Roses Red as Blood by Anne Schraff

Author:Anne Schraff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
Published: 2014-08-09T19:45:58+00:00

Chapter 6

About ten minutes later, Julie dialed Marty. This time, he answered. Struggling to keep her voice calm, she said, “Marty, when I came home tonight I saw your car. Why did you take off when you saw me? What’s going on?”

“I think you of all people know very well what’s going on,” Marty answered in a cold, surly voice.

“I don’t know anything! You’ve been acting crazy ever since you got back from San Francisco. I’m beside myself with worry, Marty,” Julie went on.

“You’re cheating on me, Julie,” Marty finally said. “My guess is that you’ve been cheating on me for a long time—but I was just too stupid to see it. That engagement ring you’re wearing must not mean a thing to you.” His voice crackled with bitterness.

“Marty, that’s not true!” Julie cried out. She had little hope that he would believe her, though. His problem seemed so obvious: It was a delusion—part of his mental illness, a paranoid fantasy.

“You must think I’m a complete idiot!” Marty snapped. “You were out with another guy tonight. You were together all the time I was in San Francisco—every night! You even went out to the French restaurant with him. Then you had the nerve to suggest that we go there on my first night back. Didn’t you worry that one of the waiters might see you with a different guy and say something that would trip you up?”

Julie felt like she was dying inside. “Marty, you need to get help,” she said patiently. “Something’s happened to you. You’ve been under a lot of stress at work and I guess it just got to you.”

“Yeah, right,” Marty said sarcastically. “That’s the easy way out. I should go see a shrink! What will he say—that it’s no problem when the girl I’m planning to marry dates another guy while I’m off on a business trip?”

Julie’s head was pounding. Her eyes burned with hot, unshed tears. “Marty, I swear to you, I haven’t been on a date with another guy since I met you. I love you. I don’t know what’s happened to you, and I’m getting scared.”

“You’re a really good actress, Julie,” Marty snarled. “But I know you’re a liar and a cheat, so no academy award.” Then he slammed down the phone.

Julie felt totally helpless. How could she prove that she’d been faithful to Marty? But what would that solve? The real problem was that the man she loved had something terribly wrong with him.

Marty had never seemed like a jealous person. Julie always thought he had far too much self-confidence for that kind of thing. She remembered a time she’d commented on how handsome a certain actor was. Marty had immediately agreed in a good-natured, nonthreatened way.

In all the months she’d dated him, she’d never seen any sign of pettiness or insecurity. And now, suddenly, he was angry and strange and maybe even dangerous.

Julie collapsed into her sofa, sobbing her heart out. After a few minutes, she dialed Zeke. But again, all she got was his answering machine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.