CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR #2
Suddenly my back slammed against the wall, and he crowded around me, his other hand flying to my throat.
Pain was everything. Along the back of my head and down my spine.
Now it was around my throat, pulsing. He squeezed tightly, blocking the air from my lungs.
My eyes widened as I stared up at him. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t overpower him.
I couldn’t breathe. His teeth clenched, his eyes darkening as he watched my face redden.
“I would never cheat on you,” he gritted out. “Never. How could you think that of me?” As he asked that last question, he squeezed a little tighter. My vision spotted. I couldn’t breathe—
“You are mine, and I am yours,” he seethed. “That is how it will always be! No matter what—”
My vision dimmed, and the world slipped away.
I opened my eyes, gasping for air. Confused, I looked around the darkness and fear slammed into me. Was I at the cabin? Please, no.
But the floor felt different and cold. I ran my hands along it. Where had he put me? I tried to move, but the cuff around my wrist quickly stopped me. I paused and, like so many times before, I took calming breaths. The scent was familiar. Bacon still hung in the air from this morning’s breakfast.
I was still in the house.
I felt the floor again and then I tried to stretch out. My toe skimmed along a box, and instantly I knew I was in the basement. I sat up, pressing my back against the wall, and then I waited in the pitch darkness for his return.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
Knocks on the front door stirred me. I cracked my eyes open, straining to listen for any sign that Oliver had returned. The knocks carried on for a few more minutes. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but judging by my hunger, lunch had come and gone.
The knocks carried on, a little louder than before.
Louise.
It must have been after three.
Not for the first time I considered screaming out for help, but my mouth didn’t move. For all I knew, he could be up there, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for me to slip.
I had to hand it to Louise. She didn’t let up.
The minutes slipped by, and she continued to ring the doorbell.
I pictured her wondering if something was wrong.
Maybe she was more aware that something was amiss with me, but what would have given that away?
No one blinked twice in my direction. Even after all these years, they saw a grieving mother, a beloved wife.
They saw the big house, and the handsome man that came through the door every evening.
I used to think Oliver loved me, though his love was cruel and vicious.
And I…
I hated him with every fiber of my being.
I had not known the full weight of hate until I understood the man behind the mask.
I despised him with a depth that knew no end.
Bottomless. Full. You were supposed to feel vacant and cold when you hated someone, but my hate was real and tangible and filled me up the way a big meal did.
It sat in my gut, festering, rotting me on the inside as I smiled on the outside.
He liked to remind me of that damn pill, but I ingested something equally as poisonous every day I existed in his world.
And I told myself that was where I lived.
The world centered around him.
It was him, nothing else. It was him, no one else. It was him, like the air around me. Everywhere and all at once.
I served him the way a bed did. The way a piece of food filled his stomach.
The way a shirt adorned his chest. And he loved me like a child loved their favorite toy and their favorite show and their favorite meal.
I thought after a while he would grow bored of me.
That this obsession with me being perfect would fade and he’d discard me.
But that never happened.
And I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if it did.
Because I was still weak.
I was still the nothing he said I would be without him.
I couldn’t see life beyond this.
And I shouldn’t have fucked up. Shouldn’t have eavesdropped and said what I did.
I didn’t know what came over me. It wasn’t jealousy at the thought of him fucking his student, was it?
Had I felt possessive of him, too? Was he mine even though I hated him?
Did I truly hate him? Oh, my God, I didn’t understand myself.
Nothing was simple with Oliver. Nothing felt linear.
If he’d been abusive all the fucking time, I wouldn’t be so much of the conditioned headcase that I’d become.
I blinked at the darkness as time slipped by.
As the knocks stopped sounding. As Louise must have given up.
God, I hoped she didn’t leave the groceries behind, but he wouldn’t pack it away.
He would let it go to waste, wouldn’t he?
If he unpacked and discovered the “distilled water” which was the brown bag with Louise’s birth pills, all hell would break loose in an irreversible way.
The thought should have frightened me. I’d had them ever since Louise was hired and in the last couple years disclosed that she’d been trying for a baby with her husband.
When she asked whether I was ready again, I told her that while I wasn’t just yet, Oliver was.
He’d waited until he’d released another book, did another tour, watched me relentlessly to see if I truly was his perfect student, before he declared he was ready.
As if that was some grand fucking present to me.
Anyway, it was the only time Louise had ever said anything bad about Oliver.
“Don’t tell him you’re on birth control then. ”
“He’ll know because he always checks my health records. You know, to make sure I’m alright and still seeing my therapist.”
“Then have mine. I don’t need them.”
I accepted straight away.
The conversation was dangerous to have. Oliver had been at the house, and when I had taken a long time out-front talking to her, he’d showed up, silently fuming and wondering what was being said. He’d promptly replaced the cameras with a better audio feature. It was worth it.
If he found those pills…
Yes, the thought should have made me want to wet myself at the mere chance he might find them and know I’d been lying all this time.
Professor Black hated one thing more than anything, and it was lies.
Never lie to me, he warned.
I allowed myself to consider the possibility of him finding out I’d been lying to him. My pulse didn’t jump. Not at all. Not once. In the darkness, I lay there, empty.
I thought of Rowe. No tears fell. I thought of June. No tears fell.
There was nothing left.
He stole every part of me, even my grief.