Chapter 30 Jade

30 JADE

NOW

I stir, and for a moment I feel peaceful, happy. I was dreaming about me and Rob, back when we first moved in together. We were in that tiny flat, the one we rented in Bow for those first six months, with rats chewing their way through the skirting boards. In the dream we were building a set of bunk beds together, all the pieces laid out on the bedroom floor, and I was so excited, because I’d never been in a relationship this serious, not one where we moved in together. Rob kept calling me “wifey,” and each time he did, it was like someone turning on a light inside.

That part was pure memory.

I turn over and blink, this fucked-up situation returning to me like an ice-cold shower. The restaurant. Rob’s fury afterward. Accusing me of flirting with Antoni. Pulling my hair.

But now Rob is lying on the other side of the bed, his eyes on me, the anger gone from his face. He’s naked, and rock hard. He reaches across to me and takes my hand, placing it on his penis. He moans, then reaches out for my breasts. I’m not wearing a nightie, just black lace panties, and he takes those off, rolling over on top of me. He kisses me and spends a long time sucking my nipples. I used to love this. Sex with Rob used to be amazing, but I know what’s next. He won’t wear a condom.

He’s inside me now, thrusting and grunting, his head in the pillow next to me. I feel nothing but fear. Perhaps, if I time it right, I can push him out…. But too late—he blares in ecstasy, thudding into me. I want to get up and run to the bathroom, but he stays inside me, lowering himself onto his elbows and kissing me.

“Want to go again?” he says.

I force a smile. “You usually can’t.”

His face changes, and I backpedal.

“I mean, yes,” I say. “Let’s go again.”

He turns me over, taking me from behind. I can’t believe this. We’ve not had sex twice in a row in years. He asks me to tell him how much I want it, and I repeat it through gritted teeth, all while counting how many days I’m into my cycle.

To think I was thrilled when my period finished the week before our wedding. That means I am smack bang in the middle. I am ovulating.

Afterward, I resist hurling myself across the room to the en suite, and force a smile.

“Do you think we did it?” he says, stroking my face. “Do you feel I impregnated you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”

Oh God.

“I’ve heard it works better if you lie for twenty minutes or so with your hips in the air,” he says, getting up. “Try it.”

I blink. “That’s just an old wives’ tale.”

“Worth a shot, isn’t it?” he says. “Wouldn’t you do anything for us to have a baby? The one we so desperately want?”

I smile. The one you want, not me.

He goes downstairs for a smoke. I wait until I hear him humming in the kitchen before getting off the bed and quietly padding across the floor to the bathroom, using the shower to get it all out.

And then I stand, naked, and look myself over in the mirror. The bruise around my eye is fading, and the swelling has gone down, but it’s a yellowy green now. I look so much older than twenty-three. The blond hair extensions I’m wearing are for Rob; he said he loves long hair, that he’d pay for me to get them. He did the first time, but I’ve been paying for them ever since, just to please him. They make my head itch, especially in this heat. My natural hair color is cardboard brown, but when he took me for extensions, he said I should try a lighter color, so I did. But the difference in my appearance runs deeper than that. I barely recognize the girl in the mirror.

What are you doing, Jade? What the fuck are you doing?

Rob’s razor is sitting out, next to a bottle of shaving foam. I lift it, looking it over. I could do it, I think. When he’s asleep, I could take the small blade out of the razor and press it to his throat, end all of this in a second.

I imagine it—the blood gushing out, hot and dark. How would I feel?

Relieved. I would feel relieved.

Other men drift into my mind now. Men from my past, men at the resort. The Pilates lech. Antoni, the way he always touched me without asking. I am so sick of being used .

I set the razor down, suddenly terrified at the thoughts that are wheeling around my brain.

But then, maybe this is the new Jade. And I’m not yet sure what she’s capable of.