Page 76 of Single Mom's Firemen

My heart stops for a second. I glance down. There’s no blood. No discomfort in my pelvic area whatsoever. I just pray that my baby is unharmed.

“You left me no choice,” Colby says, coming closer to the bed I’m half slumped on.

“Stay away from me,” I snarl as he approaches with way too much determination.

“I’m your husband, Helena. I’m not gonna hurt you,” he gasps as if I’m insulting him. I can’t help but chuckle bitterly as I manage to pull myself up into a seated position. He looks at me with slight confusion.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Have you forgotten?” I ask, albeit rhetorically. “The diner you burned down? The physical abuse? You tried to choke me to death!”

“Because you won’t listen!” Colby insists. “All the times I begged you to just be a good wife, to know your place, to raise our children and keep your mouth shut—”

“To wear longer dresses. To cook your food a certain way. To keep my head down, and your mother happy,” I irritably cut him off. “Fuck you, Colby. I’m not going back to that horror show ever again.”

His hand comes down hard. He smacks me across the face. My cheek stings but I refuse to cry in his presence. I refuse to let him know precisely how terrified I truly am. He feeds on my fear with pleasure. I need a different angle here; I cannot rebel against him any further. He will flip out and hurt me even worse.

“Colby, I’m the mother of your children,” I say with a trembling but calm voice. “What example are you setting for Luna and Sammy?”

“That a wife needs to know her place.”

I shake my head. “I’m not your wife anymore. The divorce was finalized six months ago.”

Colby sighs deeply. “We’re married until I say otherwise, Helena. And I have no intention of letting you go. I’ve already lost you once.”

“You’ve lost your mind, you know that?”

That earns me another slap. This time, however, it only fuels my resolve. Either I’m getting used to the pain, or he didn’t put that much effort into it.

“You ungrateful bitch,” he hisses, his face red with fury. “If only you’d been a good wife, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Colby, for the love of God, you hurt me. You’re still hurting me. Why would I want to be with a man who hurts me?”

“You took a vow! Together until death do us part.”

He’s about to hit me again but I wince in anticipation. He pulls back and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“You bring out the worst in me when you act like this,” he says. “If only you would understand, Helena, that things don’t have to be so difficult for us.”

“If only you would understand that I don’t want to be with you anymore,” I reply. “We tried. I’m clearly not the right woman for you, Colby, and that’s okay. I tried so hard to be the woman you wanted me to be and it didn’t work out. Why can’t you just let me go?”

Colby comes close again and I hold my breath for a minute, anticipating the worst kind of rebuttal. Instead, he kneels before me and places his hands on my thighs, fingers digging into my flesh. It’s a possessive and pleading gesture. He’s trying to convey multiple things at the same time. His mind must be a crumbling disaster at this point.

“I can’t let you go. You belong with me,” he says. “All this time that you’ve been away, I haven’t been myself.”

“Is that why you tried to kill us?”

“Okay, I admit, I was out of line there,” he replies, as if all he did was leave the trash overnight. “But you have to admit, Helena, you haven’t made it easy for me to reach you.”

“You obviously knew where I was. Why couldn’t you just walk in and talk to me?”

“Would you have stayed put? Because I reckon you would’ve run screaming.”

I smile subtly. “So you admit that I have every reason to be afraid of you.”

“You’re twisting my words,” he says, his jaw clenched with unbridled anger. I need to steer him back in the calm zone, if only to buy myself a little bit more time until I figure out what to do next. That’s all I need, time to find a way out of here. To save my children from this monster.

“I’m sorry,” I try to appease him. “I’m angry and hurt, too. Luna and Sammy almost died in that fire.”

His lack of emotion startles me, but I take deep breaths and hold on to my composure. I cannot fail. “It wasn’t my intention. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says.

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