Maybe Love is An Unexpected Injury

Old Mrs. Laird said nothing more, only sighed and left the room.

I traced my fingers over the small cuts on my hands, retreating to pack up my things.

By now, I understood that it didn’t matter if I was married to Tina or not – this place was never my home.

A decade spent hoping, convincing myself otherwise, and it had all been one-sided.

I should have left a long time ago.

As I reached the doorway, Tina’s voice called me back. “What are you up to now?” she sneered. “Running away from home? Haven’t you humiliated yourself enough?”

I stayed silent.

Over the past month, I had been stranded, penniless, in a city torn by war and flames.

Every day was a new bombardment, a new struggle for food, a constant battle for survival.

I had watched people, some of them fleeing by my side, drop one by one, bodies mangled beyond recognition.

In a hellish place where death loomed at every corner, surviving no longer felt human.

Pride? It meant nothing.

Seeing my silence, Tina grew annoyed and tried to grab my suitcase.

“I told you – I’ll keep supporting you, no matter what. You don’t need to challenge Vincent for everything.

“After all that’s happened, have you learned nothing?

“Or do you actually want to go back to that place?”

Under the harsh light, her shadow loomed over me, swallowing me whole.

That familiar terror crawled over my skin, filling my mind until I couldn’t even process her words.

Without thinking, I clutched the suitcase closer and sank my teeth into her hand, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face.

“This is mine!”

She gasped in pain and shoved me hard.

Tina probably didn’t realize how fragile I was, despite my height.

A single push sent me tumbling down the staircase.

My head struck the railing as I landed, reopening old wounds and tearing fresh ones open.

Blood soaked my shirt in heavy patches.

“James!”

She rushed over, reaching out as if to examine my injuries, but I pulled back, keeping a firm grip on my suitcase, recoiling from her touch.

Annoyance crept into her expression, and the concern in her eyes hardened.

“That ratty suitcase matters that much to you?” she scoffed. “You really can’t wait to leave the Laird family, can you? You’re just an ungrateful stray!”

My legs trembled too much to even try to stand.

The memories I’d worked so hard to bury rose again, taunting me.

Time after time, in the depths of despair, I’d imagined Tina breaking down doors, saving me from hell.

With the Lairds’ influence, with her connections, I’d believed it would be easy for her to come to my rescue.

But as the days bled into weeks, as the agony stretched on without end, I stopped hoping. Stopped dreaming.

All I could do was fight like hell to survive.

“James,” she said, exasperated, gripping my wrist tightly, “I’m giving you one last chance. Come back with me.”

Her touch, skin against my skin, sent a chill through my bones, pulling me back to the day my father had fallen gravely ill ten years ago.

I remembered him, in his final moments, entrusting everything we had to the Laird family.

I remembered Tina kneeling by his bedside, holding my hand, vowing to protect me.

“I, Tina Laird, will never betray James.”

But on a foreign street, under the assault of chaos, these same hands had chosen another’s, leaving me to sink into a dark and endless abyss.