Chapter 8
Thealina
He barely makes a sound when he rocks into me most nights. Only a small breathless sigh is an indication he’s about to finish and climb off me.
“Raise your legs,” he whispers.
My vagina is tender and swollen, and when he removes himself from me, it’s as though he scrapes himself out. My hips are lifted, and a pillow is shoved beneath, my legs suspended in the air keeping his ejaculation inside me.
“I think we’ll make a baby tonight,” he grins, laying on his side, propped up on one arm, stroking my stomach.
And if we do, I’ll be sure to end it in a week’s time.
“What happened this evening upset me.”
Upset you?
“I need you to trust in me. Trust I know what’s best for you. You made me feel like a monster.”
You are a monster.
He strokes away some stray hairs from my face, leaning in close to kiss my temple. My breathing stutters, and I close my eyes, seeing if his tender touch is enough to erase all the damage he’s caused.
Nope, still there.
“Remember when I courted you…” he says, rolling to his back, one arm resting behind his head. “I’ll get that back for us, Sweetpea.”
Confusion swirls through me, anxiety claws my gut.
He remembers?
I can’t help but look at him. Look at his sure face, and in this moment he does seem handsome.
Or is that some kind of hope in my chest making him more attractive.
He looks at me too. And I want to ask how.
How does he think he’ll get that part of us back after all this time.
After all the mental abuse, and now recently, physical.
He leans over, running his lips across mine. They tingle when they touch, it’s so foreign I almost cave and lean into it, lean into his affection. Grab it with all my might and never let go.
“Trust I’ll set this right. Not long, Sweetpea.”
That fucking pet-name started shortly after his personality changed.
When he moved his mother in shortly after his father had left.
I say ‘left’ loosely; some part of me thinks it’s all a bit sinister.
Part of me sees the blood on his mother’s hands and I wouldn’t be surprised if bones were found in the attic of her former house.
She was more interested in money and materialistic things than nurturing her husband.
And when he lost his leg and couldn’t work, well, that became more apparent.
He was a decent man in the short time I knew him, always treated me with kindness.
One mildly tingling kiss isn’t enough to rewrite our history.
Fatigue sets in and my hips ache. My husband’s eyes are closed so I risk laying them down, resisting the groan that grows in my chest. Fuzziness sweeps across my body as sleep engulfs me, and I don’t know if it’s in a dream or in a chasm of unwanted hope, but I’m almost sure I heard my husband mumble ‘I miss your voice.’