Chapter 1
ONE
LILITH
Dear Diary,
When someone bleeds out, how long does it take them to die?
I’ve googled it, but it gives me different answers.
I hope no one searches my Google history or even this diary.
If my last therapist saw it, that bitch would lock me up and throw away the key.
Damn! That woman is a cunt.
xox
I have bad thoughts.
Really bad thoughts.
And I don’t think it’s normal.
It can’t be, right?
Maybe I was broken somewhere along the way when the right pieces were chipped off and replaced by something more sinister.
Gone.
My husband tells me I have issues and that I should see a therapist.
I don’t want to see a therapist again.
I don’t want to tell a stranger the inner workings of my fucked-up mind; the last one was shit.
I tried that a long time ago, just once, and she told me I should only have happy thoughts.
Like, what the actual fuck does that mean?
How do you simply have happy thoughts?
How is that even possible?
Taking a deep breath, I open my car door.
I quit work today. Deven is going to be angry, so I’ve been sitting in the car outside of our house for what feels like ages.
He knows I hate what I do and hate dealing with people.
In fact, I despise most people.
I surprised myself when I married Deven. I’d like to say he got me when I was at my most vulnerable—drunk. But, unfortunately, I was sober.
And now it’s been two years. I had hoped his normalness would rub off on me. Somehow, being a wife, sharing a home, and doing a regular job would tame that darkness inside me.
I first met him through my job—the one I just quit.
He was a client at the construction business I worked for.
I handled the accounts for all the high-profile clients.
He was building a house. It’s the house I’m looking at right now—the one I moved into three years ago, a year before we got married.
I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight.
Honestly, I wonder if it was lust at first sight.
He smiled that perfect white teeth smile and spoke to me one night.
He’s a smooth-talker, Deven. I guess that’s how he got his job as a radio host. I never dreamed I would be with someone like him, someone so clean cut, who seems to have their life so put together, or at least I thought so, but he kept coming into the office every day and talking to me.
And he grew on me.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a type, but if I did, it more than likely would not be him.
After a week of him coming in every day, he asked me out for coffee.
I said no.
The following week, he tried again.
That time, I said yes.
What could it hurt, right?
Wrong!
The difference between Deven and me is one of us is more fucked-up than the other.
And it’s not him.
He doesn’t know how to repair or even deal with my broken pieces, and that’s okay.
I never asked him to. The first time I opened up to him, just shortly after we were married, I described some of the dark thoughts and feelings living inside me.
But instead of freaking out like I thought he would, he told me it was something I could overcome with professional help.
What a na?ve little man.
Lately, though, he has been looking at me differently.
Can he see that the glass box I trapped myself in when I agreed to marry him would someday start cracking?
Deven thinks I see a therapist. But in reality, my so-called appointments are just me sitting by myself in a bar. Drinking. Not enough that it makes me intoxicated.
I have a glass of vodka, people-watch, and imagine all the ways I could kill them.
Except for the one man who is always there.
I watch him the most.
Tall, dark, and handsome. I never really understood that expression until I saw him. If God had created the perfect specimen, who was dark and stormy, it would have been him.
I’ve never spoken a word to him, and I never intend to—I am a married woman, after all.
And no matter how fucked-up my head is, I will never cheat.
Climbing out of the car, I check my watch. I’m home from work two hours earlier than expected, but I’ve been sitting in my car for at least an hour.
After locking it, I walk to the front door, my heels stabbing into the perfectly manicured grass that Deven works tirelessly on.
I hate the grass.
The only place that should have grass is a cemetery.
Opening the door, I step inside and try to think of a good excuse for why I’m already home.
Perhaps I should explain to Deven that I quit and told the boss to go fuck himself.
No, I need something better than that. Something…
acceptable. My husband doesn’t want to hear that all I wanted to do was stab Carol from HR on my way out.
Though I know he sees that in me already, so why do I care so much?
Pushing my copper-colored hair out of my face, I kick my heels off so they don’t dirty the perfect white floors of our perfect two-story house, then hang my handbag on the hook near the door.
As I continue to walk through the house, I hear his voice floating in through the patio doors, and I instantly know exactly where he is.
His favorite thing about this house is the backyard—it’s his happy place, a place where he relaxes.
He is always swimming in that pool he had built, claiming it’s part of his workout routine.
I don’t swim.
I hate the water.
I’m a serial loather.
And that’s why when he asked me to marry him, and I didn’t immediately have visions of domestic hell, I thought, Fuck it, maybe this will work.
My bare feet hit the tile floor of the kitchen, and that’s when I hear it—a second voice—feminine, breathy, and giggling.
I force myself to keep walking forward, straight to the patio doors, even as my stomach turns to lead and my whole body shakes with adrenaline.
Because I know what I’m likely to find. But standing here at the open back doors, I blink slowly, taking in the scene before me.
My mind is sluggish, even as the rest of me grasps hold of this.
I see him.
Or should I say them.
Deven is in our pool—the one he loves so much—with another woman.
My eyes are playing tricks on me.
What is in front of me may not be real…
Unless he has a death wish.
She laughs as he pulls her to him, their bodies hugging one another intimately.
And to top off the delightful image assaulting my eyes, the woman is naked.
She leans in and kisses his lips. He moans and presses forward, runs his hand through her hair, holding her against him like he has done to me so many times.
I recognize her.
She is his co-host on the radio show, the same one he told me not to worry about. It sounds so cliché: the insecure wife jealous of an innocent relationship. She started this year, and I saw how attractive she was and how he watched her.
My pastime is to watch people.
My husband included.
So, I knew there was something between them.
I reach for my phone and lift it to take a short video of them kissing in the pool. Putting the phone back into my pocket, I go to the cabinet and grab a glass before I reach for a bottle of vodka. Opening the utensil drawer, I grab a knife.
I like the feel of it in my hand, the heaviness of it, as if it’s something that’s been missing from me.
The weight, the glint of the blade—it’s everything.
I carry my glass, bottle, and blade to the table that overlooks the pool through the patio door, and then I take a seat and pour myself a glass. It’s interesting to watch your husband fuck another woman.
As I sit here, halfway through my glass of vodka, the knife on the table in front of me, I think, Do we look like that when we fuck?
What would happen if I walked straight into that pool and slit both of their throats?
He bounces her on his cock, and she clings to him. Her moans fill the air, and I wonder how they would feel knowing I’m watching.
I can’t remember the last time I had sex with him.
I reach for my phone again and press record.
Her head tilts back, and her caramel-colored hair hits the water as he thrusts into her before he slips a finger into her mouth.
He’s never fucked me like that.
He hardly fucks me at all.
As I watch them, I wonder why it’s not jealousy that’s coursing through me right now. That would be any normal woman’s reaction to finding your husband cheating.
After pressing end on the recording, I put the phone down and finish my vodka.
Something beeps, and he looks this way.
His gaze locks onto mine, and he freezes.
My husband, Deven Davenport—fucking his co-host in our pool—freezes and then pushes her off him like some discarded object.
I pour myself another glass of vodka and drink it all in one gulp as he tries to rush to the edge of the pool, looking like some panicked animal fleeing a predator.
I watch as he climbs out, his dick still semi-hard, and grimace when I see he didn’t use protection.
Shit. I need to get myself checked.
Whatever has been on that dick could be inside of me.
His pretty little co-host, whose name I don’t even remember, calls out to him, but he reaches for a towel and wraps it around himself before he strides to the door. I see the panic in his eyes. The lies that are starting to form as he approaches. But there is no way he can get out of this.
You, sir, are a piece of shit.
Even when I thought I should leave him, I stayed.
Why? Don’t ask me because I have no answer.
“Lil.” He steps inside, water still dripping from his body. He looks at my glass of vodka and then at the knife still on the table. I look at it, as well, and smile.
“Do you plan to kill me?” he asks and shakes his head. Those were the first words to come out of my husband’s mouth.
I glance past him to see her stepping out of the pool and quickly getting dressed.
“It was a mistake,” he says. “She needed me, and you never do. So, one thing led to another…” Again, I say nothing. “Sometimes a man wants to be desired, Lil.”
He never uses my full name. I merely smile sardonically at him, watching him dig himself in deeper. His excuses, lies and blame all thrown onto me. But where is the accountability anywhere in sight? It’s amusing to watch him squirm.
“I didn’t start this,” Deven begins, trying to form the perfect lie.
She steps into the house, avoiding eye contact with me, but turns to face him. Her hair is wet, and I take my chance to look her over. A loose dress clings to her wet body, and she has this perfect mole next to her lips, a little like Marilyn Monroe.
She’s more his type than I am. I’ve seen pictures of Deven’s exes.
And none of them look anything like me. I’m not skin and bones—I have some meat on me.
I like to eat way too much chocolate, and I never work out.
I don’t have the perfect hair he likes, even though he once asked me to dye it blonde.
No, today I am copper. Tomorrow, I may be a redhead.
Only time will tell what surprises I’ll bring home.
“Leave,” Deven tells her.
She turns to me, and I wait for her to say something. Instead, her gaze falls to the knife on the table, and her lips thin as her eyes widen.
I wonder what it would be like to slice her open and play with her insides. Would I find my husband’s cum inside of her?
At the sight of the knife and the look on my face, she listens to him and turns to walk out, trailing water behind her as she leaves.
He reaches for my hand, which is wrapped around my glass.
“Touch me, and this knife will end up in your hand,” I say with a smile, and he pauses.
“Look, Lil, there isn’t any need for this. We can work on it.”
I stand. I’ve finished the bottle of vodka, and there’s none left in the house.
“I wouldn’t follow if I were you,” I warn, then look down at the towel wrapped around his waist. The towel he’s using has splotches of blood stained into it like some kind of seedy Rorschach inkblot test.
“Did you fuck in the pool because she’s on her period?
” I ask. His cheeks turn red, and I know that’s exactly why.
I reach for my wedding ring, slide it off and place it on the table before reaching for the glass of vodka.
I take the last sip and place the glass back on the table next to the ring as I reach for the knife.
Deven’s face turns ashen, and his hands go up in the air as he pleads with me.
I smile as I stab the knife directly into the expensive wooden table, sliding my tongue over my lips, then I walk over to him and pat him on the face twice before I give him a wink, “Goodnight, Deven.” I offer him a wave over my shoulder, grab my bag from the hook, slide on my heels, leave the house, and start walking down the street.
Only to find her gone. Truth be told, I was hoping to run into her again, maybe to have her blood running into his perfect grass.
Because, clearly, he has it on his not-so-perfect fucking cock.
Fuck, I need another drink.