Chapter 303
I passed my hand over my face and leaned back against the cushions as Amy went on to talk about each exercise. It all felt silly and useless, although I wouldn’t say that out loud. Not to her face, at least.
But the truth was, I didn’t think any of this would work. Not when there was still a looming shadow of my past life hanging over my head, waiting to rain thunder and lightning down on me at any moment. Trust exercises felt like such a far leap from reality that it almost made me laugh.
After our session, during which we didn’t make much progress other than running around the topic of my trauma for forty minutes, with Dominic getting more and more frustrated that I wouldn’t open up, I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open much longer. While Dominic saw the therapist out, I slipped away, retreating to my room for a much-needed shower.
Halfway to my room, I heard the distant sound of Vivian’s sobs echoing through the house, partially muffled by the walls.
I pursed my lips and kept going.
The shower was blissfully hot, washing away some of the tension in my aching muscles. All the while, though, my mind raced. I thought about that list of exercises sitting downstairs, the therapist, all of it.
It still felt silly and pointless. The only way out of this situation was divorce-I had convinced myself of that time and time again, and one therapy session couldn’t change that.
And yet, when I thought about it, there was that pang again. The notion, deep down, that part of me didn’t want a divorce. That a little naive voice in the back of my head had still deluded itself into thinking that there could be anything other than a severing of the mate bond we shared in the end.
I reached up, pushing my wet hair aside, and touched the mark that was hardly a scar now just above my collarbone. The touch sent a shiver through me as if the bond had been plucked like a guitar string, and I stiffened when I felt Dominic instinctively react on the other end, reaching back.
“You okay?” his voice echoed through the mindlink.
I quickly slammed down my mental walls, cutting him off, and dropped my hand back to my side.
When I emerged from the shower a little while later in a puff of steam, I was unsurprised to find a text from Dominic sitting on the lock screen of my phone, waiting for me.
“Dinner at six,” it read. “Homework after.”
I sighed, sinking onto the edge of the bed, still wrapped in my towel. I stared at the message for a long time with my thumbs hovering over the screen. More than once, I started to type back a snarky or outright rude response. I wanted to tell Dominic to shove his homework. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want to accept his offer, and that I wouldn’t stop until he divorced me.
But each time, I found myself erasing the message. Colt’s words kept replaying in my mind on a constant loop, mocking me, judging me.
“You’re both just as bad as each other.”
It chipped away at me until all that was left was the same tired, crying girl who had fallen asleep in the library yesterday. Colt was right, as much as it hurt to admit. And right now, I knew that being rude and snarky and refusing to do anything to even try to help was exactly what Vivian would do. It was self-serving and cruel, and in the end, it would only hurt me. Because even though I knew this train was only heading in one direction, I was still a passenger on it until it stopped, and jumping off in a blaze of fire would only end in even more disaster.
I wound up not replying to Dominic’s text at all and left him on read. After toweling off, I changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed.
My alarm woke me just before six. The room was growing dark and the house smelled like dinner. I didn’t bother dressing up, just my sweats and hoodie, and headed downstairs.
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Dominic was just sitting down at the table when I arrived. He looked up at me, and for a moment, I swore I almost saw what looked like relief cross his face.
“You came,” he said. “I didn’t think you would.”
I opened my mouth to make another biting remark, but then shut it and sighed. Taking my seat, I said, “I didn’t want to miss our homework.”
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