Page 1 of Breakup Games

Chapter

One

MIRA

“Mira! Mira!”

Sharp pain radiates from my shoulder all the way down my arm. I blink open my eyes, startled by the fuzzy figure of a man standing at the side of my bed. Arms crossed, huffing, and shifting his weight side to side.

“Mira!” he repeats and I realize the angry man standing next to the bed is my husband.

“What?” I groan, still half asleep.

“Get up.” He pokes me in the shoulder again, jabbing me with two fingers as hard as he can. He’s always been like this…pushing the line between just being an asshole and being physically abusive. But this time, it hurts.

“Why?” I ask, already knowing what’s coming. The house isn’t on fire. No one called and needed us to rush to the hospital or something.

“Because I said so. I want to talk.”

I slit my eyes open again just long enough to look at the clock. It’s half past one in the morning. “We can talk later.”

“No. Talk to me now.” He jabs me again. Harder. Then again, even harder.

“Cory, stop it.” I close my eyes, just wanting to disappear into the dark abyss of my bed, sinking past the covers, down into the ground, back into the coffin that has been my home for the last three years.

“God dammit, Mira!” His voice booms around me, reverberating off the walls. Violet, my eleven week old golden retriever puppy, sits up and comes closer to me, scared already. “You’re so fucking selfish. You are the reason we have problems in this marriage. It’s not me, it’s you! It’s a Mira Problem.” He spits out the insult as hard as he can, wanting to hurt me. “Even your dad says so. You know he called me the other day and thanked me for marrying you. He said he was so worried you’d be alone forever and knows how difficult you are to put up with.”

My dad? He wouldn’t…but Cory says so. I blink, the logical part of my brain arguing against what I’ve been conditioned to believe.

“It’s late,” I reply, voice small. I’m scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of staying. I want to break free from this horrible man. I want to live a life where I don’t have to worry about waking up to find torn open bags of garbage in my car because I didn’t take out the trash at night…when I was planning to in the morning on my way out of the house.

But I can’t.

Cory throws back the blankets and grabs my ankle, fingers digging into my flesh. “You will talk to me,” he says through gritted teeth. And then he yanks me forward, and I realize it’s been him the whole time, the monster from my nightmares. The shadowy figure I’ve seen as I’ve awoken stuck in sleep paralysis. Something was warning me, something was telling me to run. But now it’s too late.

He pulls again and I—

“Miss?”

My eyes flutter open and I see the flight attendant standing next to me, holding the coffee I ordered. Inhaling, I sit up and try to shake the remnants of the dream away. It’s been two years since I escaped the living House of Horrors, and I still get flashbacks like this. Thanks, long term memory.

“Thank you,” I tell her, taking the coffee. I bring it to my lips and blow before taking a small sip. I’m on a flight back to Chicago from Ireland, and while I slept for the last four hours, I didn’t intend to doze off again. I have work to do before I land, and I’m going from O’Hare right to the barn, where I’m meeting the gang for brunch and a ride.

Curling my toes in and feeling the ground between my feet, I inhale, doing one of the breathing techniques I have my clients do when they’re anxious. As a therapist, I know flashbacks like that are normal. I know I’ll have moments of being triggered throughout my entire life, perhaps.

And I know I’m out. I’m safe. I’m not married to Cory anymore. I haven’t been for two years, but that hasn’t lessened his obsession with me. I shake my head and roll my eyes, thinking about how his mother whipped out her phone and recorded me ordering coffee at the Starbucks Reserve only last Tuesday. What she plans to do with that footage is beyond me. The odd behaviors of others—and the extremes of psychopaths—is what inspired me to go into psychology in the first place. I never thought I’d be applying so much of what I learned in college to my real life.

I update two client files and read through three intake forms by the time we land. Grabbing my bag from the overhead, I sit back down and wait for the line of people to push their way off the plane. Thankfully, I make it through customs and am wandering around the parking lot looking for my car not too long after that.

“Crap,” I grumble to myself, pulling my phone out of my purse. I was in a rush to get here and didn’t take a picture of the numbered sign, telling myself I’d remember. Well, I don’t, and I have no service so my “parked car” ding isn’t dinging. I walk down another aisle of cars, warm late spring sun shining down on me as I hit the panic button for my Jeep over and over.

“Don’t panic,” I tell myself, and all calming techniques go out the window. I’m great at getting other people to stay calm and logical, but not the best when it comes to myself. I go down another aisle, convinced now that someone stole my car or maybe I’m in the totally wrong lot—O’Hare airport does have quite a few—when I finally hear beeping.

And then I remember I parked in row M6, which I told myself I’d remember because my name starts with the letter M and my birthday is March 6th. Hah.

Shaking my head at myself, I open the back of my Jeep, toss my suitcase inside, and then go around, starting it up. I’ve flown out of O'Hare plenty of times and know my way around Chicago and its surrounding suburbs pretty well. Still, I need to put the barn’s address in my GPS because I’m totally the girl that will miss an exit I’ve taken fifteen times in the last month.

Half an hour into my drive, I take a client call. While I prefer meeting my clients face to face, I have a handful that have their sessions either over Zoom or via a phone call.

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