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Goddess
Huxley has our chicken in front of us with the breadsticks I still hadn’t got around to tasting, glasses of wine, and to top it all off, Italian Cream cake.
“How can you get away with eating this kind of stuff and still look like that?” I can’t help it. I swipe a finger through the frosting and lick it.
“Look like what?” I stumble over my words as I realize I alluded to how hot I think his body is.
“I just meant … how do you stay fit?” I finally get out.
“It’s a lifestyle. I work out and eat right for the most part, so my indulging doesn’t really affect me.”
“So tell me a little about you. Did you grow up here?” I just want to change the subject.
“I’m more curious to know about you. Mine is a long story.”
“So is mine and not really good dinner conversation.” This sparks his curiosity even more as I see the gleam in his eyes.
We finish our food and almost polish off the entire bottle of wine before he circles back around to our previous conversation.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says out of the blue. “Tell me all about you. I want to know everything about the mysterious woman in front of me. In return, I’ll tell you about me. Parts of my life that many are not privy to, but I’ll share with you to make it fair.”
Luke Bryan is still playing softly in the background, and the sun is setting. Orange and red hues reflect off the lake in a romantic kind of way. It may be the buzz of alcohol coursing through my blood or me just being plain nosy to find out things about him that many people don’t know, but I agree to tell him about me. I’m just passing through town, right? So what if he knows. It’s my justification, and I’m sticking to it.
“Deal.”
He pushes the food off to the side and leans back against the pillows. Neither of us has room for dessert after that delicious meal. The breadsticks definitely live up to the hype. He catches me off guard when he pulls me back to lean against the pillows with him. I don’t resist. I can just watch the sunset as I tell my fucked-up story, and I don’t have to see the pity that will surely be in his eyes.
“Where should I start?” I half chuckle nervously.
“Anywhere you want,” he assures.
I decide to start with my family. “My family didn’t always have money. In fact, when my dad was going through his residency, my mother worked two jobs to help us stay afloat. My father is a plastic surgeon, but he’s always lived beyond his means, even when he had a shit ton of bills from medical school. He wanted to keep up with colleagues who had years under their belt to settle into their careers. He and my mom argued about it all the time,” I explain. “Fast-forward a few years. One of my dad’s colleagues, Jerry, decided to go into private practice with just the two of them. They were both unhappy with the group they were in, but neither of them had enough funding to pull off such a large feat. Rather than be inundated with loans from the start, Jerry convinced my dad to bring in a third partner. A silent partner, aka a huge fucking investor … his son, Arlo Nichols. World-renowned plastic surgeon. My dad agreed, and it wasn’t long before their practice soared to new heights in their fancy new building and only the most elite clientele for patients.”
“Sounds like your father accomplished what he set out to do,” Huxley surmises.
“Oh, that’s not the end of it. The fame and money brought in weren’t enough to satisfy him. He shoved me down Arlo’s throat at every turn. Jerry and my dad thought it was their duty to play matchmaker. I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. I went to school, got good grades, and always did what I was told. I believed wholeheartedly that he knew what was best for me. If he thought it was this Arlo guy, then surely, I should give him a chance. To my surprise, we hit it off immediately. I thought I had found my soul mate—my Prince Charming. When he proposed, my parents were over the moon. My dad was all but too eager to welcome him to the family.” I let out a trembling breath because this is where things turn ugly.
“So you got engaged to Mr. Rich Guy,” Huxley says more to himself.
“Yes,” I confirm. “It was a fairy tale in the beginning. I moved in with him after only being engaged for a couple of weeks. I was nineteen then. Free to make my own choices, but I chose the man my dad chose for me. Only I was too plain for him—too plain for his glamorous lifestyle. He started by tossing away all my things under the guise that he only wanted me to have the finer things in life. Then he wanted me to have breast implants and add extensions because he liked big-haired blondes. Soon, I no longer recognized myself, but I justified all the changes as doing my part as a fiancée. I was determined to make an effort to fit into his world. This is how the women looked. I didn’t want to be an embarrassment.”
“You should never have to change who you are for someone else. Especially not for a man who’s supposed to love you for who you are,” Huxley growls. He grabs my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. I can feel him looking at me now, but I don’t want to see the pity in his eyes. I haven’t even shared the horrific part yet.
“There’s more. Arlo started to change. Became less trusting. I enrolled in college to get my prerequisites for nursing. He constantly accused me of cheating on him with various male students at the university. His accusations turned into fights. Well, I should say beatings because he did all the punching.” I can feel Huxley’s tension in my hand, but he lets me continue.
“I should have left him then, but I fell for his many apologies—believed him every time he said it wouldn’t happen again. I dropped out of college to pacify him, believing that things would get better. The honeymoon phase was nice. That’s the phase when he was the most doting fiancé. It wasn’t even the expensive gifts he gave me. I soaked up the time and attention he showered me with. But then those honeymoon phases got shorter and shorter while his trigger list grew longer. Sometimes, the verbal abuse rivaled the physical abuse. My body became his punching bag. Never my face, though. Never a place I couldn’t hide with clothes.”
I don’t even realize I’m sobbing until Huxley pulls me to him. My head nestles into his chest.
“Ah, Goddess. Why did you stay for so long? Why didn’t you tell your family?”
“I couldn’t tell my dad. He puts Arlo on a pedestal. Between Arlo and his dad, they own two-thirds of the private practice. They could push my father out. No way he’d be able to maintain what he’s built on his own.” I sniffle. “I felt stuck. I didn’t want to be the sole reason everything fell apart. That was until this last time. We hosted a charity event. One of his newly married colleagues brought her husband. He felt overwhelmed, so I took him out for a walk around our gardens. I knew how it felt to feel like a foreigner looking into a world where he didn’t quite fit. Only after the event, my intoxicated fiancé accused me of cheating once again.
“He beat me unconscious and left me on the closet floor bleeding. I knew the honeymoon cycle that started the next day had to be the last one. Over the next two days, I grabbed the only things left that I originally moved in with and pulled five hundred dollars from one of the credit cards to halfway replace the things he destroyed of mine. I left everything else behind—clothes, jewelry, Range Rover, and credit cards. I wasn’t taking anything that was part of that life. I used part of my cash to get a bus ticket as far as Atlanta. Then I hitched a ride with a trucker headed to Memphis until he started hinting that he wanted sex as payment. When he stopped for snacks at the convenience store in the middle of nowhere, I saw it as my chance to escape. I hid in the bathroom until he gave up and drove away. Then I ran into you on my way to Marietta.”
“My God, Goddess. That was both the bravest and dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You could have been raped, killed, or both. I understand, though. Nobody should ever have to endure something like that. He’s a fucking coward. I wouldn’t mind getting a hold of that fucker and seeing how much he likes to fight then.” I can feel the rage within him. He rests his chin on my head while taking calming breaths. “You should have told your father. I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted you to be in that situation. He would have found another way.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know if he would have. I mean, surely, he saw the changes in my appearance. The sacrifices I was already making while losing my identity in the process. He never said a word. In the end, I was too scared to say anything. Afraid to dismantle what my father had built but even more afraid to go to him and have him take Arlo’s side with some justification. I just couldn’t. I left a note for Arlo with my engagement ring and all my credit cards on the kitchen counter.”
