Try to make me cry

Chapter 7: The Cost of the Performance

Inside the Car

The blue Ferrari was a soundproof, pressurized space, and even inside the car, sharing the air with this man made me profoundly uncomfortable. I should have just driven my own car.

He didn't speed this time. He drove agonizingly slow, as if enjoying the prolonged captivity.

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, staring out at the blurred streetlights. The burning sting on my cheek had faded, replaced by the familiar, heavy ache of emotional exhaustion.

“Are you satisfied?” Eddie finally asked, his voice low, controlled, and utterly flat.

I didn't turn my head. “Satisfied with what? That your mother-in-law slapped your wife in front of your business partners? Or that you stood there and watched?”

“I’m talking about the show you put on,” he corrected sharply. “The pathetic, self-sacrificing wife who spun a cheating rumor into corporate loyalty. You forced me to apologize to your mother, Maggie, and to the whole family.”

I finally turned to face him, the light from a passing car illuminating the coldness in my eyes. “You didn't apologize to her. You apologized to them. You saved face for the Grayson name, exactly as I planned. I simply gave you the narrative to work with. If I hadn't stepped up, they would be gossiping that Eddie Grayson treats his young trophy wife with such public contempt that she ran off with the first handsome stranger she saw.”

I paused, letting the truth sink in. “Which, given your behavior with Bella Levert, would have been highly believable.”

He gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. “You threw that girl into the air at a formal gathering. Do you have any idea what kind of damage that is?”

“The damage is yours to clean up, as always,” I retorted. “That's what you do best, isn't it? Clean up the messes created by your poor judgment. I, on the other hand, cleaned up the mess created by your poor communication and my mother's poor impulse control.”

The tension was suffocating. This was the rawest they had ever spoken, stripped of their public masks.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Eddie asked, the question escaping him in a ragged, low whisper, sounding less like an accusation and more like a weary demand for an explanation.

I gave a dry, humorless laugh. I should be the one asking you. “Hate you? That requires effort and emotion, Eddie. I don’t feel enough for you to hate you. I simply dislike the contract you represent and the prison you keep me in.”

“Then why fight so hard to stay in it?” he demanded. “You risked my reputation by walking out with Julian, and you risked your life by getting drunk .”

“Ah, but there’s the game, isn't it?” I leaned closer, my voice dropping to a dangerous conspiratorial whisper. “You are the only one who can ask for the divorce. If I behave, we maintain this cold, useful status quo. If I behave badly, you get angry, you threaten me, and you sleep with other women, but you never divorce me. It makes you look like a saint holding onto his troubled bride.”

I trailed my finger along the stitching of the leather console. “So I’m testing you. If I make things truly unbearable, if I become such a liability that the cost of keeping me is higher than the cost of divorcing me... maybe you’ll finally let me go.”

He slammed on the brakes, pulling the Ferrari over onto the empty shoulder of the highway. He turned off the engine. The resulting silence was absolute.

He turned to me, his green eyes burning with an emotion I couldn't quite decipher—it wasn't just rage, but a complex mix of frustration, possessiveness, and maybe a flash of something akin to pain.

“You want to be free of me so badly you’ll throw yourself into danger?” he asked, his voice rough.

“I have nothing left to lose, Eddie. They already took my friends and my freedom. You keep me locked aside, and I have to watch you sleep with a girl in our house. What does freedom cost when the price of staying is my soul?”

He reached out, his hand hovering over my cheek, the one that had been slapped. My muscles instinctively tensed, preparing for another blow.

He didn't touch me. His hand clenched into a tight fist before falling back into his lap.

“I will never divorce you, Maggie,” he stated, his voice final, heavy with an absolute certainty that chilled me to the bone. “I don't care what you do. I don't care how many men you bring home in the future. You are mine, and this marriage ends when I say it ends. Not before. And not because of some childish, self-destructive tantrum.”

“You are despicable,” I breathed.

He gave a harsh, short laugh. “Perhaps. But you are predictable. You fight for control because they took everything from you. But you will learn, Maggie. I am a sculptor now.”

He started the engine, pulling back onto the road again.

—

It was a long ride and we were still on the road. But he seems calmer now.

“You seem to hold on longer than expected,” he said, breaking the silence.

Who is this guy talking to now? I had nothing to say to him, anymore.

“I’ve known you long enough that was the first time you didn’t say or do anything back,” he elaborated. He was referring to my mother's slap. He was observing me, analyzing me like a specimen.

“Can you not make me more uncomfortable than I already am?” I snapped, hoping he would take the hint and shut up.

“We seem like the only unhappy married couple there,” he mused, ignoring my request completely. “But they—”

He hadn't talked to me about matters like this before—personal observations about our married circle. The strangeness of his inquiry was palpable.

“What’s the matter with you? You hit your head or something?” I challenged myself. “Lily and Dennis are also not happy in their marriage either.”

“Yet they still have a kid together,” he said.

“How does that have anything to do with us or anything?”

“I’m not saying we should have kids or anything. I was saying they are…” Then he stopped talking, staring straight ahead at the road.

Is he mad? Or did something really happen to his brain? How can he be saying all this after saying all that to me earlier? He doesn't really see that he does anything wrong. Where was all this nonsensical brooding coming from? The last time I checked, his cheating was the cause of all this distance, and now he was trying to make it seem like my emotional sterility was the issue. It’s not like I ever liked you either.

He remained quiet after that, the silence lasting until we got home. I quickly fumbled with the seatbelt and scrambled out of the car. My heels were high, and I didn't wait for him, walking fast toward the mansion entrance.

—-

The Fall

“Hey, watch it. You’ll hurt yourself if you keep…”

He didn’t even finish the warning before my heel caught on the cobblestone drive. I pitched forward, hitting the ground hard.

My knees screamed in pain, the impact jarring my whole body. A sharp cry escaped me, and I closed my eyes, blinking against the sudden, agonizing sting. Today’s really not my day. But tears were never a thing for me. I wouldn't cry.

“I told you to be careful,” he said, his voice flat.

“Just act like you don’t see anything, like you usually do! What is wrong with you?” I shouted up at him, the pain overriding my control.

He walked closer and looked down on me.

He even became way bigger now that I was sitting on the cold, unforgiving ground. He was a looming, dark tower.

“The only reason I said ‘be careful’ was because I don’t want people thinking I started hitting you. rumors about how we don't do well are already all over the city,” he said coldly. His green eyes looked down on me with absolutely no pity or concern.

And just like that, my husband was back to his despicable, self-serving self again. The moment of unnerving softness was gone.

He simply turned and walked away, disappearing into the mansion and leaving me outside, crumpled on the cobblestones.

I smiled, a painful, self-mocking twist of the lips. “Yep, that’s him alright. And people say I’m crazy. Wait till you get to know my husband.”

I pushed myself up from the ground. My knees were scraped and bleeding beneath the expensive ivory coat.

“Great, just great,” I muttered, limping toward the door. “You better not leave a scar.” I followed him into the silent mansion.

Then tears started getting to my eyes.

“No.. This is nothing compared to the past”

I will not cry.