Chapter 11
Maisie
Icrack my heart open another couple of inches. “Derek was a quarterback. From his first goal-winning throw in high school, everyone knew Derek Brandon would play in the Super Bowl one day.”
“What happened?” Hunter leans his shoulder against mine, and I relish the contact.
It’s as much about comforting me as it is about him wanting to touch me. Don’t ask me how I can be so sure about that. I just am.
“His life was too perfect,” I say with a bitter smile. “Derek had a dream life. He had everything that anyone could want.”
“Got that,” Wyatt says with quiet intensity. “He had you.”
He prompts a smile when I didn’t think I had one in me. “That wasn’t what I meant. Rich family, talent, he was handsome and smart.”
“Is it okay to say I hate the guy?” Elias asks with a dark scowl. “`Cause I really fucking hate the guy.”
“He also had no one ever tell him no,” I say.
“Which was a problem. He thought he was untouchable on the field and off it. As we got older, he started wanting to party more. I wasn’t into it.
My parents died when I was thirteen, and my older sister, Missy, practically raised me after our grandma died later.
She’d given up so much of her life for me that I didn’t want to risk getting caught underage drinking or messing up my grades right before college. ”
Elias cocks his head. “So why didn’t you break up?”
“We did a couple of times, actually. I wanted to go to a good college, so I studied more than he did. He never needed to work that hard. His good grades had always come easier to him than to me. But we’d break up, and days later he’d be at my house with flowers and chocolates, full of apologies.
And I loved him, so I always went back to him. ”
“But something happened,” Wyatt says, cocking his head.
“It was after one of the last games before we graduated,” I explain. “He was out drinking. His coach had warned him not to go out, especially with the championship game coming up. Derek didn’t listen. He got drunk and drove his car into a tree.”
“Fuck!” Hunter curses.
“Luckily, no one died.” That time. “But he hurt his knee. It was so bad that he had to have two operations. The first one went well; the second didn’t. He lost his college scholarship, and no other school wanted him because he couldn’t play with his bad knee.”
“I’m assuming that’s when everything went to shit.” Elias frowns as he sits back in his seat.
“He was off the team and no longer the star quarterback destined for the NFL. I was there for him even though I was angry at him for drinking and driving. Then we graduated, and all our friends went to college, but we stayed in Oregon,” I say.
“And got married?” Knox glances at my throat.
I nod. “He’s a beta, so yeah, we got married.”
If Derek had been an alpha, he’d have given me a claiming bite, the usual way for an alpha and omega to bond. Betas typically marry, while alphas and omegas sometimes will, but often stick with claiming bites to show their relationship status.
“What about college?” Wyatt asks. “You said you wanted to go, and you could have. He was the one with the busted-up knee. Not you.”
I let out a sigh at one of my biggest life regrets. “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?”
“He stopped you.” Wyatt frowns.
“It wasn’t so much his stopping me as me stopping me.
My sister had a baby, and her husband was offered a fantastic teaching job across the country.
I pushed them to go for it even though my sister wasn’t sure about leaving me behind.
I told myself I would defer college for a year so I could stay with Derek when he asked me to.
His parents told him they wouldn’t pay for college and to start work at their business since he’d ruined his future. ”
“Ouch.” Hunter winces. “They said that to his face?”
I nod. “He’d always hated the idea of working for his dad.
One of the biggest motivations he had to do well in sports was to go pro so he could get away from his dad’s boring job and all his parents' expectations. His knee injury ruined all that. I started working as a clerk at the government building because we were living together by then and needed the money. We had an ordinary life for a bit: date night on a Friday, he went fishing sometimes with his friends, and a quiet dinner on Sunday.”
“Then what happened?” Elias asks.
I twist the tissue he hands me into ribbons. “He started to resent his boring life.”
“And that included you?” Elias hands me another tissue, and I take it with a grateful smile.
“Yes, that included me. At work, his dad controlled every aspect of his day. What meetings he took, when he went on a break, how much he was paid. All of it. So when Derek got home from work, he started to control every aspect of my day. And then of my life.”
“Was he hitting you?” Wyatt asks quietly.
I shake my head. “Not then. I have thought about why I didn’t leave him when the controlling started, but I would remember the way he loved me, and I kept hoping he would go back to that.
He’d complain about my cooking, call me fat or stupid or an idiot, and I’d get upset.
He’d apologize, hug me, kiss me, and tell me things at work weren’t going well, or his dad was pushing him too hard.
It was easy to forgive him when he told me he loved me, and I could see that he still did.
I told myself things with work would get better, and he’d stop being bitter and angry about his dreams of playing in the NFL going up in smoke.
I kept thinking he would change, but he got worse. ”
I stare at the remnants of the tissue in my lap that I told myself I wouldn’t shred.
Elias passes me another tissue, and even though my face feels wet, I don’t wipe my damp cheeks.
“I could never do anything right. It was just criticism at first. No, it was disappointment. He’d had a hard day at work, and I’d let him down by not being the wife he needed me to be.
That I’d failed him. I wasn’t making his dinner the way he liked it.
I didn't make the bed right. The house was filthy. I was fat and stupid. I wasn’t pregnant yet.
They were all criticisms I didn’t deserve. Except for the last one.”
“Not being pregnant?” Elias wraps his arm around my shoulder. This time, he doesn’t hand me a tissue. He wipes the tears from my cheeks himself.
I smile at the sweet gesture.
My smile fades when I remember the life I hated.
“Derek knew I always wanted kids; I’d never hidden that.
I thought we’d try after college, but when he started being controlling and I started feeling trapped, the last thing I wanted was to bring a child into our home.
I was already taking suppressants to control my heat since he wasn’t an alpha, so it wasn’t a big deal to go to my doctor and get more birth control pills when I told Derek I’d stopped taking them. ”
“Did he ever figure it out?” Wyatt asks.
I sigh, massaging my throbbing forehead. “Yeah, he did. I’d find my bag open when I’d definitely closed it. There were only two of us in that house, so it had to be him. And the pills I’d hidden from him looked different.”
“Different?” Knox sits up in his seat.
I nod. “I’d been taking birth control pills since I was seventeen. The pills in my box were not the same ones I’d always taken. I flushed them down the toilet and made another appointment with the doctor during my lunch break when I knew he’d be at work.”
Elias bristles with rage. “He was trying to get you pregnant to control you even more.”
“I think so. That’s when I started planning how I would leave,” I say.
“I knew no one would help me. Whenever I’d start to even mention that Derek and I were having problems, everyone would pat me on my arm and tell me that’s how it sometimes is in a marriage.
That I was lucky to have him and we’d ride whatever rough storm we were in. ”
Knox frowns. “But your sister—”
I know where he’s going, so I shake my head before he can ask why I didn’t go to the only person who would believe me.
“I couldn’t involve my sister in this. She didn’t need me bringing stress into her life while she was pregnant again.
I felt so alone. No one would believe that Derek would tamper with my birth control and be so controlling that I was constantly tense, braced for whatever thing I’d done wrong, even though I’d memorized exactly how he liked everything done and could repeat it back to him without getting a single word wrong. ”
Understanding flashes across Wyatt’s face. “You learned all our orders at the diner without needing to write them down.”
“When you have an avalanche of criticism waiting to be unleashed on you if you get a single thing wrong, you learn never to forget.” I look down for this next bit. “But words weren’t enough for Derek.”
“He hit you,” Elias says with quiet, furious intensity.
“It started small,” I admit in a voice as quiet as his.
“He’d punch the wall beside me, apologize, and say he’d never actually hit me.
Then it was a shove here and a slap there.
He’d throw things at me. When I gave him a medium steak and not medium-rare, he punched me in the face, and I had to take a week off work to let the bruise heal so no one would see it.
He got on his knees and cried when I started to pack my bag to leave him, but I could still see that he loved me.
It was so stupid to stay, and I know that now, but things would go back to normal, and he’d be so kind and sweet for the next couple of days.
Then things would get bad again, and he would lash out at me.
” Tears slide down the bridge of my nose, and I brush them away with the back of my hand.
“What did you tell your work?” Knox’s voice is whisper-quiet, but if I were to look into his face, his eyes would be burning with rage.