53. Chapter 50
Mari
I don’t remember what day this happened. Frankly, I never thought I’d be sitting in my guest bathroom with the door locked to write this.
I’ve lost count of how many times it has happened since, but you know what they say? You never forget your first.
We were arguing on the staircase at the house as she attempted to storm upstairs and lock herself in the bedroom again. She’d snatched my phone from me when she’d seen a single message from Jane come through.
Jane: No worries. We’ll up your carb load next check-in.
My dietician had messaged me, and my wife had been losing her shit.
“She’s my dietician, Talia. I have to have contact with her,” was the last thing I’d said before her open palm swung around and slapped me clean across the face.
“I-I’m so sorry. Chance, baby … I’m so sorry! It was an accident!” she’d cried.
And I’d believed her.
23rd January 2017
She turned up at training today. Her phone clutched in her hand so tight I thought she’d break it.
When I finished my session with Dylan, she waved him off before pulling me aside to ‘talk’ out in the carpark.
It was so late in the day, of course there was no one else there.
She showed me a screen, shoved the phone in my face, and told me to ‘explain this’.
I had no fucking clue what I was looking at.
It was message requests on Instagram, seemingly from both men and women.
I was confused, since she was the one who ran my Instagram account, and I asked her what I needed to explain.
She slapped me straight across the face and started yelling at me about the fact that I had ‘bitches messaging’ me and I certainly did have something to explain.
I reminded her that I didn’t have any social media downloaded on my phone, and that she was the one who wanted to run all of those accounts for me.
She started screaming, wailing about ‘How I could do this to her’.
I felt I deserved this, for making her feel this way.
So I didn’t try and duck when the next punch came through.
3rd March 2017
I met up with JJ for a fight night we both wanted to see in Darlington Stadium.
My phone blew up the whole night, but I had it on silent during the fights.
After the card ended, I saw I had over fifty missed calls from Talia and nearly two hundred text messages.
Ironically enough, when I called her back, she didn’t answer.
Message after message accused me of dressing up too much for ‘a night out with JJ’, saying the most abhorrent things about JJ (things that made me sick to my fucking stomach to read), telling me everything that’s wrong with me; I’m a bad husband; I’m nothing of a man; I’m lucky she chooses to put up with me and my shit.
I got home that night to find a pillow and light blanket at the foot of the front door.
The deadbolt was over the door too, so my keys were virtually useless.
I managed to sneak inside through the back window and went to crash on the couch with my flimsy little blanket and pillow. Sleeping on the leather couch, cold and by myself, sounded like the warmer option.
4th March 2017
Talia wasn’t happy I slept on the couch. The engagement ring I bought her cut me across the face when she closed-fist punched me.
March 19th 2017
It was raining today. She scratched long, sharp nails down my arm, drawing blood in multiple locations. Said I needed to stop sooking about something as silly as a ‘slap on the wrist’.
My bad; it’s my fault for making her so miserable when it rains.
1st April 2017
I accepted another fight deal from Baltis today.
Out bank accounts were running nearly empty after Talia’s latest shopping spree.
I was on my way to training when she called me, claiming she’d forgotten her keys yet again.
When I arrived back at the house, half an hour later, she was in tears, screaming and sobbing about how I never want to spend time with her, I’m never home. The usuals.
I was tired, already in a steep calorie deficit; I was fucking tired.
2nd April 2017 – 12.30 am
Funny how all of those expensive, designer items hurt just as bad as their Target lookalike when they’re thrown at you.
15th April 2017
She forgot her keys again tonight. But she needed the car to ‘go driving’.
When I reminded her I have a last minute fight I signed onto because we are financially in trouble, she told me to ‘stop being so selfish’.
I found two new joint credit cards I’d never signed for in the mail.
When she came back two hours later, she’d already maxed one of them out with new handbags, clothes, and a gold bracelet.
17th April
I confronted her about the credit cards at dinner, how she forged my signature for them.
She told me that it was my fault—I didn’t make enough money to support the life she deserved.
I pushed too far on this one, telling her we could live a better life if she didn’t spend every cent we have on ‘stuff’.
She flipped out, yelled at me, and stabbed me in the arm with her fork.
The bleeding wasn’t bad enough, so I bandaged it over at home.
20th April 2017
She confronted me about why we weren’t having sex anymore before we went to sleep.
I told her I was sorry, but I just hadn’t been in the mood lately.
I reminded her I was still in a steep calorie deficit and preparing for a fight in three weeks.
She reminded me sex was a part of a healthy relationship, and I was the one ruining this for us.
She pushed and pushed and pushed—refusing to let me sleep until she’d gotten what she wanted.
So, I gave in. I didn’t finish, couldn’t bring myself to.
She slept peacefully after we were done. I didn’t sleep at all.
4 th May
Mum reached out again, asking to catch up for coffee. Talia said we couldn’t afford to waste money on silly things like coffee catch-ups. I told Mum I was sick.
11th May 2017
I won my fight, barely. I could feel the days, nearly weeks lacking in training with every punch and kick I threw.
She congratulated me in front of everyone and made a big fuss, which felt like a really nice change.
I was so proud of myself to have made her proud.
But when we got in the car, she told me how disappointed she was in me for not getting the ‘fight of the night’ bonus.
I drove us to the hospital for my routine post-fight check-up, since she refused to drive.
The conversation quickly moved to the ring girls, how old I thought they were, how pretty she thought they were, how much she bet I had been itching to get near them.
As per usual, I told her she was wrong, and that answer wasn’t acceptable.
She pulled a chunk of my hair out from the base of my skull while I drove us to the hospital.
21st May 2017
I’m tired to the bone. I’ve reached fight-week weight unintentionally and people are starting to ask questions. It doesn’t matter. The lies feel like truth for a moment if I tell it right.
No one will ever love me or accept me if I leave. I can’t afford to leave. Milah needs me to stay, she needs her bills to be paid.
1st June 2017
I met with my lawyer today and had documents changed. As of 1st June 2017, if anything were to ever happen to me, all funds and assets are to be split 50% to Milah Riordan, 25% to Dylan Riordan, and 25% to Jaxon Jones.
I felt such a relief from it, I actually slept after she forced me into sex again.
#
8th January 2018
She found my stash. Found this book, all of the invoices for Milah’s treatment.
She was furious, claiming it was money we needed, wanting to know how I could be so selfish to spend it on someone as fucked up as my sister.
She doused the documents, the book and everything I own in gasoline and threw it in a fire out the back.
She turned and threw a water balloon at me.
Turns out that was filled with gasoline also.
Luckily, the book was on top of the pile.
I grabbed it and ran. She chased me for several blocks with a lighter.
How she could run so fast, I have no idea.
But I’m not exactly equipped with a super-stamina anymore.
After three years of this shit with her, my own body is starting to give up on me. I can feel it.
When I lost her, I waited out for a long while until the early hours of the morning.
9th January 2018
It was around 1.30 am when I snuck into the house I bought with my own money, took the car keys to our brand-new BMW, and left.
I was driving down the highway with absolutely no idea of where the fuck I was going.
I needed to leave; I knew that much. I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore, until a kangaroo jumped out onto the middle of the road.
I swerved hard and landed on a dirt path.
Guessed this was the new road I was driving on.
I’m so glad I did. It was beautiful what I found at the end of it. A lookout over a cliff, bushland for miles, and a quiet, tranquil waterfall.
I sat and stared for hours and hours, wondering what it would feel like to share this place with someone. Someone good.