Chapter 7: Severing the Ties<\/p>\n
Tristan came to the hospital every afternoon. He sat in the vinyl guest chair, looking like a man who had finally tabulated the true, catastrophic cost of choosing the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n
Two weeks after my surgery, when I could sit upright, I looked at him. \u201cI need to speak,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd you are not going to interrupt me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded, his eyes rimmed with red.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe you wanted me to die, Tristan,\u201d I began. \u201cBut for four years, every single time I needed you to stand by my side, you found a reason to cower in the middle. You let your mother blame me publicly for your infertility. You treated the abuse she hurled at me like it was a weather system\u2014impersonal, no one\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n
He began to cry, hiding his face in his hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was burning alive in our bed, telling you something was wrong, you told me to wait. Not because you are a monster, but because believing me meant you would be inconvenienced. It meant you would have to fight for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a deep, shuddering breath. \u201cLove without trust and respect is not a foundation. It is a trap. I cannot recover in the same space where I was dismantled. I want a divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t argue. Perhaps that was the first honest thing he gave me in years: the respect of believing me when I told him something was finished.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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