The Don Who Never Meant What He Said

At the Thanksgiving dinner, Raphael's assistant Daphne was sitting in my seat.

I frowned at Raphael. “Why is she in the Donna's seat? Doesn’t she know, and don’t you?”

Raphael clicked his tongue, impatient.

“You're the one who showed up late. People sit where they want. If it bothers you, leave.”

I opened my mouth to argue, and his thoughts reached me before I could.

[Scarlett, get angry. Fight back.]

[Tell me you're my wife, the Donna of the Sterling family, that no one else has the right to sit at my side.]

[Prove you love me. It's the only thing that makes me feel safe.]

This time, I didn't give his thoughts what they were begging for.

I slid the wedding ring off my finger instead.

“That's the Donna's seat. If you've decided she belongs in it, I won't argue.”

“Let's get divorced.”

The ring landed on the table and bounced once in front of him.

Raphael went pale.

Even his family, who had been watching the show, traded uneasy looks.

Seven years.

I had endured a life like this for seven full years.

Raphael loved to humiliate me in front of people, then wait for me to swallow my pride and come and coax him back.

Every single time, I did exactly what his thoughts asked. I came to him, and I made up first.

It was not only because I could hear what he truly thought, and knew the sick shape of what he needed.

It was also because he was the Don, and I had to uphold that absolute, unquestioned authority of his.

After a while, his family stopped noticing.

They would laugh and tease us. “A sadist and a masochist. You two really do deserve each other.”

So when the word divorce came out of my mouth, Raphael's sister Serena hurried over to talk me down.

“Scarlett, are you just in a bad mood today? You know how he is. He always says the opposite of what he means.”

Raphael's brother Ron kept a straight face and spread his hands.

“Thanksgiving is a family holiday. You can be upset, but don't joke about divorce.”

I crossed my arms and gave a cold laugh.

“Oh? So you know it's a family holiday. Then is Daphne family too?”

Serena and Ron went stiff and said nothing.

Bang!

Raphael slammed his fist on the table and shot to his feet. “Scarlett, are you done? Daphne is my guest!”

“Divorce? Fine. Fine!” He ground the words through his teeth. “Get out! Get out right now!”

For all the thunder in that shout, his thoughts sounded like a kicked puppy.

[Divorce? Scarlett, you said you'd love me your whole life. It's only been seven years.]

[Darling, please don't leave me. Without you I'll fall apart.]

I spent a full decade swallowing these conflicting emotions all alone.

When I first met him, I already knew he carried a deep emotional disorder and a bottomless sense of inferiority.

He couldn't say what he truly felt. The more something mattered to him, the harder he pushed it away.

He pushed me away so that I would come back, again and again, just to confirm that I really loved him.

Pushed to its limit, that inferiority grows into spines, a way of protecting yourself.

And from the day I met him, I could hear his thoughts.

Every time he screamed at me to get out, his thoughts were a desperate plea. [Scarlett, please. Stay.]

I was moved by how pure the feeling underneath it was, and slowly I let myself fall for him.

We were together three years, then married for seven.

Because of me, his condition improved enormously. He could express himself like a normal man now.

For seven years he could be gentle with everyone else. Only with me did he stay cruel past the point of cruelty.

I had cried over it. I had broken down over it.

But Serena always said, “Scarlett, he suffers from mental illness. He just says the opposite of what he feels. The truth is he loves you to the point of madness.”

I knew she was telling the truth, because his thoughts said the same thing.

For love, I held on.

Then the assistant, Daphne, appeared.

Raphael, who didn't have a romantic bone in his body, bought a newly discovered planet and named it after Daphne.

For Daphne's birthday, he booked out an entire amusement park.

The ruby necklace I had wanted for half a year, he bid for it only to put it on Daphne right after.

Now he was even bringing Daphne to the Thanksgiving dinner.

His thoughts wailed like a baby who had never been weaned, crying for me to look at him.

But as I watched Daphne sit there in my seat, that ruby necklace at her throat.

Something in me finally woke up.

His thoughts were only ten years of habit.

He had already found someone new to love.