Page 29 of Vile Emotion
“Jules,” that moment should have had me running further but I turned to face him.
I turned around to see my ex-boyfriend, the man who slapped me. I tried to scream, but he covered my mouth with his hand.
"I'm sorry, baby," he said. "I just couldn't stay away from you. I know I hurt you, but I promise I'll never do it again. I love you."
I shook my head, trying to signal that I didn't believe him, but he ignored it. He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me.
"Let's go home," he whispered. "I'll make you dinner and we can watch a movie."
I knew I should resist, but I was so tired of fighting.. Maybe he had changed like he said, I missed him, he was all I had. I let him lead me away, my heart heavy with dread.
“Do you have a death wish?” Alaric asks me in a calm voice.
I blink because if I really did have a death wish does that mean he is the wish or is it different this time around? Even without a death wish, Alaric still wants me gone. That was all that was going through my head until now… where I’m sitting right in front of Alaric after trying to follow Edwin outside.
My eyes fill with tears as I look up at Alaric, not caring if he’s going to shout at me for crying in front of people or not.
“I was so naïve. I really thought he meant it when he said he wouldn’t do it again.” I sniffle, wiping away a tear. “I really should have known better. I should have paid attention to the signs. But I didn't and now, I’ll forever pay the price.”
“What price is that, Juju?” Alaric asks me but I can’t answer him head-on right now. I’m in such a messed up place that I would blurt out something about his wife, setting this whole thing up for worse destruction than I need to.
We sit there in silence for a good while while I ring my hands together under the table then I place them on the table to stabilize them but it doesn’t work. My body trembles as I stare down at them. My precious hands, my precious body. Precious me.
“He wasn’t supposed to hit me.” I whisper.
Alaric says nothing but I don’t look up at him. Why should I, so he can tell me how stupid of me that it was to let him hit me?
“He had promised he wouldn’t do it again. But he did and I ignored the signs. I should have known better. I should have paid attention. But I didn’t and now I’m paying the price.”
“What price is it, Juliana?” Alaric asks me again in a firm voice but once more, I don’t answer him.
“It’s not just the physical pain that I had to deal with. It’s the emotional pain as well, the pain of knowing that I should have known better and that I would’ve been better without him. I should have let him go so that I could remain alone. Being alone was better than what I had to face with him.” I say full of disdain. The anger, guilt and disgust of Edwin eating me up.
There are words I don’t say out loud because I can’t have Alaric hearing them.
It wasn’t just that. It was the pain of knowing that I could have stopped everything from happening. But I didn’t and now, I was paying the price… the price of playing someone’s wife because I had killed his other one.
A person HE loved. A MOTHER that was probably scared when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to protect her kids. That she wasn’t going to make it home that night to be in her husband’s arms.
That was the price.
It was all my fault and I fucking deserved this. I deserved Alaric’s brutal treatment of me yet here I was, sitting across from him tearing up at my stupidity. It cost me five lives; Alaric’s wife, his unborn baby, his son, my son’s and my own life. It was no longer mine. It belonged to Alaric Dean Crowne.
“That price wasn’t supposed to have been yours to pay, Juliana.” Alaric words grab the attention of my eyes. He just stares at me for a moment with a blank expression. There was no telling how he was feeling. “It wasn’t supposed to be.” He emphasizes. “But it is.”
He stands up leaving me there with his words.
22
“He wasn’t supposed to hit me.”
Those words shook me and I didn’t want to admit it to Juliana. Edwin being violent isn’t a shocker after what I’ve just witnessed and neither is how she’s fearing him now.
I didn’t understand a moment ago but I understand now. Not about what happened to my wife but about her fear. The way she paused when he was sitting there.
That was another thing that I wish hadn’t happened. Her being in an abusive relationship before everything went down, doesn’t help my case. It makes it worse.
I don’t like abusive bastards. My dad may not have been physically abusive but when that man would berate, it was borderline triggering and there are times I know I’ve turned into him.
