Step Aside: Dear Ex

Episode9

Thora’s POV

I swore I wouldn’t do it. I swore I’d never step foot anywhere near him again.

But here I was.

Standing before the gates of the prison, with my arms crossed close across my chest, and attempting to make my heart not to crawl out of my throat.

The air was rusty and sweaty. The walls were like monsters, and wanted me to get back. A younger me would have. The new me? She pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose and told her knees not to shake.

I had to see him. Not for love. Not for closure. For Avis.

He wasn’t going to take my baby. Over my dead body.

The guard took me along a corridor which reverberated with each step. Here my heels did not rhyme like forces, they rhymed like threats.

And then he appeared.

Quentin Palmer.

My ex-husband. My nightmare in a tailored suit — except now the suit was gone, replaced with a plain orange uniform.

He still looked dangerous. Maybe more dangerous than ever.

He looked bright the moment he saw me, as though he had been expecting this.

Thora, he drawled, as he pushed into the opposite chair. His smirk was the same. The arrogance was the same. The only thing missing was the expensive cologne.

I hated that my stomach still reacted — not with desire, no, but with something worse. Memory.

“Cut the act,” I snapped, sitting down. “Why are you doing this? Why file for custody? You don’t care about Avis. You never did.”

He tilted his head, amused. “You really believe that?”

“Don’t.” My voice went higher than I wished. Don't turn this into what it is not. You were unfaithful, you lied, you shattered everything and now you want to drag our girl into your war.

He leaned forward, with a shiny eye. “Our daughter? Or Luke’s daughter?”

My throat tightened.

He saw it. He saw the hesitation, the flicker in my eyes, and he smiled like the devil.

“Ah. So he told you.”

I clenched my fists on the table. “Stay out of it.”

“Stay out?” He laughed under his breath. “Thora, everything you’ve done since the day you met me is tangled up in me. Even when you try to cut me off, you end up back here. At my table. Asking me questions.”

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to scream. Instead, I leaned closer, meeting his eyes dead-on. “Tell me what you meant in that voicemail. What happened five years ago?”

The smile dropped. For the first time, his face hardened.

“Ask Luke,” he said coldly. I might tell you, but it will sound better out of him.

I gritted my teeth. “You’re playing games.”

He shrugged, and leant back, as a king on his throne. “Maybe. Or perhaps I am telling you the truth you are too frightened to excavate. He is not what you think he is Thora. He never was.”

My stomach knotted.

He bent forward once more and his voice was almost a whisper.

And think you he simply came out of the sky and into your life? Right when you were breaking away from me? Timing like that doesn’t exist. Not without a plan.”

The words sank like poison into my chest.

I shot up from the chair, my legs trembling. I wouldn’t let him see me break. Not here.

“Enjoy your cell, Quentin,” I spat, slamming my palms on the table before walking away.

He laughed, low and dark, following me down the hall even when I was out of sight.

“You’ll come back, Thora. You always do.”

The daylight out there slapped me across the face. My chest felt hollow, my hands shaking as I gripped the steering wheel.

I hated him. God, I hated him.

But the worst part?

I hated that some of what he said made sense.