozen, not even able to deny watching Hazel and Virginia and I didn’t, but my mouth won’t work.
She was raped, she was…
She croaks, “That is why we are over. I was raped and I lost our child, and instead of confronting me, instead of seeing the pain, the horror, the disgust I felt, the filth I was scared I was transferring to you, you went and got a mistress.”
We don’t break eye contact as she shows me her truth, a truth that is slowly killing me and Dr. Chimes, seeing I’ve shut down, whispers, “Trigger?”
My body trembles, and I, fuck, I turn around and leave the room, unable to deal with this, unable to comprehend what she’s just told me as the guilt seeps in.
I storm out of the office, climb onto my bike, and ride away, my mind unfocused.
“I was raped!”
I squeeze my eyes tight as her scream echoes before I hear a horn beeping, and I open them, swerving past a car, narrowly missing it, before I quickly pull over as bile rises and I lean over, puking everything I’ve eaten today.
“I was raped!”
I heave, bile coming out, her words swimming, her pain, her trauma.
Please, please…
Coughing the last of the bile, I spit before taking off from the curb and down the street towards the club, breaking the speeding limit.
As I get near the club, I rev my bike to get the prospect's attention at the gate, not stopping for anyone. New boy, Ollie, opens it in time, his eyes wide as I drive in like a madman. I notice Doc and Stone talking near the door, their eyes coming my way, but I ignore them and speed down the dirt track heading to my home, to Ashley’s home.
“I was raped!”
Bile rises again as her screams continue to echo on a loop and I skid to a stop outside my front door before rushing off my bike, only just putting the stand down as I stumble off, then up the steps and into the house.
I’m tripping over nothing, just managing to grab the back of the couch as my eyes take everything in, all the memories of Ashley and I littered on the light gray walls, her smile so fucking wide…
“I was raped!”
A sob rips out of my throat as I stumble around the couch and fall to my knees next to the little black side table, a wedding photo of Ash and I smiling at each other sitting on top and my hand automatically goes to my piece behind my back, and I grab it.
“I was raped!”
My body trembles, my guilt, my horror consuming me, and without thinking, I place the barrel in my mouth and remove the safety lock.
“I was raped!”
I place my finger on the trigger, ready to press it when a roar hits my ears and something shoves into me hard and everything goes black as a gunshot sound echoes…