Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📗

you’re a doctor. It doesn’t matter that you’re successful. You hurt me.”

“Let’s talk about it, then,” he said, his tone suddenly conciliatory. “I never felt good about it, Avery.”

“There’s nothing to say. We passed talking the first time you used your fists instead of your words. The opportunity to fix it was done. I wish it were different. I really do. I wish you were different. But you’re not. And that’s what I’ve had to accept. That’s what I’m working on accepting. And if I were you, I would leave now. Because whatever happens after this there’s going to be a divorce. And if the police have to come arrest you again, none of that is going to go your way.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She bit back a wave of rage. Because escalating it wasn’t going to help. But she wanted to. She wanted to hit him, but she wasn’t going to. But oh how she felt free. And gloriously justified.

She was just bitter and angry now. That she had been made to feel afraid of him. And none of it was her choice. It was all him. He had dumped this on her, on her life. And she had never thought that accepting she was a victim could be any kind of position of strength. But it felt like one now. Because it made everything clear.

All the confusion, all the conflicting emotion that she had felt for the last couple of years was melting away.

Being his victim meant that she wasn’t his wife.

It meant accepting that whatever he might call love, it wasn’t love. It meant accepting that he couldn’t be her husband. And it meant releasing herself from her obligation to him. From any guilt she felt over not fixing it, over not being better.

There were gray areas in marriage. But not when one person was a predator, and the other person was prey. He was the one who had demolished that other lane. He was the one who had turned it into a one-way street. And she wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.

She just felt... Uncoupled. Brilliantly. Gloriously.

“Go away. I am considering getting a restraining order, and I really would hate to have to, but if I do, then this is going to be a crime.”

“Avery, you bitch.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I should have been a bigger one earlier. The man I love isn’t real. He was a fantasy that I spun out of my own dreams. And I’m halfway to hating you for what you did to me. To your children. But I’m not going to let myself hate you. Because I’m not going to let you make me into a toxic person. I’m not going to let you make me into anything. I’m going to make myself into something. And it’s going to have nothing to do with you. Now go away. And don’t make this unpleasant because there are a lot of people here. And all these kids over there, their parents know you. So don’t make it worse.”

And it was the one bit of power she had, that much was clear, because he took a step away from her, and she could tell he didn’t want to. That was another thing that hurt, right then.

He could control it. When he was more worried about the consequences, he could control it. Which meant that he had never really cared all that much about her, and never seen her as a threat. Just an outlet for his temper tantrums. If he could stop himself now, he could have stopped himself any of those other times.

“Goodbye,” she said, forcefully.

And he left.

He left, and the kids never noticed that he was there. He left, and she stood there, watching them. Smile and laugh and be kids. This was new, and it was scary. But there was normal in it. And it would be better. She wasn’t mourning her marriage. Because the marriage that she believed in for so long didn’t exist. She was sad about something she never really had. She had constructed dreams and fantasies and had been convinced that her desire to make them real had done it.

But it had never been real. Not really.

It had never been perfect.

And neither had she. That melody that had pushed at the edges of her mind a few weeks ago came back to her, like sunshine pushing through storm clouds.

And it suddenly became clear. It was a song her mother sang to herself often, usually while washing dishes.

Avery had never once, in all of her adult life been tempted to sing it, least of all while doing dishes.

I sing because I’m happy.

I sing because I’m free.

For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

But it was there now, suddenly like an anthem in her soul.

I sing because I’m free.

27

I had a new audition and I didn’t get it. I haven’t had anything new since that first role and Sam is getting harder and harder to live with. Whiskey makes him mean, and there’s always whiskey. When I look out the window, the lights still glitter, but they feel dim now.

Ava Moore’s diary, 1924

Hannah

“What do you mean you cheated?”

“There’s not a whole lot to tell,” she said. “That’s what happened. I had sex with someone else. And I had been doing it for a while before I broke up with you.”

She was shaking. She felt sick. Dirty and disgusting and everything she always felt when she dragged this up. She had spent a lot of years justifying it. Telling herself that it had to happen. It was the price she paid.

And there was no use being upset about it. No use regretting it. There wasn’t.

And it was his fault, because he had pushed it here. Because he was asking for things that she couldn’t give. Again.

“You just never really knew me, that’s my point. So while this has been... It’s been really good. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But you never really