Stay with me

Chapter 46 - Serpent in paradise

- For me, it means to return my thoughts to that time and that life. But I do not want to. That nightmare is over, and I don't want to remember it anymore. Never! Do you understand?

Ahtem nodded. He really understood her desire not to remember the past. To bury it deeply, and never let it into her thoughts. But he will not be able to breathe until he finds out what she went through during one thousand four hundred and two nights of her failed family life.

"I won't poison your soul," he promised. "But answer one question. Just one.

She took a deep breath. Holding the air in her lungs for a moment, she exhaled and agreed:

- Okay. Ask.

"You didn't let your marriage to Luke become real?"

- Yes, - without a second of delay, firm and open.

- How could he agree?! - Ahtem closed his eyes and shook his head. - Sorry. I promised only one question.

"He had no choice. He needed my dowry and his old wild life" - the dam burst. What she had kept in her heart under seven locks for so many years, broke free, and covered her head. The words themselves formed into phrases and flew from her lips in a continuous stream.

- The wedding was celebrated in the Rastrelli palace. During the wedding banquet, Luke suddenly disappeared. I had a bad headache. I went up to my room for medicine. In my bed lay my new husband and my cousin. Although "lying in bed" was an inappropriate word ... Do you know how I felt at that moment? - Laura looked Ahtem in the face. He sat as pale as a sheet. - Relief. I had a reason to avoid marital responsibilities and I, without hesitation for a second, took advantage of it. Telling my cousin to get out, I told Luke that I would not raise a scandal if he forgets the way to my bedroom. He agreed. We made a deal. For three years. And the villain Luke, who never kept his word in his life, did it. But in his own way. Talking right and left that his wife is frigid and sleeping with her is like sleeping with a toad.

Ahtem clenched his fists and hissed through his teeth:

- He's a corpse. I'll get to him and rip him to pieces.

- What for? - Laura was surprised. "Do you think that stupid gossip hurt me more than the fact that I lost you?" And it makes no sense. Life itself punished him. Luke has AIDS. His, now a permanent partner is my cousin, too.

"I don't feel sorry for him at all," Ahtem said angrily and asked: "You said that you concluded a contract for three years? What happened after it ended?

- There was a conversation with my father, his death, and my divorce with Luke. I left him on the second day after the funeral. But the bureaucratic delays dragged on for a year. On the day when the divorce document was in my hands, I wrote to you...

"And I turned out to be an idiot," Ahtem said bitterly. - Forgive me! For my answer then and for the questions now. I promised to ask only one, but as the last egoist, I pulled the whole story out of you.

Laura closed her eyes and listened to herself. And she realized that she could breathe deeply. Together with the words, resentment, humiliation, and chronic pain left her heart. It became easy for her. The past was not hidden in the heart. It has disappeared irrevocably. She opened her eyes and looked at her husband. She reached over to him across the makeshift table and kissed him.

"Thank you," she said, looking into a confused face.

- For what? He wondered.

- For pulling the whole story out of me. Let it go to hell and no longer clog my brain and heart. I am free! She smiled broadly. - And I want to eat.