Present Day—Richland
I WOKE UP gasping the next day, then quickly began choking. My mind whirled as I fought to open my heavy eyelids, and I wondered what Collin was doing to me. But there was no pain other than the dull ache in my throat and pounding in the back of my head. There were no harsh words or demands to hide my pain, and the sensation of being choked slowly faded, leaving me to gasp for air again. But I knew it was all in my mind. I knew if I could just open my eyes I would know Collin wasn’t there, and I would know that I could breathe. Just as I finally wrenched my eyes open, I heard heavy and quick steps pounding down the hall.
I shot up in bed and looked around to the rumpled comforter and sheets covering me, and blinked against the harsh light coming through the open window as Collin came running into the bedroom with a wild look in his eyes that immediately calmed when he saw me sitting there.
Collin came around to the side of the bed and sat in front of me, but didn’t touch me until my breathing was mostly under control, and then it was just to grasp my chin and tilt my head back to look at my throat for a few seconds.
After he released my chin, his fingers gently ran down my bruised throat, and he mumbled, “Look at me, Harlow.”
I dropped my head but was having a hard time keeping eye contact with him. All I could see was how Collin had pointed the gun at me the day before, and everything else that had happened after that dreaded doctor appointment.
“I thought you had finally—” He broke off suddenly and looked away for a few seconds; his eyes were red and glassy when he looked back to me. Every muscle in my body tensed at the sight. “I thought you had finally decided you couldn’t live like this anymore. When I heard you, I thought you were . . . I thought you were trying to . . . well I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?”
Even with his indifferent words, it didn’t change his tone, it didn’t change his broken and unsure sentences, and it didn’t change the look in his eyes or the slight tremble in his chin. He thought I’d been trying to kill myself, and he was trying not to cry. Some women might feel like their men were more human after seeing them get emotional for the first time. Some might even have the urge to comfort their strong husbands when they show this rare vulnerable side, but I couldn’t move and I wasn’t breathing. I was afraid the tears were a trick, and if I made a wrong move I was going to pay for it.
“Do you love me, Harlow?” he asked softly. For the first time, it sounded like a genuine question, and he looked like he didn’t know what my answer would be. When I didn’t respond, his eyebrows pinched together, the light in his eyes died, and a rage I knew all too well covered his face as one of his hands shot out and grabbed my wrist. But just as soon as I felt the pain of him digging his thumb into the pressure point there, it was gone as he snatched his hand back, as if he’d realized what he was doing. Collin closed his eyes, and after a deep breath in and out, he slowly opened them again with a calmer expression. “Do you love me?”
“You know I do,” I said in a hoarse voice. The lie came easily, thanks to the years of practice with him.
“And do you know that I love you?” he asked warily.
Something in his voice made my chest ache. Not for his love, and not for the guy I’d fallen in love with before he became my monster. But for all the lies I’d said in the past five years, for the lie I’d been living, and for the pain this man had cost me—only for him to now act like this was hard for him.
Before I could respond, fear flooded my veins when tears started quickly slipping down my cheeks. I tried to stop them, tried to gather whatever strength I could find, but there was nothing as more tears continued to fall. A sob burst from my chest, and my body slumped forward when I decided that after what had happened the day before, I didn’t have enough in me to care that he was seeing me break down. And once he’d seen the tears, there was no point in lying to him. But the tears also served as my answer, an answer Collin would have never accepted in the past, and an answer I didn’t think he was going to accept then.
I waited for my monster; I waited for the pain. My body jerked when his fingers trailed over mine and then slowly up my arms; but instead of stopping at any of the number of pressure points on my arms, Collin gently pulled me onto his lap.
“I do love you,” he whispered into my ear. “I swear to God I love you, Harlow.”
All I could manage was a nod against his chest while I internally screamed, You’re a monster! You don’t know what love is!
“What I do, I do for us; to better our relationship, to better you as a woman and my wife.”
There he was . . . my monster. Still hiding, but there in Collin’s words. Always waiting, teasing me, lurking behind the perfect mask of my seemingly perfect husband.