Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Joel
“ Y ou never listen to me!” she screams. “You never give me what I want!”
“And what about what I want, Sophia? You said no before we’ve even talked about it. It’s like you’ve shut that part of me out and I don’t get a say anymore.”
“Because you don’t. My career is everything to me and nothing is going to change that.”
Her words stun me.
“Your career is everything to you? So, my feelings don’t matter?”
“Not when it comes to this.”
“Wow. Unbelievable.”
“For Christ’s sake, Joel. Don’t be so ridiculous.”
“I want a family, Sophia.”
“Then why don’t you ask your precious fucking Edie?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I roar.
“Well, we all know she can do no wrong where you’re concerned. Edie this, Edie that. She’s just got to flutter her fucking lashes and you go running. It’s always about her.”
“And you wanna know why? Because she listens. She cares. But more importantly, she’s not a selfish bitch.”
“How dare you speak to me like that; I am your wife!”
“My wife? I don’t know who my wife is anymore. And to be honest, I’m getting tired of trying to find her.”
“Fuck you!”
I flinch as she launches her coffee cup towards my head. Hitting the wall beside me, it smashes into pieces. Anger ripples in my chest, and I can’t bear to look at her any longer. It’s not the first time she’s thrown shit at me, and I can’t take it anymore .
Without thinking, I storm over to her, grab her by the upper arm and growl.
“Get the fuck out and don’t come back.”
I bolt upright at the feeling of something prodding me.
I’m in my home office, darkness overpowering the glow of my desk lamp, informing me I’ve stayed up later than I should have.
Looking down, I find Milo sitting at the side of me, his head tilting from side to side in what I can only imagine is concern while his paw rests on my leg.
“Hey, boy. I’m okay,” I murmur, stroking him under his chin, my chest heaving as sweat covers my body from another nightmare.
I’d been working on designs for a new client and must have fallen asleep.
Swallowing down the trepidation that’s cast over me, I glance at the clock. It’s after two in the morning and the stiffness down my spine is enough to have me standing from my chair and stretching my back for my bones to crack.
“Okay, bedtime,” I say to Milo.
Switching off the desk lamp, I leave my office and head for the bathroom, my mind still in the storm of the nightmare I’ve just woke from. I splash my face with cool water and rest my hands on either side of the basin, staring at the man looking back at me in the mirror. I don’t recognise him anymore.
My bloodshot eyes are a mixture of whiskey, too much work and shame. My untamed beard could do with a trim, and where I once took pride in how I looked, it seems too much of a fucking effort these days. Tonight, is no different.
Morning, noon and night, I relive that day—the one filled with regrets—and wish I’d never spoken the words I had.
The same words screamed.
The same anger inside each of us.
The same outcome after I got her to leave.
After drying my face, I head for my bedroom, stripping off my clothes and getting into bed. The mattress dips, and Milo slowly climbs up the bed to lay on the covers beside me. Wrapping my arms around him, I cuddle into him with a silent thank you. He’s never been one to lie on my bed, especially now finding it difficult to climb up as his legs aren’t as strong as they used to be, but since Sophia passed, and on the nights where my anxiety is shot to pieces, he’s always at my side.
Sophia was killed after being hit by a car.
It had been winter, the sun low, and according to the driver, she just walked right out without looking. It was a tragic accident that should never have happened, but I knew her distraction that day was down to me.
I’d told her to leave and not come back.
And she never did.
I may not have been behind the wheel, but my wife died because of me. The rawness that it’s left me with is unbearable.
Some days it's hard. Other day’s it’s gut-wrenching.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
I’d been nursing my fourth whiskey in a bar in Skipton, still pissed off over the fight we'd had and wishing things would go back to how they used to be, even knowing that after months—if not years—of arguing, they never would. I’d often wondered if I’d been blindsided by the woman I married because she seemed to change overnight.
Sophia had always been a hit and miss kind of girl when growing up in the village. She would either be in our circle or she’d choose to stay out of it.
She’d always been beautiful. Her long blond hair always shined; her grey eyes had a sparkle in them.
One night, we got drunk on vodka red bull. I’d been young, with desire running through my veins and a chaotic mind full of feelings I wasn’t sure I should act on when it came to her sister. So when Sophia had kissed me, I’d welcomed her embrace, thinking it was the answer to everything I was surrounded by.
From then on, everything had seemed to happen so fast. One date turned into two and two led to meeting her family officially before I even had a chance to breathe. We moved in together before I felt like we’d even discussed it, and the life I’d suddenly found myself in consumed me.
I had questioned if Lorna was behind the rapid development of our relationship. My parents’ wealth, both being surgeons, had been her gateway to having her daughter marry into money and success. But despite my observations, I’d remained loyal to Sophia because I found myself falling in love with her.
Once we were married, things slowly started to change.
Work stress.
Those are the words Edith had used every time I spoke with her about how I was feeling and how Sophia was. We’d both worked in high earning jobs which understandably came with pressure so I believed she was right.
But once those rose-coloured glasses had come off, I’d realised what I was slowly drowning in and over time it killed what we’d built.
The blowouts were the only sparks formed between us and behind the closed doors of our home we led a different life to the one we portrayed to everyone else.
Sophia had hardly been home and blamed it on work. Our sex life had become non-existent and, out of sight from everyone, she’d put me down in more ways than you could imagine. I’d hated watching our marriage slip through my fingers and I was exhausted trying to fix what I’d believed I had broken.
Our arguments had quickly caused a massive void between us, and I’d known we’d hit a wall and that there was no turning back.
We’d argue for the sake of it. We’d argue because we’d hadn’t known how to talk anymore.
Our biggest war had come in the form of an argument about starting a family.
I’d wanted to extend ours, Sophia hadn’t. It had been that cut and dry, her words final.
I’d felt more alone than I should have and became a shell of the man I used to be.
So, there was only one way out.
I’d wanted out of my marriage, and in the worst possible circumstance, I’d got what I’d wished for.
I’ve felt many things in my lifetime, but the brutality of this guilt I carry inside me now is beyond anything else. It’s like my heart has been wrapped up with barbed wire and each time it pumps it gets punctured more.
Life had stopped the day I got that call, and I’d wanted nothing more than to rewind the hours previous, needing the day to play out differently from what it had.
But it had been too late.
Hearing the words ‘she’s gone’ had sliced open my heart. It had been like I was in a war. Words from the doctors had fired, verbal wounds covering my entire body, and the screams of Lorna and Edith punctuated the painful slaughter.
I hadn’t been able to breathe. I’d had no strength, no feeling, yet the agony of her loss and the remorse that still tears at every part of me had set my body on fire, roaring through my veins with an excruciating pain I hadn’t been able to comprehend.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, feeling like my stomach has been ripped out, praying my tears will wash away everything I’m feeling inside, but when a soft hand takes mine and a small frame kneels in front of me, I look up to find Edith.
Her blue eyes are pained, lost, and utterly broken as her body trembles. She pleads with me through her tears to hold her—pleads with me not to leave her—and when I find the strength to look around the place that has just destroyed me, I see that no one is here to ease her grief.
I pull her into my arms and hold her tight, and as I’d done many years prior, I whisper to her that she has me and that everything is going to be okay, even when I know in my heart, it never will be again.
But the truth is, it had been Edith who’d saved me that day.
She's been saving me ever since.