03 The Ruin Beneath the Silence
688 Words
Ryan hadn’t just lost his freedom the day Eve became his wife, he’d lost the one thing he truly believed in. Love.
And the cruelest part? He had tried to save them both… but she didn’t choose him. She chose silence.
He remembered it with painful clarity. The night before the wedding, when her father’s scheme had locked them into an agreement, Ryan had found her alone. He had spoken quickly, almost pleading.
“Don’t do this. Tell him no. I’ll help. I’ll pay for everything, your grandmother, your home, your future. Just not this. Not like this.”
But Eve hadn’t answered. She had looked at him with those steady eyes, her lips pressed tight, and let the silence win.
On the wedding day, she stood like a statue, still and beautiful, but unmoving. He felt something snap inside him as she said the vow neither of them meant.
That was the day love died for him.
In its place came something harder, something that festered. To him, Eve became a symbol of his captivity. Not a woman. A reminder. Every glance she gave him, every quiet dinner she prepared, poisoned him with the thought that she had chosen the Ashbrook name over freedom.
What he never understood was that she hadn’t chosen at all. That her father had placed her on that altar as surely as Jonathan had placed him. That she was as bound as he was.
Three years they had lived like prisoners, no bars, no guards, just silence. The kind that grew ivy-thick around them until neither of them could breathe without it.
Tonight, though, something cracked.
The liquor had torn through Ryan’s defenses, and his words spilled like glass shattering. For the first time in years, he hadn’t masked it with indifference. He had confessed what it really was: grief. And Eve had seen it. Not the fury, not the venom, what lay beneath.
She hadn’t fought him. She hadn’t cursed. She hadn’t defended herself. She had simply been there, steady, watching him unravel, and then, like always, she had moved to put things back together.
“I made you dinner,” she said quietly. Her voice was even, stripped of bitterness. “I’ll reheat it. I already ate. I won’t be joining you tonight.”
She moved into the kitchen with smooth efficiency, her back straight, her hands steady. No hesitation. No dramatics. She plated the food as if she were preparing it for a stranger, her face unreadable. When she returned, she set it on the coffee table before him.
Ryan noticed her hands, the calm way she laid the fork, the napkin folded neatly beside the plate. Detached. As though she had already placed a wall between them.
“Good night, Ryan,” she whispered. Barely more than breath.
Then she turned and walked down the hall.
He sat frozen, watching the door close behind her. His chest felt tight, his fists curling against the couch. He stared at the untouched plate, the flickering candlelight stretching shadows across the room.
She hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t wept. She hadn’t begged. That silence, once his shield, now scraped against him like glass.
She had survived this marriage with dignity. While he had let it rot him from the inside.
His coffee grew cold in his hands, his jaw locked until the muscle ached.
Three years. Three years of meals eaten alone, beds slept in alone, mornings begun with silence. And still, she stayed. Still, she endured. He hated it. He hated himself for hating it.
Maybe she had been trapped. Maybe she had wanted to speak once, but he hadn’t let her. Maybe the silence wasn’t hers alone.
The thought hit him harder than the whiskey.
The hallway stretched long when he finally stood. Every step carried the weight of what had gone unsaid, the sting of words he hadn’t allowed himself to hear. His hand lingered on her doorknob, his breath heavy.
As much as he despised her… he needed her.
And he hated himself even more for that.
He opened her door without knocking.
Because tonight… silence wasn’t enough.
- Writer
