But I Love Him by Amanda Grace Read Free Book Online Page B

me backward until I’m against the wall and he towers over me. The glass still litters the floor around us.
    His face is so close that his nose brushes mine. “Why the fuck do you just sit around like this? Why the fuck do you put yourself in my way?”
    I swallow, slowly, waiting. I never speak when he’s like this. The words belong to him.
    “Are you that fucking stupid? Do you want me to hit you?”
    My breath comes in shallow, quick bursts through my mouth, because my nose is already stuffed from the tears. I hate this so much. If he’s going to do it, I wish he would just do it.
    He is so ugly right now. His eyes are empty when he’s like this. His anger consumes him, and Connor is gone. He is a product of his childhood.
    It is what it is, and I know I have to wait for him to come back to me.
    And I know that when the anger is gone, and he’s back, he will cry for what he’s done to me. He’ll mean every word he says, every apology. But it won’t stop it from happening again.
    I don’t know what to do anymore. I think I might actually have to get away from him for anything to get better. I think about it, for tiny little moments, until that pain sears through my chest and I realize I can’t do it. I realize I love him too much, and the mere thought of leaving makes my heart throb a dull ache.
    The house is so still. So frozen, as he stares at me. Long moments pass and I just keep waiting. Waiting for the moment chaos breaks loose. It will happen. It always happens.
    And yet he just stares at me, that ugly look in his eyes, and something inside me snaps and I shove him. Hard. He has no time to react. He just topples over and lands in the glass, and a piece slices his palm.
    I’m so stunned by my own actions I don’t move. I don’t know how I could have done that. I don’t know how I just let loose and did that after all these months of just taking it. I stand there, eyes wide, and fear snakes its way up me and coils in my stomach and throat.
    I should not have done that.
    He’s up like lightning and he’s in my face again. I retreat, but only succeed in smacking my head against the wall yet again. It’s pounding now, a steady beat that keeps up with my racing heart.
    “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says, as if he can read my thoughts. His voice is so calm. So even. So murderous. It’s worse than the moments he is uncontrollable.
    Because he’s scheming, calculating his next move.
    And then he turns away from me, and it unleashes.
    The half-eaten dinner goes first, flying across the room and splattering like red paint on the wall. A dining room chair shoots past me, inches from my head.
    His palm is still bleeding from the glass. It drips on the carpet, seeps in. “Why can’t you just fucking hate me ?”
    He doesn’t expect an answer. He’s tearing apart his place. He grabs a remote and hurls it across the room, into a mirror, and it splinters into a web of cracks.
    And all I can think is seven years bad luck. As if that matters, as if we have any luck at all.
    “You’re too good for this! You’re too good for all of this!”
    He picks up a lamp and it flies across the room, the cord trailing after.
    And then he’s done with it as quickly as he snapped into it. He slides to the ground, silent. There are no tears, no shouts, nothing. He’s simply empty.
    I walk through the carnage and drop to the ground, then lie down and rest my head in his lap. He doesn’t seem to see me. His eyes are vacant. He just strokes my hair with one hand, and I close my eyes and try to disappear.
    We are traveling down a path with no happy ending, and it’s too late to turn around.
    May 14
    Eight months, fourteen days
    I’m standing in line at the coffee shop in town, waiting on my order, when Abby walks in. Just seeing her makes my stomach hurt. Why can’t this be any other day? I wish I’d showered and dressed in something bright and happy, that she’d see me laughing with Connor.
    But it’s just