The Open Marriage by Victoria Jenkins
Author:Victoria Jenkins [Jenkins, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-21T00:00:00+00:00
TWENTY-TWO
I wake from a dream where Iâm running from someone, the kind of dream where you canât gain any ground no matter how fast you move or how hard your heart hammers in your chest. I tripped and stumbled; I was just about to fall, but as with every fall in every dream, I never hit the ground. My heart still pounds. I can still hear my own breathing, ragged and uneven as though Iâm still running.
âLouise.â
In the darkness, Marcusâs hand finds mine. Heâs being too nice to me, more attentive than heâs been in ages. It feels ill-timed and undeserved.
âItâs just a dream. Itâs okay.â
His thumb rubs my knuckles. I feel my skin grow colder at the thought that I must have said something in my sleep, because how else would he know that I was dreaming?
I turn and reach for my phone on the bedside table, bringing the screen to life to see the time: 04.15. Shit. I always wake early, but never this early, and I know Iâll pay for it by this afternoon when Iâm made impatient by exhaustion.
âWhat were you dreaming about?â Marcus asks.
âI donât remember.â
âYou mumbled something about a video.â
âDid I? God knows.â
Shit, shit, shit. I canât even trust myself when Iâm asleep. I might have said anything, but I wouldnât remember it. I get out of bed, grateful that itâs still too dark for Marcus to see me. He asks what the time is. Heâs never usually awake this early, and when he rolls back over, I take it as a sign that heâs already forgotten about the video comment. I know him well enough to know he doesnât overanalyse things in the way Iâm prone to.
I walk into the en suite, wondering how Iâm going to manage to push through the day ahead. Whenever there have been things going on in my private life, school has always provided a welcome distraction. Iâve immersed myself in my work to avoid drowning myself in thought. Now, Iâm not sure itâs going to offer the same escape. Iâve never had personal problems that have reached this scale before. It feels as though I barely slept, my mind too active to seek any proper rest. Erin is missing. Kieran is responsible. That camera was set up in his bedroom. And now heâs trying to blackmail me with footage that could end my marriage and my career.
Iâve no idea how Kieran would know about the inheritance money Iâve got stashed away, though I suppose it wouldnât be too difficult for him to have found out. My familyâs history is all over the internet, available to anyone who might choose to search our name. The fact that a substantial amount of the money my father stole was never given back is also common knowledge, and itâs logical that it would have been passed down after my parentsâ deaths.
I step into the shower with a thumping headache, the kind I used to wake with regularly in my early twenties, morning after morning.
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African American | Contemporary |
Divorce | Domestic Life |
Friendship | Mothers & Children |
Single Women | Sisters |
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