Page 94 of Until You Found Me

Her body makes a groove in the snow as he pulls her along. She’s disoriented after the hit and the pain gives way to the truth she’s been seeking all this time. It unfolds like a movie, warping space and time to give her ample breathing room to take in every frame.

* * *

“Made ya some dinner.” Nick offers her a plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

He never cooks for her or himself. That’s her job. Tessa squints in suspicion but accepts the gift before he can grow annoyed and shove it in her face. “Thank you. What’s the occasion?”

“Can’t do something nice for my wife?”

“Of course you can. That’s so sweet.” She plasters on a smile and takes a bite, wondering if guilt might be getting the best of him. “It’s delicious.”

He’s spent more time away recently with his work wife, as she likes to call Natalie in her head. Tessa isn’t jealous. She’s knownfor months that he’s been cheating on her, and while it isn’t the first time, it is the first time that it’s grown serious enough to keep him away for days.

She considers the peace and quiet a blessing. She can cry herself to sleep while running her thumb over Rose’s school photo without anyone yelling at her to be quiet.

“You, um, you’ve been sad, right? Things have been hard? Too hard?” he asks.

Her brows raise and her nerves flutter with uncertainty. Something is off here. She just doesn’t know what yet. Is it a trick question? She panics, unsure of how to respond.

“I miss her. I’m sad, Nick. I’m sad all the time,” she replies, taking another bite of mashed potatoes drenched in gravy.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You miss her, you wanna see her again…”

“What are you—”

“Nothing. Go on and eat up. Everything’s gonna be fine now. Things are gonna be better, you’ll see.”

He sounds sincere for the first time since he dropped the mask at the beginning of their marriage. When the kind man she fell for turned into someone whose patience was short enough to land her in the emergency room. He looks guilty too and she assumes that the cheating finally triggered some long-lost switch in his brain that has him behaving like a decent human being for this short while. Why it never triggered before is anyone’s guess, but she won’t question this now. She’ll take what she can get.

When he takes her empty plate, she grows bold and lets a few forbidden words escape, regretting them instantly and bracing for the ceramic to fly at her face. “You can go be with Natalie, you know? If she makes you happy, I won’t put up a fuss. You don’t need to do all this.”

Just go, she pleads in her head. Leave me alone and never come back.

His eyes flare and she knows she overstepped. They don’t talk about Natalie. That anger dissipates, though, and he hangs his head. “It’s not that easy. A new life is expensive. You know work’s been slow. Layoffs are coming up.”

Tessa doesn’t know why the hell he’s telling her this, but he’s gone soon after, leaving her alone in the bedroom to ponder one of the strangest interactions she’s had in a long time. She’d think on it a bit harder if she wasn’t so damn tired. If her eyelids weren’t so heavy all of a sudden and her weight wasn’t melting down into the bed. It comes on strong and as soon as she feels the pull of sleep, she is drowning in it.

The bedroom fades and her eyes slip shut. Not even her panic can keep her awake.

Her rest is short-lived, though, and ruined by a choking sensation in her throat.

“Just a few more. Come on, has to look like you did it yourself. You’ll see Rose again. That’s what you want.”

There are fingers in her mouth, prying it open and shoving something inside. Small, hard little pills, she thinks, but she isn’t sure. Her vision is fuzzy, but she’s woken up to him trying to push something down her throat before. This time is different though, and she chokes on the capsules, almost biting his fingers and getting a shake at the back of the neck. He grabs her hard, tilts her head backward, and pushes more down until they disappear by force.

She swallows because she has no choice. Isn’t aware enough to ask why he’s doing this or what’s happening. Everything is still hazy and dull, like when the smoke from the fire took over the whole house. She is wading through that smoke again, her reactions sluggish and her head lulling back against somethinghard when he finally lets her go.

The ceiling of her bathroom swims into view right before she passes out a second time.

When she wakes, her stomach is on fire and already rolling. The edge of the bathtub scrapes under her fingernails as she pulls herself out, and the wine glass on the ground shatters when she lands on it.

She is naked and isn’t sure how that happened. She doesn’t remember getting undressed or taking a bath. There’s no pain between her legs this time. When she’s woken up naked before, that’s always what follows. She grabs her clothes off the floor, pulls them on with shaky hands, and stumbles into the hall, clutching her stomach and falling to her knees. She vomits up half-digested mashed potatoes and a pile of tiny capsules, some in the process of turning to dust and some still intact.

Angry footsteps approach from the living room as she sags against the wall. Nick picks her up with a rough grip, tossing her over his shoulder with a litany of frustrated curses.

“Why won’t you just die?”

* * *

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