When I Was Theirs

46. Emmy

46

Emmy

“ A rron Matthews.”

I haven’t said his name in two years. It tastes wrong. Bitter.

Jared’s hand tenses around mine, but he doesn’t say anything.

“We went to high school together.” I wet my lips, staring into the bushes opposite us. But I’m not seeing them. I’m somewhere else, remembering the life that I was supposed to live.

With the boy I was supposed to love.

“It was all very cliché,” I say softly. “My father is a businessman, you see. Lots of local investment. Plenty of fingers in plenty of pies. Connections everywhere - not all of them legitimate. And Arron’s father was his business partner. So we grew up with the knowledge that one day, we would be expected to marry. Keep it in the family with a strong alliance.”

“Your mother?”

The lump grows in my throat. “A society wife. She was raised the same way, so she didn’t see anything wrong with it. And neither did I. I loved him. Or I thought I did.”

Because I know now that I didn’t know what love was. Had no idea what it could be.

But I really thought I loved Arron Matthews. “He was the school quarterback. But intelligent. Incredibly so. Charming. Charismatic. Throw in every possible trait, and he had it.”

“I hate him already,” Jared mutters.

My lips twitch up at the low words, and he clears his throat. “Keep going.”

“I always felt so lucky,” I admit. “I wasn’t much to look at. My mother wanted me to become a cheerleader, but I never had the talent. And I was quiet. But he was always kind to me. Maybe a little over the top sometimes, especially in front of other people, but I never felt like I was less .”

I glance up and catch Jared watching me. “I never thought to question it. Not then. Maybe I had some doubts, but everyone around me laughed them off, so I did too. And we married straight out of high school.”

A fairytale wedding, with no expense spared.

He inhales. “College?”

I shake my head. “Maybe I would have, but it wasn’t something I needed. Not in their view. I managed to get a floristry apprenticeship, though. My mother approved of that. She said it would be useful, and Arron agreed.”

For the brunches, and lunches, and events.

They wanted me to look pretty, and be pretty, and make pretty things.

To be of value to the man beside me. And never for myself.

Never question. Never challenge.

“I tried so hard,” I force out. “I tried to be what Arron wanted me to be. But he couldn’t pretend, not forever. And he was… unhappy. I wasn’t what he’d had in mind, I think. He just went along with his father.”

“Unhappy how?” Jared’s voice turns low. Dangerous. “Violent?”

“Not at first.” I look down. My hand is hidden beneath Jared’s. His fingers are huge, little knicks and scratches covering them. Working hands.

Arron had smooth hands. Smooth hands, and a smooth personality. “He used words, to begin with. And he could be cruel. He started criticizing my wardrobe, so I had a new one delivered that he liked more. Then he started picking at my words, my conversations, and I started staying quiet. I felt like I was living on the edge of a knife, and I never knew which way he would fall. But he never hit me. He’d bang around in the bedroom. Throw things. Push past me, so I fell into things. I think we’d been married for around a year when it turned physical. Not often, but when he did… It was bad.”

“Did anyone try to help you?” Jared sounds livid. “That’s abuse, Em. All of it, I mean. Not just the physical.”

His voice drops at the end.

“I know.” And I do. “I think I knew then, too. But I didn’t know what to do about it. I tried to explain it to my mom. My dad. Even Arron’s mom. But he’d smile, and give an excuse before I could even open my mouth.”

“What did they say?”

This part hurts more. “They told me I was seeing things. Stressed. Overworked, even though I barely did anything. I needed rest. Relaxation. I spent more time in spas than I did at home for a while. And it did help, because he wasn’t there.”

“They gaslit you,” he says grimly. “All of them.”

“We had an argument at a dinner once, because I saw him going into the cloakroom with someone else.” I play with the sleeve of my coat, tugging on a loose thread. “In front of everyone. My friends stopped talking to me. My mother wouldn’t take my calls. My father was furious. All because it was public.”

I couldn’t leave the house for a month.

“It got better for a while. I kept my head down and did as I was told, and Arron was pleased. He was working on this deal – a big one, worth a couple of million. It would have secured his position with his father, really set us up for the future.”

I stop there.

“It’s okay,” Jared says raggedly. His thumb strokes across the top of my hand. “You can stop, Em. I get the picture.”

Not the full picture. But enough, maybe. Although there’s one more thing I need him to know. “I ran away. And now he’s here, Jared.”

My husband is here.

“I won’t let him near you.” His words are grim. “Can we file a report? To give you an extra layer of protection?”

“I tried that before. Nobody listened. The local chief was a friend of my father’s, friends with Arron’s father. The reports vanished.”

The wonderful corruption of the wealthy and connected.

“Nobody believed me,” I say finally. I stare up at the blanket of stars across the night sky. The lamp nearby blocks a few, but it’s a clear night. “He was too perfect. Too charming. It wasn’t possible.”

Surely you’re exaggerating.

All husbands have their little quirks.

You’re so young. You’ll adjust.

Such a clumsy girl.

You’re so lucky, Emilia.

Girls would kill to have your life.

Be grateful for what you have.

My hand raises to cover my scar.

A warm touch gently nudges my hand out of the way, and I inhale sharply, turning to face him. Jared doesn’t say anything. He carefully pushes my hair back.

The amber ring in his eyes flares brightly. “Can I touch you? Here?”

“Yes.”

Jared runs the pad of his fingers over my scars, feeling the texture. He brushes the edges, trails his fingers down my neck, the movement soft and slow. Intimate.

He’s solely focused on me, his eyes dark. I listen to his steady breathing, taking comfort in it.

I don’t remember anyone ever touching me like this. Not there.

Not even Ben. It always felt like he barely saw my scars at all. Like it didn’t matter that I was flawed. A different kind of freedom.

He saw the girl I used to be. Quiet, shy. That Emmy knew how to laugh. How to love the little moments. Ben coaxed her back to life, and he had no idea how deeply she was hidden, and why.

But Jared… Jared sees all of me. My scars included.

“Some of these look like splashes.” The rough murmur comes as he traces a section on my neck.

“Oil,” I whisper. He stills, his touch falling away. “Don’t… don’t stop.”

Keep touching me.

My throat bobs. “Arron lost his temper. It didn’t happen often. Not… not like that. He was so controlled. He planned everything. Every conversation. Every punishment. He would think it over, and I knew it would be coming. But that night was different. He picked up the pan and he just… threw it. I lifted up my arm and twisted, but the oil still hit me.”

I’ll never forget the smell. The screaming.

The way Arron drove me to the hospital but made me wait in the car until I could repeat the story back to him, through the blinding pain and the fear.

“You asked him for a divorce, didn’t you?”

I stiffen, my lips parting in surprise. “How’d you know?”

Jared’s jaw is clenched. “When we went into the system, I met a lot of kids. Good kids, mostly, in bad situations. But there were some that I knew were never going to be good people. Those kids always preferred to break the toys they liked most, rather than let somebody else touch them.”

His finger tilts up my chin. Lifting it. “But he didn’t break you. You should be proud of who you are, Em.”

“It felt like he did. For a long time.”

Through the hospital stay. The whispered apologies. The polite visits from my parents. The pain, and the tightness as my skin regrew, refusing the skin graft that Arron pushed on me to try to make me pretty again.

“You left,” Jared says firmly. “You left your whole damn life behind to keep yourself safe. Everything you’d been coached to accept, you threw back at them and walked away. Fucking hell, Em. I’m so fucking proud of you.”

My smile wobbles. My heart flutters, starting to race. “You are?”

He presses his lips to my forehead. “I am.”

I blink, and taste salt on my lips. “You know, he wanted me to have a skin graft. I didn’t technically need it, but it would have been better for the scarring. I said no. It might still fade, but I’ll never be like I was before.”

I’ll never be that girl again. Pretty and perfect, a model wife.

And I’m okay with that.

We all have our stories. Mine is written across my skin. A reminder for when I look in the mirror. A reminder that I was strong enough to leave .

I need that reminder of my own strength more than I need to see smooth skin. I can cope with a little self-consciousness now and then. I’d still have that, with or without the scar.

“Because you’re not the same person,” Jared murmurs. “It’s a reflection of who you are now , of how far you’ve come. And he wanted you to cover that up and pretend nothing had happened.”

Just like that, he gets it.

He gets me.

Jared hesitates. “I’ve always found you beautiful, Em. Not that – not that it matters. But I thought you should know that.”

My breath catches. “You have?”

“Always.” Gruff, low words.

Warmth rushes through my chest, the back of my throat prickling. Jared leans down, and I close my eyes as his lips press against my scarred cheek. “Ben was the luckiest man in the world on the day he met you.”

The warmth ices over in an instant as he uncurls himself from the bench, from me, and gets to his feet. Jared stares up at the sky for a minute, and I watch him, my heart thudding inside my chest.

It feels as if it’s tearing down the middle.

“Come on,” he says finally, turning to me. “It’s getting colder. You need to eat. I’ll walk you back home, make sure everything checks out.”

And then we’ll go to work.

He’ll walk me home after, strong and steady at my side, and say goodnight at the door.

Friends.

My stomach feels knotted. Heavy.

It feels an awful lot like regret.

Don’t think like that. He believes you. That’s what matters.

This isn’t a fairytale. I had one of those before, and I know how they end. This is life, real life. Messy, raw, painful. Life doesn’t come with an ending wrapped in a cute little bow.

My arm brushes against Jared’s. He doesn’t offer to hold my hand again.

And I don’t ask.

As we walk quietly, lost in our own thoughts, I remember Ben’s words, murmured in his last few good hours.

I watched this movie once. Where the girl – she changed something at the last second, and it caused her life to split. Different choices, different lives.

Ben believed that there was another version of us, somewhere out in the cosmos. Happy, healthy, and together. A lifetime to love each other instead of the few weeks we were given before the cancer stole him.

I’ve thought about it often since then. That other Ben and Emmy.

But a new thought sneaks in.

Because I can’t help but wonder if somewhere out there, there might be a Jared and Emilia, too.