Jeremy barged in, his anger was surging and Cheryl’s outburst was only fanning the flames of his anger, and as always, she was just too dense and too into herself to notice so she went on and on.
“You should have stood up for me! You should have defended me as a husband!”
He marched straight to the fireplace, placed both his hands on the mantle, and stood still, his eyes focused on the fire. He allowed Cheryl’s annoying voice to fade away from his thoughts as his mind went back to the event and the one moment that had caused his heart to stir for the first time in what seemed like forever; he had seen Donna, he had touched her and he had heard her voice too.
She looked the same.
No, she looked better than before. A lot had changed in six years and he began to wonder about the circumstances that had brought her to work with Keith Preston of the Ortho Speare. How long had she been working there?
His mind was forced back to the present moment when Cheryl poked him in the back with her finger, she continued to yell and scream at him, pouring blame on him as was her style, she would never admit to being wrong. His palms fisted each time she poked him and he was just trying to box up his anger. He shut his eyes and made a low growl, enough for Cheryl to hear but she seemed to ignore it. One last poke and Jeremy snapped.
He turned around quickly with his arm extended and his fist connected to Cheryl’s face. The impact caused her to crumble to the floor, momentarily silencing her. She whimpered on the floor and her head snapped up to Jeremy, she had a mix of emotions in her eyes; fear, anger, and shock, he had never before hit her. She bled from the side of her lip and her cheek was reddened.
“Jeremy…?” She called out his name slowly and in question. She could not believe that he could hit her, yet he had just proved it.
Jeremy looked down at her with not even the slightest show of sympathy, he bent low to the floor, his eyes never cutting away from hers and he reached out his hand towards her face. Cheryl flinched and he paused, narrowed his eyes at her in a warning and she calmed down a bit to allow him to touch her. His fingers held her jaw and pushed them so that her face was to him, she whimpered because her neck was in an uncomfortable position but he didn’t seem to care.
“Everything has to be about you, doesn’t it?” He asked rhetorically.
His thumb slid across her lip, wiping the blood off them. Cheryl blinked and looked at him like an injured child would look at its mother for help. He brought his blood-stained thumb to his mouth and licked the blood off. Cheryl smiled at that moment when she saw his fangs drop and she raised a hand to caress his cheek.
“You may say hurtful things to me sometimes Jay, but I know you care for me.”
His eyes narrowed on her in anger and he slapped her hand away instantly then spat out the blood on the floor.
“You can never be my type, Cheryl. There is no space in my life for someone like you.” He said with as much venom in his voice as there was then he let go of her jaw ad allowed his fangs to recede.
“No.” She shook her head and grabbed a hold of his hand. “You are only saying that out of anger.”
“Think what you must Cheryl, and believe what you want to.” He stood up and loomed over her. She grabbed a hold of his feet, refusing to let him walk out on her.
“We are married, Jeremy! Six years together Jay! That should mean something to you.”
“It has been six long agonizing years for me. And I want a divorce.”
“You cannot say such things carelessly, Jay! You cannot say you don’t have any feelings for me!”
He looked down at a mortified Cheryl and kicked his leg free from her grip before he walked over her to the couch, sat, crossed his legs, and returned his attention to the fireplace.
“Why won’t you love me?” Cheryl asked with a broken heart but he wasn’t listening to her lament, his mind, and thoughts drifted back to Donna.
“Have we met before?” she had asked him.
It caused his heart to wrench, just the thought of her wanting to forget him, she had erased him from her life, and frankly, he could not blame her, he could not even blame himself because he had to let her go against his will and if anyone was to carry the blame, then it would be his father, Ebeneezer Xiu, who now after six years, had been reduced to less than half the man he once was.
He closed his eyes and relaxed on the couch just as Cheryl was getting up from the floor, the accident almost two years ago had led to his father being crippled and the loss of his mother, and every time he remembered the incident, the hatred he felt towards Cheryl grew even more. The reason they had embarked on that journey was because of the lie Cheryl had told them, that she had lost the pregnancy she was carrying after being attacked, whereas she had never been pregnant, to begin with.
His father had feared the loss of his heir while his mother had genuinely been worried about Cheryl. It had happened on a wet August night, a heavy thunderous rain had just fallen and the ground was still very slippery. Jeremy could imagine his father yelling at the driver to hurry and driving at such speed on a very wet and slippery road with barely enough street lights still standing and functioning.
He let go of the memory and opened his eyes, Cheryl stood before him, looking like someone who had been maltreated for a long time. She looked into his eyes with teary eyes and he almost felt pity for her. She sniffed.
“It will always only be her in your heart, won’t it?”
“I almost did love you, Cheryl. I had accepted this marriage and us being together as my fate but you had to ruin everything with that one lie that had cost me my mother.”
She whimpered and took a couple of steps closer to him. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, I just wanted…”
“To lie? You just wanted to lie Cheryl!” He sprang up from the couch causing her to stagger backward. “How easy was it for you to say that you weren’t, that you couldn’t…!”
“I’m sorry.” she wailed and took hold of his hand, coming to stand really close to him. She could not look up at him so she kept her eyes closed and her head bowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
He pushed her off easily and she let go of his hand in defeat, she just stood and cried, occasionally sniffing and mumbling sorry. Jeremy took a long look at her, at times when she was like this, she looked very pitiful and anyone would easily take sides with her and call him the bad person, but he knew Cheryl, he knew the woman he had gotten married to was a venomous lying snitch.
“End the show and stop the waterworks, we both know now that nothing can work between us. Just enjoy the title of Mrs. Xiu while you can still keep it.” He said to her and walked out, heading upstairs to his room.
Cheryl crumbled to the floor the moment he was out of the living area, true that her one lie had cost her many of the privileges she had been enjoying before and it had caused a rift between the Declan family and the Xiu family but they had managed somehow to settle it, even though it was never quite settled between Jeremy and herself, he still tolerated her.
All up until today, the day Donna came back into the story. She grabbed a fistful of her dress and fisted her hands around it, anger welling up inside of her. Jeremy was now more than ever, willing to let her go if he could win over Donna and if she were to let that happen, it might just as well be the end of her.
She wiped her years with the back of her hand and her head turned in the direction that Jeremy had just gone, she would never let him get rid of her, she would never allow him to reunite with Donna even if it meant doing what she had done the last time to the last person she had believed was coming in between her and her person, she would do it and damn the consequences.