Page 4 of Possession

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I want a divorce,” I spoke just above a whisper.

“No.” He gripped the dishrag in his hand and twisted his fingers through it. The red juice of the tomatoes stained the bleached white fabric.

“You don’t love me,” I tried.

He stood still. Calculating. Clark’s eyes looked past me, through me, measuring every sin I’d committed, every piece of ammunition he could use to wound me. “I don’t.”

“Then let me leave,” I pleaded.

He shook his head. “You belong to me, we were married before God.”

“Clark, you were unfaithful… before God.” My tone held all the acid that churned in my gut.

“You’re a murderer.” The words slithered over his lips.

It wasn’t a surprise he’d call me that, it was what kept me. It was the truth that bound me to him, to God, to my inability to have children. I’d never be free of my sin, no matter what punishments life held, but I was tired, tired of living through a suffocating death.

“I am.” I ran my sweaty hands down my light tan, linen pants once, and then again, as I tried to iron out the wrinkles from the day, a habit I’d acquired. “But, I’ve paid the price. I’m paying it every day, while you get to do whatever the hell you want.”

He growled, “Don’t swear in this home.”

“This isn’t a home, it’s aprison.” I raised my voice and my heart hammered, and my pulse was like a drum in my chest, but I felt it. I felt something.

His movement was quick, and I hadn’t a chance to react as he gripped his hands around my arms. “You’ll get nothing. You. Are. Nothing.”

The words should have sliced me open, bled me dry, but I’d known his truths for years.

“I know.” My voice cracked as he shoved me away and tears singed my cheeks.

His chest was heaving with suppressed rage, and for the first time in nine years, I felt actual fear. He didn’t want me, he wanted something to control, someone to berate, someone to put down to make himself feel better.

“I wanted a family. I wanted a woman who could actually be a wife. You should have stayed with that crazy piece of trash.” He smirked, sharpening his verbal knife. “But, he didn’t want you either not after—”

“Stop it.” My voice was cold, dead, and terrified. “Stop it, Clark.”

His smile dissipated and his mask of indifference fell into place. “Get out.”

The tree-lined street was still lit by the setting sun, and the neighborhood kids giggled and shrieked as they weaved their bikes through the looming old tree trunks. My car idled as I checked the address on the curb. This was it, I had nowhere else to go, and when I’d dialed Lana’s old number I’d suspected that it would’ve been disconnected, but it hadn’t. I didn’t grab a stitch of clothing from my closet, just my purse, keys, phone, and I’d left.I left.I couldn’t go to my parents, they’d talk me into staying with Clark. They had so much tied up in his family, in the church, they’d never let me leave.

Lana’s place was a cute, little, red brick house, with a heavy looking wood and stained-glass front door. The street was quaint, and I wondered if she lived here with her own family or if she lived here alone. I hadn’t seen my once-best-friend since my wedding day. My past life was completely prohibited, and because she was my one and only link to my life before Clark, before the church, she was cut out.

I turned off the engine and stepped from the car into an oven. This summer was the hottest I could remember, and as I moved toward her front door, tendrils of heat curled around my bare ankles. The front door opened before I even had the chance to make it to the porch.

“Well, shit, if it isn’t little Mrs. Holy Roller… in the fucking flesh.” Lana’s smile broke across her face.

My eyes dropped to the ground at the sound of the harsh words. My body stopped automatically, and my anxiety grew.

“Paige?” Lana was close, close enough to hug, but my breathing became shallow as her familiar scent filled my lungs. The words, the heat, everything burst all at once, and a sob wracked from my lips.

“What did he do to you?” she asked as she wrapped her arms around me. My knees wobbled. The stress of my life weighed down upon me in that one second and I almost couldn’t stand. Lana’s arms tightened around my body, my own arms fixed at my sides.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.” It was the only thing I could say, it was the only truth I had.

“I know who you are, I always have.” She squeezed me tighter as if she was struggling to hold all my broken pieces together.

The moment I was through her front door it all came crashing down. Her house was filled with warmth, color, clutter—life. Books spilled from her shelves, her couches were hand-me-downs from her grandmother. I’d recognize those sofas anywhere. Lana had been adopted by her grandmother because her parents were always in and out of jail for drugs. Before my parents turned into self-righteous zealots, they’d once loved Lana, like their own.

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