Chapter 22 #3
I stare at him. "I repeat, Edward, why the fuck are you here? Better yet, how the fuck are you here? How do you know where I live?"
"Where you live?" He stares at the house. "You don't live here, Lacey. You live with me. In our home, in Bloomfield."
I blink at him, genuinely confused. "Did you suffer a brain injury?"
He blinks back. "What? No?"
"Then why…" I shake my head, turn to face him. He steps toward me, but I hold out my hands. "That's close enough, Eddie."
His brow wrinkles as he stops where he is. "Lacey, c'mon. It was a misunderstanding. You know that."
"Which part, shit-head?"
“Hey, the vitriol is unnecessary. We can talk this out."
"I’ll spew all the vitriol I want at you, fuck-face.
There's nothing to talk about." I show him my empty ring finger.
"We're divorced. You signed the papers. Your judge buddy expedited it.
So there's nothing to talk about. But even if we weren't divorced yet, there would still be nothing to talk about.”
"Of course there is. I love you. I'm sorry I hit you, but I—"
I stop him with a raised hand. "Stop there, asshole. You get to say precisely nothing to me. You are dead to me. I loathe the very sight of you. Does that make it clear? Fuck you. I hope your nineteen-year-old fuck-toy gives you syphilis. You can rot in hell, you brainless, dickless fumble-cunt."
Thanks for that one, Cole, I think to myself.
He’s genuinely stunned. "Lacey, I—"
“You’re really not getting it?" I descend a step, my volume and intensity rising with each word as the rage and hate and pain from a decade of swallowed abuse boils out of me all at once.
"I—hate—you. I hate you. I could scrub my skin until I bleed and never get the feeling of your grimy, grubby, nasty little cheater fingers off of me.
I've hated myself for whoring myself out to you for so long.
I've hated myself for pretending I didn't know you were cheating on me our whole marriage. I've hated myself for being so weak."
His mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. His eyes are wide, and I can see his Adam's apple bobbing nervously.
"Notice what I said, Edward: I have hated myself.
I don't anymore. You know why?" I descend another step; I barely hear the tires squealing, or the engine roaring, or the door open and close as Cole arrives; he stays back, though—I clock this absently, but I'm too focused on reaming out my ex to be distracted by anything.
I touch my cheek where he struck me, wiping the makeup away so he can see the leftover green. "You set me free."
"Wh-what?" Eddie stammers. "I…how?"
I take another step, now level with him and less than three feet apart—my skin crawls, and I wonder how I ever endured this man’s touch.
“You hit me, Edward. That's how." I speak through clenched teeth.
"I watched my father slap my mother my whole life.
And I always swore I'd never, ever allow that to happen to me.
I endured everything else you did to me.
The verbal abuse. The criticism. The financial control.
Taking away my career. Choosing my friends for me.
Telling me where to go and what to do and where and when and why and how.
The awful, horrible things you said to me, just to knock me down a peg. Using me like a whore."
"I didn't—I never—"
"Oh?" I ask, my tone deceptively light. "So when you made me suck your pathetic little dick and then voila, new purse, new earrings, new bracelet, what was that? Funsies? Just jokes?"
"I—I—"
"I endured all that. You knew I had no self-esteem and you used it against me. Controlled me and manipulated me and used me. And I just took it because I didn’t think I deserved better.
" I frown, shake my head. "No, that's not right. I knew I didn’t deserve better, because I’d broken what I had that was better. "
"I don't understand," he says.
"I know you don't," I answer. "The thing you need to understand is that when you hit me, you shattered the illusion. You broke your own hold on me. You reminded me that I do deserve better. And thanks to this," and here I again touch the remnants of the black eye, "I am better, and I have better."
Eddie notices, for the first time, the Three Rivers County Sheriff's Department SUV parked cock-eyed behind his, half on the driveway apron, half in the road. He also notices the man for the first time:
Six-three and well over two hundred pounds of pure grass-fed northern country boy beef, his arms bulging in the sleeves of his departmental jacket, eyes hard and cold and dangerous. This isn't just Cole; this is Sheriff Mannix. Believe me, there's a huge difference.
"Can I help you, officer?" Eddie says, his tone deceptively casual.
Cole just looks at me. I shake my head, and Cole remains silent.
"You don't rate an explanation," I tell him. "So don't worry about him, or what my better looks like. That's not your concern. What is an explanation for how you knew where I am? More to the point, how were you waiting here for me when I got here?”
"Tracker," Eddie mumbles, not looking at me. "In the wheelwell."
"I really didn't think you could get any more disgusting," I tell him, "but then you go and prove me wrong."
I glance at Cole, who's already retrieved one of those long-handled mirrors from his cruiser and is using it to scan the wheel wells until he finds the tracker. He scans the rest of the car, including the undercarriage, and then crushes the tracker under his heel.
Eddie watches this happen, his frown deepening. "Is he a friend of yours or something? Why is he hovering? I'm not going to hurt you, Lacey. We can talk this out like adults. I want you back."
I laugh at this, genuinely amused. "Oh no!" I say, in the childish, wheedling tone one would use if a two-year-old dropped his ice cream. "Did your teeny-bopper get tired of waiting for the Viagra to kick in?"
This gets the real Eddie out of him, at last. “You listen to me, you ungrateful slut—"
I wind up and backhand him as hard as I can; his head rocks around, and he stumbles backward a step…into Cole's immovable form.
"No, you listen to me…Edward." I pin him between myself and Cole, my face in his, every ounce of hate and rage within me radiating out of me and off of me.
"Go fuck yourself. Eat all the dicks. Dig a hole and go fuck yourself in it.
You getting the picture, you arrogant, disgusting, horrible, pathetic excuse for a man?
If I never see you again, it'll be too soon.
I regret every single second of life, time, attention, and energy that I ever wasted on you.
I regret every single tear I ever shed because of you.
" I get even closer. "Here’s the last thing I'll say to you—right now, it's all still fresh enough that I hate you. But in another week or two, or a month, or maybe even a year, I won’t hate you anymore.
I won't think of you at all because I'll be too busy being loved.
Properly and thoroughly by the man standing behind you.
You won't even be a memory, Edward. You'll just be a bad dream. "
His jaw is hanging open. I clack it shut, and not exactly gently, either.
"This is the part where you run away," Cole says.
I have to suppress laughter because I wonder if he knows he just quoted Shrek.
Edward squirms out from between us and puts a healthy distance between himself and Cole. I take the opportunity to tuck myself into Cole's side and drape his arm over me.
"That was quick,” Eddie says, because apparently he really is an idiot.
"Yes, it was,” I answer, before Cole can.
"He's the better I always deserved. He’s everything you never have been and could never even dream of being.
He's my past, my present, and my future.
And you, Edward? Like I said, you're nothing but a bad dream.
Now shoo." I flip my hand at him like I'm shooing a dog out of a room.
Without another word, Eddie hustles to his flashy, stupid, ugly car and gets behind the wheel. Cole leaves my side and saunters—swaggers—around to the driver's side and uses his big policeman's flashlight to knock on the window like he's pulled him over.
He speaks in a low murmur, but I can hear him just fine. "If you ever show up in her life, ever again, in any capacity—if she so much as smells your goddamn perfume, you flash motherfucker, no one will ever find you again. And yes, that is a threat. You comprehend me?"
Eddie nods, swallowing hard. "I—I got it."
"And don't think you can use your connections down there to mess with me. That shit don't play up here. This is my world, up here. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to play in my world." His voice drops even further. "You have any clue what thirty hungry hogs can do to a dead body?"
Eddie stares at him for a second, then mashes the gas pedal. The absurdly overpowered engine screams, and the hideous green vehicle streaks away.