“It got worse. I was totally isolated. I wasn’t a prisoner; I was just so freaking stupid. He was my husband, right? We’d made a vow, no matter how drunk or dumb it was. Six months passed and he kept coming every weekend, and I thought things would get better—that if I was better in bed, or cooked him better meals, or kept the apartment spotless, then he’d be nice to me. But it didn’t work that way.”
“Then what happened?” Emmy asks. Her face is full of empathy, and that gives me the courage to keep talking.
“I got pregnant. For me, that was the turning point. The moment I took a pregnancy test, I knew I needed to leave. He was so brutal with me—I didn’t want him to hurt the baby.”
“Oh, Claire, that was so brave,” Tess says.
“It wasn’t. If I was brave I’d have left a long time before that. If I was brave, when I finally crawled home to my mothers’ house I would have let her call the police. I would have hired an attorney and gotten a divorce. But I didn’t do any of that.”
“You were terrified,” Emmy says adamantly. “And you wanted to keep Sophia safe. Claire, you were being brave.”
I start crying again. “No, I was being weak. And I’ve stayed weak for five years. It was only this year, with kindergarten starting, that I even let Sophia out of my sight. I’ve kept our profile so low because I was always scared he’d come looking for me.”
“Claire, you did nothing wrong,” Emmy says, bringing me tissues. “And Landon understands that. He loves you.”
“I know he loves me, I’m just so ashamed. I wish I were like you, Emmy—a girl who really was tough and strong. A girl who could take on a man like Grotto, and not let it break her.
“But I let my husband hold me captive for five years. I’ve never been brave enough to even go to the court and file the stupid papers. I just pushed the whole thing out of my mind and pretended it wasn’t real. A strong woman wouldn’t have pretended.”
Tess shakes her head. “Claire, maybe you just needed to meet Landon first. Maybe you needed to meet the man who could help you be the best possible version of yourself. And you have. You have him now. And he’s going to help set things straight.” She pulls me into a hug, and lets me sob into her shoulder.
“I don’t know if I have Landon.” I wipe my face with a tissue, my body shaking at the realization. “When I spoke with him, he was so pissed off. He doesn’t trust me.”
“He’ll come around,” Tess says.
I want to believe her … but she doesn’t know about the lies Landon and I built our relationship on.
“And besides Landon, maybe you needed to wait until you had us. Friends, real friends, you could confide in,” Emmy says, wrapping her arms around both of us, into a three-way hug.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Oh, sweetie, you deserve all this and more,” Emmy says as we all sit back up.
“So is next week’s wedding cancelled?” Tess asks once my tears have stopped flowing so forcefully.
“Besides the fact that I’m still married, I really don’t know where things stand with Landon.”
“If that’s really how you feel, maybe hold off talking to him on the phone,” Emmy says. “Sometimes phone calls make everything worse. And especially don’t text him. That’s, like, asking for crossed lines of communication.”
“I can’t bear to talk to him anyway. What if he … doesn’t want me? I can’t live without him.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sure he has a plan,” Tess says. “I bet he’s already filing the divorce papers.”
Emmy agrees, “Yeah, Jack and McQueen are with him, Claire. There’s no way in hell that guy who hurt you is still going to be your husband after today.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Landon
When Eva finishes telling McQueen, Jack, and me the parts of Claire’s story that she knows, we shake our heads, stunned.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize Claire told me the truth on the phone.
I was an asshole when we talked.
Now that I’ve heard how badly she was hurt, I just want to scoop her up in my arms and keep her safe forever.
I can’t believe Claire has been hurt so badly, and been so brave in raising Sophia on her own. I hate that she carries her past around her neck in shame, when the truth is she is the bravest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.
“Who is this son of a bitch?” McQueen asks. “Because I’m gonna kill him.”
“After I get done with him, he’s all yours,” Jack says.