VANCE Read Online Free Page B

someone I really cared about,” I say, looking into the depths of my coffee. “His name was Dominic, and we’d technically been dating since fifth grade.”

    “Childhood sweethearts,” says Vance, “how sweet.”

    “More like dumb,” I reply sourly. “I thought Dominic was the man of my dreams. We even got engaged when we were eighteen. I really believed we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

    “Something tells me things didn’t turn out so rosy in paradise.”

    I taste bitterness in my mouth as I recall those bleak times. “I thought Dominic was the one. He made me laugh and feel special, and we shared a deep connection, even as kids.”   I pause, and press the coffee cup to my chest. “He was . . . my first, you know what I mean?”

    “I get the picture,” Vance says.

    “It was wonderful,” I say, forgetting I am talking to a virtual stranger. “It was not how I expected it to be, and I thought then he’d be the only man for me. Only he had other ideas.”

    “He cheated on you?”

    “More than that,” I reply. “He controlled me. It started after we got engaged. He got a job with an insurance firm, and I started work at a restaurant. We decided to rent an apartment together. I was all ready to play the little woman and make a cosy home for us both, and things were great for a while. It is wonderful, like something out of a fairy tale. But then he started to change. He started drinking and going out late. When I confronted him, he’d get mad, abusive.”

    Fire kindled in Vance’s eyes.   “He hit you?”

    I shook my head. “No, Dominic preferred to hurt me mentally rather than physically. He told me about all the women he’d slept with, even showed me videos of some of them he recorded on his phone. Most of them were supposedly my friends from High School. In fact, he’d been cheating on me when we are still at school. They were laughing at me behind me back.”

    “Why didn’t you leave him?”

    “I almost did, but he said I’d be sorry. He said he’d tell people I was the one cheating on him, that I was violent and unstable. He was very persuasive and everyone liked him, so people would believe him over me.   I was shy and had zero confidence. I believed what he said, and couldn’t bear the idea of having other people think that I was a horrible person.”

    “He sounds like a complete bastard,” Vance says in a tight voice.

    “The worse thing is he convinced me that it was my fault he behaved the way he did. He said I was fat and ugly, even though I was the same weight as I am now. He forced me to go on a diet. I became a walking skeleton, and he wouldn’t let me go out on my own. He forced me to give up work because he didn’t want me talking to other men. I became a prisoner, never going out and waiting on him hand and foot.”

    “But you got away eventually,” Vance reasons, “or you would still be in there and not here to tell the tale.”

    I smile mirthlessly. “I collapsed with exhaustion and I had to go to hospital. Dominic made up some phoney story that I had a drinking problem to cover what was going on. After I got discharged I went straight to my Mom’s. I knew I couldn’t carry on the way I was, but that only made things worse.”

    “How can anything be as worse as what you’d already been through?”

    I swallow hard, almost regretting how much I’d opened up. But there is no point holding anything back now.   “Moving back in with Mom turned out to be a big mistake. Like everyone else she thought Dominic was wonderful. She was angry and confused that I’d walked out on him. To make matters worse he started telling everyone that I had been cheating on him. I started getting nasty phone calls, emails and texts and stuff is thrown at our home. The victimisation went on for months and started to take its toll on Mom. She wanted me to go back to him. He told her he was willing to give me a second chance.”

    Vance sits very