Page 57 of Don't Hurt Us
“Why?Why would he do this to me?”
“He’s a jerk.He was willing to do almost anything to hurt you,” Maverick says softly.
Each time we find something, Maverick carefully packs it away in a box.When the first box is filled, he takes it out to his truck and comes back in with another one.I don’t miss the beep of his truck locking each time either.He doesn’t trust Rob won't show up and neither do I.At this point, I'm not sure anything Rob could do would surprise me.
There ends up being seven large boxes of my things hidden around the house.I don’t know how or why he did this, but I'm glad we were able to find it all.
Maverick loads up the last box as I take one last look around.I'm nervous about leaving anything behind, especially since so much of it was hidden.
The front door opens and I blink in surprise when Rob’s frame fills the doorway.
“What are you doing here?I have a week to move out.”I fold my arms over my chest and glare at him.
“Well, last I checked, I still own part of this house and next week, it will officially be mine,” he grumbles under his breath.“You can’t stop me from being here.”
“The judge said-”
“I don’t care what the judge said, Sydney!I don’t want this house.I want you to pay me for it.”
“No!I was given the choice to keep it or sell it to you.I don’t want it.I already have a new house.We’re happy there and we don’t want to live here anymore.We don’t want a reminder of you.”
“Are you kidding me!”He roars, knocking a lamp off the end table and onto the floor.It shatters into millions of small pieces and I blink back tears.
The lamp means nothing to me.It was something Rob liked and insisted we had.I'm not crying over it, not really.
I'm crying over the man in front of me.The man who at one point in my life I thought would be my forever.I'm crying for the young girl who settled down with him because she didn’t feel like she had another choice.I'm mourning the life I once was forced to live and realizing my life now is so much better.
I have Maverick to thank for all of that.
“I’ve cleaned out all of our stuff.I even found a bunch of stuff I thought I had lost hidden away in cabinets and spots I never used.”
I keep my tone even, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he did something to upset me, but also making sure he knows I'm aware of what he was doing.A smug smirk spreads over his face and I want to scream.Why stay married to me if I was so awful he felt the need to make my life worse?
“I was going to clean out the fridge and the groceries from the cabinets, then clean up the place a little more, but I think I'm just leaving.You can deal with the rest.I won't be coming back here.”
I pull my key out of my pocket and gently place it on the end table the shattered lamp used to live on.I take two steps towards the door before Rob grabs me and slams me up against the wall.
A loud gasp falls from my lips and my eyes widen as I take in the crazy man in front of me.Rob was a terrible husband and father, but he never laid a hand on any of us.I swallow hard and keep my chin held high.I won't give him the satisfaction of thinking he can scare me or shake me in any way.
“I'm going to make you pay for this!For everything!You ruined my life when you got pregnant with Danny!You should’ve aborted the pregnancy or put him up for adoption like I wanted you to!”He pulls his hand back and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for him to hit me.
A moment later, his body is pulled away from mine.I open my eyes just in time to see Maverick punch him in the face and wrestle him to the ground.He has Rob’s arms pinned on either side of his head.
“Let go of me!”Rob roars.“I'm going to sue you for this.I won't stop until I put you in jail and take the kids away from Sydney!”
“Why!You don’t even want them!”I scream, wishing Rob would just disappear from this world.No one wants him here.All he does is cause pain and disappointment.
“Because you want them,” he hisses as his eyes narrow on me.There’s so much hatred staring back at me.“I never wanted you or them.I only slept with you as a dare from the football team.No one thought I could get innocent little Sydney Pecker to mess around.I might’ve won the bet, but it was the worst decision of my life.I got stuck with you and those kids because of a bet.How does that feel to know I never wanted to touch you?”
“Honestly, it makes the world feel like a better place,” Colt murmurs as he steps through the front door with Peck on his heels.“Just knowing the scum of the earth never wanted a sweet innocent woman like Sydney feels… right.”
Maverick helps Colt roll Rob onto his stomach and secure his wrists in handcuffs behind his back.Peck comes straight to me and wraps me in a warm embrace.
“Don’t listen to a word he said, Syd.He’s trying to hurt you and the only way he knows to do that is to attack you.”Peck holds me even tighter.I think he’s afraid I'm going to break, but he doesn’t get it.
In a way, it’s nice knowing he never wanted me.It somehow feels better to know his love didn’t turn to hate over the years.Our marriage didn’t work because he never wanted it to.We weren’t in love because our relationship wasn’t built on anything except lies and deceit.
Somehow, knowing this, makes me love Maverick more.It makes me want to take the leap and get married to him as soon as possible.For the first time in my life, I understand what it means to be loved by a real man.I can trust his love will last because what I had with Rob wasn’t love.
