Chapter 2 - The Echo of Silence
The car ride back to our newly purchased house on Calhoun Street was an exercise in pure suffocation.
Adrian gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles resembled polished marble. His jaw worked rhythmically, chewing on words he refused to let spill over his lips. Every few seconds, his dark eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, checking traffic, checking his phone, checking anything that kept him from looking at me.
My shoulder throbbed beneath a loose linen blouse. The twelve stitches pulled painfully with every rotation of the tires over Charleston’s cobblestones.
“That doctor was out of line,” Adrian finally bit out, breaking the silence like shattering glass. “Unprofessional. Bizarre. I should report her to the medical board.”
I turned my head slowly, looking out the passenger window at the grand oak trees draped in Spanish moss. The afternoon sun filtered through the leaves, casting long, bruised shadows across the pavement.
“She wasn’t talking about medicine, Adrian,” I said quietly. My voice felt hollow, drained of whatever resilience had carried me down the aisle three days ago. “She was talking about loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” Adrian snapped, his voice rising sharply as he glanced sideways at me. “Summer was having a panic attack! She was hyperventilating! The paramedics said she could have gone into shock!”
“And I was bleeding. On the ground. In my wedding dress.”
“You had cuts, Evelyn! Surface scratches! You were conscious!” He slammed a hand against the steering wheel, making the horn give a short, angry beep. “Why do you keep turning this into a competition? You always do this! You resent that I have a history, that I have friends who need me!”
I stared at him, truly looked at him, searching the sharp lines of his face for the man who had promised to protect me. The man I had known for four years, lived with for two, and legally bound myself to less a hundred hours ago. There was no remorse in his eyes. There was only irritation. The profound annoyance of a man whose convenience had been interrupted by an inconvenient wife.
“A competition,” I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. “Right. My wedding day was just a rehearsal for your rescue fantasy.”
“Drop it, Evelyn. Just drop it.”
He pulled into our driveway, cutting the engine with a vicious twist of the key. He didn’t get out to open my door. He didn’t offer to help me out of the low-slung passenger seat. He shoved his door open, marched up the front steps, and unlocked the door, leaving me to struggle out of the car alone.
Inside, the house smelled of unpacked boxes and lingering white lilies from the aborted reception flowers my mother had managed to salvage and send over.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a text from an unknown number. Attached was a single photo.
It showed Adrian standing outside the hospital emergency room three nights ago, holding a steaming paper cup of coffee. Standing right beside him, wearing an oversized hospital gown and leaning her head delicately against his shoulder, was Summer Hale. Her smile toward the camera was small, triumphant, and entirely hidden from Adrian’s profile.
The caption beneath the photo read: Some ties are unbreakable, sweetie. You were just a lovely ceremony.
I didn’t cry. The tear ducts felt completely scorched.
Instead, I walked up the stairs, bypassed our master bedroom where Adrian was already aggressively ripping off his tie, and went straight to the guest room. I locked the door behind me.
My phone buzzed again. Another message, this time from my mother.
Evelyn, pack your bags. Come home. I’m serious. If you stay in that house with him one more night, I’m calling a lawyer myself.
I sat down on the edge of the twin mattress, looking at my reflection in the dark windowpane. My face was pale, my shoulder stained with faint pink remnants of dried blood I hadn’t fully washed away.
May you like
Dr. Cross’s words echoed softly in the quiet room: You should bury this marriage before it buries you.
She didn't know how right she was. But I wasn't going to crawl away like a victim. If this marriage was going to die, I was going to make sure I collected every piece of the wreckage.
