Page 21 of The Sound of Silence

I glanced down at them and noticed a few colorful brochures sticking out between the pages. Curious, I reached up and slid them out. The first was for a support group for women who’ve experienced a miscarriage. Another was for a new form of birth control. When I saw the third brochure, it caused me to stagger under the cumulative weight of the past few hours.

It was for a battered women’s shelter in the city.

I glanced back up at the doctor. She was smiling at me with kind and sympathetic eyes. I knew she thought I was one ofthosewomen.

Was I?

If I stayed with Ethan, I would be. The right choice would be to leave. I knew it with every bone in my body. Actually verbalizing all the warning signs Ethan displayed over the years should have said enough, but I couldn’t leave him, not yet—and it had nothing to do with money.

The dream of the fairytale life held me back. Despite the emotional and physical pain, I still believed I could have it with Ethan. It’s what he had promised me, and I didn’t think we were beyond repair. I wanted to hate him for what he did today—for breaking my heart with his infidelity and cruelty, but for some twisted reason, I couldn’t. As messed up as it was, I still wanted to love him.

However, today had been a wakeup call. At the very least, until I could figure out the next chapter, I needed to take precautions to make sure a child didn’t complicate my situation further. Blinking back more threatening tears, I hastily shoved the brochures down between the papers. Before the doctor left, I called out to her.

“Dr. Murray? Would it be possible to get another prescription?”

“For what?”

“I need birth control.”

8

Gianna

One Year Later

Men and women were so profoundly different. The old adage, men are from Mars and women are from Venus was true. Men were tough, resilient, and smart. They were the providers, responsible for working to pay the bills and fixing the plumbing. Whereas women were soft and delicate. They should manage the household, raise the kids, cook, and do the cleaning, but most importantly, her duty was to please her husband.

That’s what Ethan believed, and he found a way to make me believe it, too—at least for a time. I had lost myself for a while, but I knew better than to believe that load of bullshit now. Even though the wool Ethan had pulled over my eyes was long gone, I was smart enough to know I needed to survive. It’s what I’d been doing for just over a year.

I didn’t live each day—I survived.

On the outside, people thought I lived an idyllic life. I was the wife of the police chief and I’d mastered the role. On Ethan’s arm, I’d attended countless high-profile events and even volunteered to chair the most recent Policeman’s Ball. Working with the wives of politicians and high-society financial influencers, I’d put together a fundraiser for charities favoring disabled officers and families who’d lost someone in the line of duty. The women I worked with had fawned over my organizational skills almost as much as they fawned over my husband. They thought Ethan was perfect in every way—from his polished exterior to the smooth way he spoke. But they didn’t know about the monster who lived beneath the façade.

I glanced at the digital clock on the stove. Ethan would be home from work in an hour. The latest from John Legend played quietly from the stereo mounted under a kitchen wall cabinet. The song and the butcher knife slicing along the wooden cutting board were the only sounds that could be heard in the sprawling ranch. As I tossed pieces of carrots and celery into the pot of soup I’d started for dinner, I basked in the last bit of quiet solitude I might have for the day.

I didn’t know what his temperament would be like when he got home. I rarely did. If he came home in a foul mood, he’d probably leave shortly after, so he could go fuck Cynthia. I stopped caring about that long ago because his leaving to go to her usually meant my ribs got a break from his vile temper. If he came home in a good mood, that was almost worse because there was a high probability that he’d want to fuck me instead. Just the thought of it caused acid to rise in the base of my throat.

Ethan had always been a determined person, and always got what he wanted. It didn’t matter what it was. He wanted me—I had given myself willingly. He wanted to be the chief of police—he schmoozed his way into the position. He wanted the house—he found a way to afford it, even though the means to pay the astronomical mortgage was still an unsolved mystery to me. He wanted a mistress—I stopped arguing with him about her.

But now… now he wanted a baby. The bastard even kept track of my cycle, so he knew exactly when to stick it to me. Having a child had been his focus ever since he found out I’d had a miscarriage.

His controlling nature didn’t end there. Ethan had a tap on the phone lines—an actual tap, like the kind only seen in movies and cop shows on primetime. He listened to every single phone conversation I had over the past year. I only knew because he’d slipped up and told me about the tap during a fit of rage, fury sparked after hearing me accept Natalia’s offer to move in with her. I should have been outraged over the invasion of privacy, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to feel anything but fear.

My fractured wrist had taken months to heal after that.

Since then, I’d been cautious and never said too much over the phone. I didn’t try to move out again, knowing he’d just track me down. If I wanted girl talk, Natalia and I met for lunch at a restaurant Ethan approved of. We used code words to hide the true meaning of things in the off chance someone was listening. I knew these things weren’t supposed to happen in real life but they were happening in mine. I had no privacy, no time I could call my own. His spying made me feel violated in ways I couldn’t even describe. There were days, I felt like even my thoughts didn’t belong to me.

By some miracle, I’d managed to hide the fact I was taking birth control. I never told him about the pills prescribed to me by the doctor one year prior—the ones I kept safely hidden under a floorboard I’d pried loose on my side of the bed. I had no intention of having a child with him. Whatever delusions I had about fixing our broken marriage had long died. I loathed Ethan with every fiber of my being.

My true feelings were another thing I managed to keep hidden. I could have been an Academy Award winner for my performances. I played the part of the perfect wife from sunup until sundown. My stellar performance meant I didn’t have to feel the sting of his belt or the blunt force of his boot nearly as often—it also meant he wouldn’t suspect when I planned to leave him. I just needed a little more time to get the cash I needed to escape.

Using the increasing cost of groceries as an excuse to get more money, I’d been slowly stashing away portions of my so-called allowance. It was the only way I could do it. Buying fresh from local produce stands and small, family-owned bakeries meant there were often no receipts for the purchases. Ethan never even questioned it.

Hearing the familiar click of the deadbolt on the front door, I silenced the radio and glanced at the clock.

Shit!

He was home early, and that wasn’t a good sign. Home early equated a good day at work. That meant only one thing for me. As if they had a mind of their own, my thighs squeezed together, my body instinctively wanting to protect the part of me I didn’t want to give.

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