Chapter 14
[Addison]
“How can you think that,” my heart drops as the depth of his accusation seeps into my bones and the last of my righteous anger drains from my body. “I would never…” my heart is breaking, what is left of it falling into a thousand pieces. “Why would you…?”
“Because you’re jealous,” my husband says as he continues to spew his accusations. “Evelyn told me everything. She even showed me the messages you sent, threatening her if she came near me or our son. Jayson told me you made him play outside at night, and that the kidnappers almost got him too if Evelyn hadn’t saved him.”
I should be mad. I deserve to be mad.
But at hearing Michael’s lack of faith in me, the last of my resolve evaporates like mist.
And now my son is lying to protect her as well, making up stories to defend Evelyn.
“I never said or did any of those things,” my voice deepens, exhaustion settling into my bones. “I’d never put Jayson at risk. We were outside playing because he demanded we go out and then he ran off into the road. He made me chase him, Michael. I think maybe Evelyn has been…”
“Keep her name out of your mouth!” Michael snaps. I have heard him angry before, seen it in the courtroom when his passion gets the better of him, but never during our time together has his wrath been directed towards me.
“Evelyn has a heart of gold and that is the only reason she’s not pressing charges. As her legal counsel, I advised her to reconsider, but we decided that if you apologized to her sincerely for scaring her and our son, and agreed to see a therapist, we’d
forgive you.”
They’d forgive me? I’d laugh if his words weren’t so ridiculous.
“Why would I do that? I didn’t do what she was saying,” I insist once more but I might as well be talking to a wall.
“I can’t believe you, Addison,” Michael scoffs. I know that if I could see his face it would be red and sweating, his calm reserve shattered.“Have you no shame?! Even now, even after we gave you a way out, you still insist you’ve done nothing wrong?!”
“She’s lying to you, Michael. To both of you,” I insist, trying one more time to make him hear reason. This isn’t the Michael I know, the man I’ve loved for all these years. “Please, Michael, listen to yourself. I’m lying in a hospital bed right now and you
think I had a hand in this?”
“Who knows what you’re capable of? still can’t believe you somehow got our son involved in all of this,” Michael’s voice is so cold it’s glacial. “You’re so selfish. Jayson is waking up having nightmares because of you.”
Because of me. No matter what I say, all of this is somehow my fault.
“Is it true,” I finally get the courage to ask. “Is she pregnant? Were you at a fertility clinic with her today?”
“Not that you deserve an answer, but yes,” Michael’s voice is glacial cold. “Evelyn is not like you. She needed someone to hold her
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hand and I offered to be there as a friend while she learned if her baby survived your little stunt. Luckily for you, her baby is fine.
If it hadn’t survived, You’d be looking at manslaughter charges.”
The phone falls silent and I hear a feminine voice in the background followed by the tinkling of wine glasses. I hear Evelyn calling
his name, asking when he’s coming back. A little boy laughs in the background with an unmistakable lightness.
He’s not at work. He’s with her and our son who is listening while his father calls his mother a kidnapper and a murderer.
Even though he can hear my words, Michael isn’t really listening, at least not with his heart. The more I listen, the more I realize
that no matter what I say or do, he is going to believe what he wants, and right now more than anything he wants to believe
Evelyn.
She is the one who got away. I was just the one who was keeping her place warm—He made that truth quite clear to me when he
chose her in that warehouse and left me to those monsters. If those soldiers hadn’t arrived when they did…
My husband isn’t mine anymore. I think part of me realized that the moment I first saw the three of them together, standing in
the sunshine outside of Jayson’s school.
Jayson doesn’t need me. He has his Mama Evelyn.
Michael doesn’t love me. If he loved me he’d trust me.
Maybe the only one that had ever been in love with our little family had been me. Not once during this conversation had he asked
me about OUR child—he was too busy worrying about hers.
I don’t want to tell him about the baby anymore. He doesn’t deserve to know.
“This can never happen again, Addy,” Michael reprimands me as if I were a child and not his wife of five years. “You were lucky
nobody was hurt.”
By nobody, he means anybody other than me and our unborn child.
“I understand,” my lips move but my heart and mind are already elsewhere, free of the nightmare of the last few days. “That
shouldn’t be a problem.”
Opening my computer, I looked over the divorce agreement one last time before attaching it to an email addressed to Michael and
his attorney.
Calmly, I press send.
“Don’t worry,” I exhale, my spirits lifting as the document makes its way across the internet and into his inbox. “It’ll never
happen again.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear you say that, Addy. I was worried that…”
“Because I want a divorce,” I interrupt him briskly.
He coughs, choking on his drink, the sound of glass shattering in the background. “What did you just say?”
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“I said,” I take one more deep breath. “I want a divorce.”
