Chapter 4

Liam finally showed up at the hospital hours later, long after my wrist had been set in a heavy cast that reached my elbow. He walked in carrying a small, sad-looking bouquet of carnations from the hospital gift shop. He placed them on the bedside table, avoiding my eyes. My ruined sketchbook, taped crudely back together, was tucked under his arm.

"Here," he said, holding it out. "Sarah felt bad about what happened."

I stared at him, my mind a cold, quiet place. "Sarah felt bad? Or you felt bad that your girlfriend made a scene in public?"

He flinched. "Eleanor, don't be like that. It was a misunderstanding. Sarah was just trying to be friendly, and you overreacted."

"I overreacted?" The question was quiet, but it vibrated with a rage that was new to me. "You abandoned me on the floor of a cafe with a broken bone to take care of her scratch, Liam. You lied to me about where you were on our anniversary. You gave her my private sketchbook to use as a weapon against me. How, exactly, did I overreact?"

He had the grace to look uncomfortable. He ran a hand through his perfect hair. "Look, Sarah is... fragile. She's been through a lot. She gets scared easily. I had to make sure she was okay."

"Fragile?" I let out a short, bitter laugh that sounded ugly in the sterile room. "The only fragile thing in that cafe was my wrist, Liam. And you didn't give a damn."

His discomfort quickly hardened into annoyance. This was the part where I was supposed to cry and forgive him. Where I was supposed to accept his pathetic excuses and be grateful for his attention. But I wasn't playing my part anymore.

"What is your problem?" he snapped, his voice rising. "So you broke your wrist. It's not the end of the world. It'll heal. But Sarah was emotionally distressed! You have no idea what it's like for her, coming back after all this time."

"You're right, I have no idea," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "And I don't care. I want to talk about me. I want to talk about us. Or is this all our marriage is? Me, waiting for you to be done taking care of your fragile step-sister?"

"She's not just my step-sister!" he exploded, his face turning red. "You've always known that!"

"Yes, I have," I said. "And I was a fool to ever think it would change. I was a fool to think you would ever see me." My eyes drifted to the cast on my arm. My right arm. My sculpting arm. "You know, all my best work, my best ideas, were in that book you gave her. My sculptures... that was my dream, Liam."

He looked at me, and his expression wasn't angry anymore. It was something far worse. It was contempt. He sneered, a twisting of his beautiful mouth that made him look like a stranger.

"Your dream?" he scoffed. "That childish hobby? Playing with mud? Eleanor, be serious. Your dream was to marry me. And you got it. You should be grateful. All that art stuff was just a phase. You're much better now. More polished. More suited to my world."

The words hit me with the force of a physical slap. He didn't just dislike my art. He despised it. He despised the person I was before I met him. The person I had killed to be with him. The entire foundation of my life for the past decade was a lie I had told myself. He had never loved me. He hadn't even liked me. He had tolerated me.

A strange thing happened then. The pain in my heart, the searing agony of his betrayal, crested and then broke. It washed away, leaving behind a vast, empty calm. It was the calm of utter devastation. The calm after the hurricane has passed and all that is left is wreckage. There was nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to save.

He saw the change in my face, but he misinterpreted it completely. He saw submission, the familiar return of the pliable, agreeable Eleanor.

"Look," he said, his tone softening, becoming patronizing. "I know you're upset. You're hormonal. Let's just go home. You can rest, and we'll forget this whole ugly incident ever happened. Things will go back to normal."

He reached out to touch my face. I flinched away as if from a hot iron.

"Don't touch me," I said.

He froze, his hand hovering in the air. He looked genuinely confused.

"Eleanor?"

"Go home, Liam," I said, turning my face to the window. "I'll get my own ride."

He stood there for a long moment, baffled. He couldn't comprehend it. In his world, I was a constant. A fixed point of adoration that would always be there, no matter how badly he treated me. The idea that I could actually leave him was an impossibility.

"Fine," he said, his voice clipped with anger. "Have it your way. Sulk in here by yourself. Call me when you're ready to be reasonable."

He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him. The sound echoed in the quiet room. I stared at my white cast, a stark symbol of his neglect. Back to normal. He thought we could go back to normal. But he had just smashed the normal to pieces. And in the ruins, for the first time, I was starting to see a path out.