Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
“Oh no…what have I done…?” She stares at the blood pooling on the floor as she backs away with trembling legs.
Toward the stairs.
“Ava!” I shout as she falls backward and a haunting thud fills my ears.
For a moment, my whole world goes black.
And I know, I just know, that if she’s gone, I’ll make sure it’s the end for me as well.
40
ELI
Ihaven’t left my bedroom for a week.
Our bedroom.
The extravagant space now smells like her and has become the personification of her pink obsession.
Days turn into nights and I’ve been floundering and running empty baths just so I can saturate my nostrils with the smell of her shower gel.
At some point, I lose all logical thought and start contemplating ways to rewind the clock so she’s back where she belongs. By my side. But then I recall the last day I had her in my arms—broken, beautiful, and unconscious.
I cleaned and bandaged her wounds before I called her parents to come and pick her up.
Because I realized with looming terror that I’m a danger to her life. If she sees me again, she will act on her threats, and that’s not something I can survive.
Even if she was bluffing, which is highly unlikely, I can’t afford that risk.
Not now when she’s extremely volatile.
Cole nearly beat me with a baseball bat and Ari cried her eyes out telling me, ‘You should’ve listened to the doctor;. look what you’ve done,’ as she hugged her mummy-like sister.
Silver patted my arm, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to when I knew full well the decisions I had to make.
I realized that when my wife lost consciousness in my arms after announcing that death is a better option than me.
So I promised Cole to send him the signed divorce and guardianship agreements first thing in the morning.
Sam packed my wife’s suitcases and Henderson helped load them into the van as I stood by my study’s window watching my wife—soon-to-be-ex-wife—being carried, unconscious, in her father’s arms before she was driven away from me for good.
She signed the divorce papers with her father’s guardianship the following day. They’re just waiting for the guardianship transfer before their solicitor processes the divorce.
I told mine to give them whatever they wanted. Anything I own. Even though I doubt she’d want to take anything of mine.
She sent back all the dresses, jewelry, bags, and even cellos I bought for her over the years.
They’re stacked in boxes in her old room because I refused to allow even Sam to go inside and put them back in Ava’s walk-in closet.
Henderson asked me to fight the divorce through my lawyer, but it’s pointless. She can have everything.
Except for this house.
I lie on her side of the bed and stare at the stupid neon-pink stars dangling from the ceiling as I pull out my phone and dial the number I’ve called every day since she left.
“Leave me alone, Eli,” Ari snaps as soon as she picks up.
“How is she?” I ask in the silence.
“Fine.”
“Elaborate.”
“She’s been getting remarkably better since she left your toxic orbit, but especially since Cecy came by a few days ago.”
“And?”
“And that’s all,” she says with exasperation, then I hear a rustling sound, a door being shut, and she lowers her voice. “Listen, just leave her alone. I mean it. I think you trigger her. She was a crying mess when she signed the divorce papers, and she sometimes bursts out in tears for no reason and I’m sure it’s whenever she thinks of you.”
I’m supposed to feel good that she’s also suffering through this, but no joy sparks in me. If anything, a massive sense of bitterness and an all-encompassing loss seeps through the cracks of my armor.
“I am staying away. If I weren’t, I’d be there instead of talking to you on the phone. What does your father plan to do with her treatment plan?”
“That’s none of your business anymore.”
“Ariella, don’t fuck with me. I respected her wishes and disengaged from her, but that does not mean I’ll be gone completely from behind the scenes. Either tell me or I’ll kidnap the fucking therapist and make her talk.”
“Fine, Jesus.” She pauses. “Ava wants to be admitted to the mental institute.”
I sit up, my jaw clenching so hard, it hurts. “As in your parents convinced her to?”
“Not at all.”
“You mean to tell me she’d willingly go to the place she nearly killed herself to leave?”
“Yeah. She said that she was tired of running away. She’s also considering taking this new shock therapy method Dr. Blaine suggested, but Papa is against it. He thinks the chances of success are too low and the process is painful, and, therefore, we shouldn’t risk it, but you know how Ava is when she sets her mind on something.”
Clearly. Considering she got exactly what she wanted by threatening me with the only thing I would never sacrifice.