“I wanted to see you, Nina. I’m really missing you,” he says, sitting down on the bench next to me.
“Why Marcus? What exactly is it you’re missing about me?” I stare straight ahead as I speak. Despite the grey skies, I’ve kept my sunglasses covering my eyes. They’re probably a little glassy looking and I don’t want him to know that I’ve had a drink this early in the day. I want him to think that my new found confidence and bravery is my own doing and not alcohol induced.
“What do you mean, what do I miss? I miss everything. I miss you being a part of my life, Nina. You’re my wife, your place is with me.”
I finally turn and look at him.
“I’m soon to be your ex-wife and I really don’t see what difference it makes to your life not having me around has made. You were hardly ever home anyway and when you were, you never paid me much attention. My thoughts and opinions were never sought, my attendance in your life rarely required. We didn’t even have a sex life to fall back on. So tell me, what is it exactly that you miss? Someone to belittle, someone to judge, or just someone to ignore?”
What the fucking fuck? I have no idea where all of that just came from, but yeah, go me.
“I gave you everything, Nina, fucking everything. We have a beautiful home together, holidays to the best places. You didn’t even have to work if you didn’t want to.” He pushes his own glasses to the top of his head and looks down at me with his cold, unfeeling eyes. “I picked you up from the gutter. You were the slutty little hairdresser that got knocked up and abandoned by a junky convict when she was just sixteen. I fucking made you what you are today.”
I can barely contain my anger. I want to kick, punch and scream at him, but despite the wine in my bloodstream I remain calm on the outside and think carefully about what I’m going to say. Marcus has always thought he was better than me, his university education making him think that he was intellectually and articulately superior.
“You know what Marcus? You should’ve left me in that gutter… because I was far happier there than I ever was being married to you… and FYI, I was never abandoned by anyone. My brother’s lies and deceit kept Conner and me apart and it was also his tenacious blackmailing skills, which forced me into marrying you in the first place.”
The twitch in his jaw goes into overdrive. He looks me over like I’m shit on his shoe.
“You think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you Nina?” he sneers. Giving me his most insincere smile yet.
I hate him.
I fucking hate him.
“You really think Pearce could’ve come up with that little blackmailing scheme on his own? The timing and convenience never seemed coincidental to you, Nina? Are you that stupid and na?ve that it never occurred to you that it was straight after you turned down my proposal that your brother came to you with an offer that you had no choice but to accept?”
My scalp tingles and I fight the urge to throw up all over his feet. I’m grateful to be sitting down and wearing sunglasses as I feel my eyes close and my body sway.
I feel like I’m drowning.
Choking.
Suffocating.
They were in it together.
My brother and Marcus.
My mouth waters as I constantly swallow down the bile that keeps rising in my throat.
“Something you’d be wise to learn, Nina, I always get what I want.”
I snap out of my haze at his words. He links his fingers together, places them behind his head and leans back on the bench, crossing his legs in front of him.
He’s just left me devastated with his words and now his sitting here so smug and casual, almost like he’s sunbathing.
I’ve never considered myself capable of an act of violence, but right now, if I had a knife in my hand, I would stab him in the heart without a second thought.
Actually, I would slice his throat because it would be pointless stabbing him in the heart, when he so obviously doesn’t have one. I’d slice his throat and walk away, leaving him to bleed out. Hopefully, his brain would register the fact that he was beyond help and was going to die before he passed out from blood loss.
Apparently, when pissed off, I do have a violent streak.
“The thing is though Marcus, you didn’t win. You may have lied, blackmailed and manipulated, along with whatever else it took to make me your wife, but I never loved you, never really even cared for you and now, well now you’ve lost me completely.”
I watch as he uncrosses and crosses his legs again, but I don’t give him a chance to speak.
“You see Marcus, I’m now with someone else. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m loved, cherished, worshiped and desired and it’s by someone with more honesty, humility and integrity than you could ever wish for in a thousand lifetimes. He owns me Marcus, heart and soul. I’ll be his till the day I die.”