Page 47 of Coercion

It’s odd to think that I now have this. I have this tiny tangible thing. The maid offers to hang my new clothes up, the ones Preston has bought me, but I want to do it, I want to go through everything, to take a moment to relish that I have belongings now, that I own things of my own.

I hang it all carefully. Perhaps there’s some special way you’re meant to sort everything but for me just seeing the clothes, the splashes of colours, just knowing they’re all mine,makes my heart leap. While I didn’t mind wearing Preston’s shirts, now I can at least look decent if Eleri calls again.

I can walk around and not look like some sort of forgotten part in all of this.

In the drawers, I lay out all my new underwear. I like that I have options with this too. I like that if the time calls for it, I can actually look sexy for my husband. I can be the wife he expects me to be.

Preston

I’m leaning against the doorframe, watching her, though she’s completely oblivious. She’s just been sat there staring at all those new clothes, looking up at them sat on her knees on the plush carpet like she can’t quite believe her luck.

I glance at the items all hung up. Something tells me that she did it, that she hung each and every one. But I note something else too, all of it is what I bought her today. All of it still has tags on. All of it is brand new.

She’s not hung up one item from the things Levi delivered.

“They weren’t your things, were they?”

She jumps, turning around, and slowly shakes her head.

“All of it?”

“All of it.” She confirms, getting to her feet.

“Where is your stuff?”

She chews her lip, hesitating for a second. “I didn’t really have anything.”

“No clothes?” I growl. How the fuck does that even make sense?

She wraps her arms around herself, shrugging. “I had a pair of jeans, a couple of old tops. Nothing much.”

“What about other stuff, jewellery, photos, sentimental shit?”

“Sentimental shit?” She repeats with a little laugh but I can see the tears in her eyes all the same. “I don’t have any of that.”

“Not even photos?”

She shakes her head. “No. He destroyed everything. He burnt the house, got rid of every last possession we had.”

I can hear the pain in her voice. Her hand is wrapped around her throat, as if it’s clinging to some imaginary thing that’s also lost with all those memories.

“I see.” I reply before pulling out my credit card. “It’s not the same,” I begin, “But anything you want, anything you need, you can have it.”

She stares at the shiny plastic, hesitating for a moment before she slowly takes it.

“I don’t really need anything now,” She whispers, glancing at the new clothes hanging so neatly, as if a few dresses can heal the gaping hole in her heart.

She’s like driftwood in the ocean, smashing from wave to wave with nothing to anchor her down.

I clench my fists to fight the sudden emotion that seems to swirl inside me and again, I wonder who the fuck I’m becoming. How does one woman have such an effect on me? How is she able to make mefeelwhen I’ve never wanted to feel, never needed to before?

In my head, I make a note to hunt down some pictures, to somehow find some images of her parents, of her brother too. I can’t bring them back, I can’t undo all the shit that happened to them but I want to fix her, I want to take all those broken parts and make her whole again.

I’ll buy her jewellery too, I’ll fill the house with flowers, and ornaments, and whatever Eleri says will cheer her up. I’ll fill her future with happy memories and…

It hits me then that her future doesn’t belong to me.

I have no business planning any of it.