by C. R. Jane
I shakily set my fork down, my cheeks flushing from his comment. I was eating a salad and I’m already slimmer than I should be. But Gentry loves to control everything about me, food being just one of many things. I see Lucinda patting her lips delicately as she finishes eating her salmon. My stomach growls at the fact that I’ve had just a few bites to eat. I have a few dollars stashed away in my car, I’ll have to stop somewhere and grab something to eat on the way home. That is if Gentry doesn’t leave at the same time as me and follow me.
When I’ve gotten my emotions under control, I finally lift my eyes and glance at my husband. He’s back in deep conversation with Conrad, their voices still too soft for me to pick anything up. Looking at him, I can’t help but get the urge to stab him with my silverware and then run screaming from the room. The bastard would probably find a way to haunt me from the grave even if he didn’t survive. Still, I find my hand clenching involuntarily as if grasping for a phantom knife.
After that one terrible night when it became clear that I couldn’t go to L.A. to meet up with the guys, I was lost. I got a job as a waitress and was living in one of those pay by week extended stay motels since there was no way I could stay in my trailer with them anymore. I met Gentry Mayfield while waitressing one night. He was handsome and charming, and persevered in asking me out even when I refused the first half a dozen times. My heart was broken, how could I even think of trying to give my broken self to someone else? I finally got tired of saying no and went on a date with him. He made me smile, something that I didn’t think was possible, and every date after that seemed to be more perfect than I deserved. I didn’t fall in love with Gentry, my heart belonged to three other men, but I did develop admiration and fondness for Gentry in a way that I hadn’t thought possible. After pictures started to surface on the first page of the gossip sites of the guys with hordes of beautiful women, and the fact that my life seemed to be going nowhere, marrying Gentry seemed to be the second chance that I didn’t deserve. Except the funny thing about how it all turned out is that my life with Gentry turned out worse than I probably deserved, even after everything that had happened.
Three months after we were married, I burnt dinner. Gentry had come home in a bad mood because of something that had happened at work. Apparently, me burning dinner was the last straw for him that day and he struck me across the face, sending me flying to the ground. Afterwards, he begged and pleaded with me for forgiveness, saying it would never happen again. But I wasn’t stupid, I knew how this story played out. I stayed for a week so that I could get ahold of as much money as I could and then I drove off while he was at work. I was stopped at the state lines by a trooper who evidently was friends with Gentry’s family. I was dragged kicking and screaming back home where Gentry was waiting, furious and ready to make me pay. Every semblance of the man that I had thought I was marrying was gone.
I had $5,000 to my name when I met him. I’d gotten it from selling the trailer that I inherited when my parents died in a car crash after one of their drunken nights out on the town. Gentry had convinced me that I should put it in our “joint account” right after we got married and stupidly, I had agreed to do it. I never got access to that account. Gentry stole my money, he stole my self-esteem. No, he didn’t steal it, he chipped away at it and just when I thought I’d crumble, he kissed me and cried over me and told me he’d die without me.
I tried to get away several more times, by bus, on foot, I even went to the police to try and report him. But the Mayfield’s had everyone in this state in their pocket, and nothing I said or did worked. I eventually stopped trying. It had taken me a year of not running away to get my car back and to be able to do things other than stay home, locked in our bedroom, while Gentry was at work.
Gentry stood up from the table, bringing me back to the present. A random song lyric floated through my mind about how the devil wears a pretty face, it certainly fit Gentry Mayfield.
“I’m heading to the office for the rest of the day. What are your plans?” he asks, as if I had a choice in what my plans were.
“Just finishing things around the house and going to the store to get a few ingredients for dinner,” I tell him, waving a falsely cheerful goodbye to Gentry’s parents as he walks me out of the dining area towards the valet stand. We stop by the exit and he pulls me towards him, stroking the side of my face that I’ve painted with makeup to hide the bruise he gave me the night before. My eyes flutter from the rush of pain but Gentry somehow mistakes it as the good kind of reaction to his touch. He leans in for a kiss.
“You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he tells me, sealing his lips over mine in a way that both cuts off my air supply and makes me want to wretch all at once. I hold still, knowing that it will enrage him that I don’t do anything in response to his kiss, but not having it in me to fake more than I already have for the day. He pulls back and searches my eyes for something, I’m not sure what. He must not find it because his own eyes darken, and his grip on my arms suddenly tightens to a point that wouldn’t look like anything to a club passerby, but that will inevitably leave bruises on my too pale skin.
He leans in and brushes his lips against my ear. “You’re never going to get away from me, so when are you going to just give in?” he spits out harshly. I say nothing, just stare at him stonily. I can see the storm building in his eyes.
“Don’t bother with dinner, I’ll be home late,” he says, striding away without a second glance, probably to go find Wendy and make plans to fuck her after he leaves the office, or maybe it will be at the office knowing him.
I wearily make my way through the doors to the valet stand and patiently wait for my keys. It’s a different kid this time and I’m grateful he doesn’t try to flirt with me.
On my way back from the country club I find myself taking the long way back to the house, the way that takes me by the trailer park where I grew up. I park by the office trailer and find myself walking to the field behind the rows of homes. Looking at the trash riddled ground, I gingerly walk through the mud, flecks of it hitting the formerly pristine white fabric of my shoes. I walk until I get to an abandoned fire pit that doesn’t look like it’s been used for quite a while. For probably five years to be exact.
I sit on a turned over trash barrel until the sun sits precariously low in the sky and I know that I’m playing with fire if I dare to stay any longer. I then get up and walk back to my car, passing by the trailer I once lived in. It’s funny that after everything that has happened, at the moment I would give anything to be back in that trailer again.
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Other Books by C.R. Jane
The Fated Wings Series
First Impressions
Forgotten Specters
The Fallen One (a Fated Wings Novella)
Forbidden Queens
Frightful Beginnings (a Fated Wings Short Story)
Faded Realms
Faithless Dreams
The Rock God (a Fated Wings Novella)
The Timeless Affection Series
Lamented Pasts
Lost Passions
The Pack Queen Series
Queen of the Thieves
Queen of the Alphas (2019)
Broken Souls Series
School of Broken Souls
School of Broken Hearts
The Rise Again Series
The Day After Nothing (2019)
The Sounds of Us Contemporary Series
Remember Us This Way
Remember You This Way
Remember Me This Way (2019)
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Fallen World Series Co-write with Mila Young
Bound
Broken
Betrayed
