Day broke, but Scarlett still hadn’t returned.The pain intensified. I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I called an ambulance.While waiting, I scrolled through Ins and stumbled upon Jax’s latest post. He basically wrote about intervening in a bar fight, protecting a girl from some creeps, and how Scarlett rushed to the hospital to be with him.
He was “so touched” she’d come out so late for him. Underneath the post was a photo of Scarlett, her eyes teary, applying cream to Jax’s injury, with the caption: “Love conquers all, and faces all.” The comments section was brutal. One read: “A woman that hot in front of you, and you held back? Dude, are you even straight?”
Another chimed in: “Seriously, if she showed up for me in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t just be asking her to put on cream…” Jax, with a smug emoji, replied: “What’s the rush? She’ll be mine eventually!”…
The ambulance arrived, and medical staff carefully put me on a stretcher.While getting an IV in the emergency room, I sent a SnapChat message to my best friend, Ryan.”Ryan, I’m getting a divorce.”After I got home from the hospital, I rested for a few days.I thought things might calm down, until I was woken up by incessant phone calls. I groggily answered. Scarlett’s voice on the other end was cold.”
I’m picking you up for dinner.”Before I could reply, she hung up.I figured I should try to be civil before the divorce, so I got dressed and went out.Seeing how exhausted I looked, Scarlett suddenly remembered she’d forgotten to buy me cream.”The restaurant is near the hospital, so I’ll take you there first.””No need. It’s been days. I’m fine.”She sighed in relief.”I figured. It’s been seven years, after all.
Any pain you feel is probably just in your head.”I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Right, seven years.”Back then, I had used every ounce of my strength to push Scarlett out, leaving myself trapped under falling timber in the raging fire. Three of my ribs were fractured, my tailbone cracked.
All these years later, even the slightest bump sends agonizing pain through me.I never told Scarlett about the lasting after-effects, fearing her guilt. Instead, she called it my “victim mentality.”But we’d been together for seven years. If she truly loved me, truly cared, how could she not know if I was in pain?Scarlett drove, telling me about that night.”
