Page 16 of Freed By Wrath

Funny.

Because right now I do. And it doesn’t feel like forever anymore. To be honest, it doesn’t even feel like a broken promise.

It just feels like…. metal. A simple piece of gold I’d spent eight years convincing myself carried meaning because the man who slipped it onto my finger told me it did. That I did. I meant everything to him.

I stare blindly into the darkness beneath the T-shirt, suddenly wondering whether I was ever anything more than convenient.

Whether what we had was ever really love…

Or if I simply called it that because I didn’t know what love was supposed to feel like.

I don’t cry. I don’t scream.

For one impossibly long moment, I don’t do anything at all, even though every part of me is begging me to.

Scream. Cry. Protest. Fight.

Most of all… live.

Instead, I do what I’ve been doing for years. I swallow it and sit quietly inside the wreckage of myself, still wearing a ring that once represented my entire future while every memory attached to it slowly begins to unravel without knowing what was true, and what was not.

And somehow, that uncertainty hurts even more than the betrayal itself.

A hysterical laugh claws at my throat, but I force it back down.

If I let it out… I don’t think I’d ever stop.

Worst. I think I’ll break.

You know what? Fuck him. Fuck her. Actually… Fuck both of them.

I hope every person they ever trust betrays them exactly the way they betrayed me.

The thought should feel satisfying but… It doesn’t.

It barely scratches the itch clawing beneath my skin.

I want to scream.

I want to throw something.

I want to march back into that stupid fucking party and make them tell me exactly when I became the only person who didn’t know.

Last month?

Last year?

How long were they looking at each other while I stood between them smiling like a complete fucking idiot?

How long had I been the punchline?

Pain sits in my chest like a stone with heat to it, pressing outward, looking for somewhere to land. Daniel’s face when he saw me standing there. Serena’s smile. Eight years of I just want what’s best for you assembling themselves into a shape I can’t unsee now.

I never once saw it coming.

Not the betrayal. That I can metabolize, eventually, given enough time and probably several bottles of wine that aren’t currently being used as weapons.

What I can’t shake is how long I mistook the leash of this fake love for an embrace.