Burned(59)

“Wakey, wakey, Sunshine.”
The chipper voice has me jerking my head towards its sound, the blast of pain shooting up to my head making me instantly regret that quick movement.
Everything comes rushing back to me in a flash of memories. The day outside the fire station, the car following me everywhere I went, the texts, the threats, the restraining order, the unusual silence from him since I filed the restraining order and me stupidly racing down the stairs after my bath hoping the noise I heard was Collin. I should have known his silence didn’t mean he’d conceded and would leave me alone. I should have known he was only letting his anger fester, giving himself time to build up to the grand finale.
Standing by the front door, next to the boxes of his things, is the man responsible for the pain in my face and the deadly scent permeating the air around me. When I see the four empty red cans tossed onto their sides by the boxes, the wetness soaking against my legs finally registers.
I watch in horror as Jordan reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small square of cardboard. My eyes sting with the smell of gas in the air and the tears burning behind my lids as I slowly start to crawl backwards.
Jordan’s eyes are bloodshot and his face is flushed and I know he must be high on something. There’s no other logical explanation for what he’s doing right now.
“Did you think you were just going to pack my shit up and put me out of your life? Move on with another man? He can’t f*cking have you! Do you hear me, Finn? HE CAN’T FUCKING HAVE YOU!” Jordan screams.
He punctuates his threat with the swipe of a match against the striker of the matchbook he holds in his shaky hands.
I’m so filled with fear that I can’t even find my voice to plead with him to stop. His thumb and forefinger hold the lit match out from the side of his body and the only sound I can make is another whimper.
“Do you have any idea the number of women I’ve f*cked behind your back over the years? You were so trusting and gullible it was pathetic,” he spits out. “All those women who f*cked ten times better than you and you’re the one I want. Now I’m the pathetic one and it makes me SICK!”
I can’t stop the tremors from wracking my body but I continue to inch myself further away from him, across the carpet. This isn’t happening. It’s all a dream. It can’t end like this, not when I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for and I haven’t even had a chance to tell him exactly what he means to me; what he’s always meant to me.
“Stop moving away or I swear to f*ck I will drop this match right now!”
I immediately halt my backward movement while he continues to shout.
“You spread your legs for another man. How in the f*ck am I supposed to get those images out of my head, Finn?” Jordan asks, the anguish in his voice ringing through my ears.
The fact that he’s the biggest hypocrite in the world doesn’t even register with him. He just admitted that he’s been cheating on me our entire marriage but he’s so filled with jealousy that he can’t even see it.
“Please, Jordan, don’t do this,” I quietly beg, the tears escaping from my eyes and falling down my cheeks.
The match has almost burned down to his fingers and my only hope is that it will go out and I can get him to put the rest of the matches down before he does something stupid. He stares at my face and I watch as his anger starts to melt away with every tear that burns its way down my face.
“We can talk about this, okay? Please, Jordan,” I whisper brokenly.
Like a switch being flipped, the anger is back and his lips curl up in a sneer.
“We’re finished talking, sweetheart. You’re dead to me now. Might as well make it official.”