I Was Never Yours

4-Truth

Late on a Tuesday night, Zach walked into my room like nothing had happened. Had he forgotten how he'd ambushed me and how frightened I'd been? I guess he had since he'd made no attempt to apologize and I left him alone, not wanting any confrontation like before. I rarely left the house and staying inside so much was messing with my line of thought. Everything seemed muddled and confusing and I began to worry for my own sanity. My parents had made no attempt to contact me and I didn't think they'd come to see me anytime soon. They were ashamed of what they'd done to me and to be honest I didn't want to see them either. Any reminder of what my life used to be like was too painful and I'd rather do without it.

An envelope was thrown roughly onto my bed where I sat. I looked at Zach in all his drunken glory and wrinkled my nose because of the strong stench of alcohol coming from him. I carefully picked up the white envelope and opened it to find a ticket to Florida, with the flight leaving the next day. I looked at him, clearly confused because I hadn't had the slightest idea that we were leaving.

"Why are we leaving?" I asked him and my own voice sounded weird to me, not having used it much over the past few days.

"We need to get away from the city for a while. Dad thinks it'd be a good idea to visit our family's vacation home since not many people know about it," he replied in a curt tone and I nodded. It was only understandable that our families would want us to disappear for a while before people started asking questions. They'd already fed them enough excuses for why we didn't attend dinners or why we'd skipped out on our own wedding reception. Florida would provide an opportunity for the hype surrounding the new high profile wedding to die down and then maybe we could return.

Zach was nearly on his way back when he suddenly stopped, bending down to pick something up. I scooted over to the edge of my bed to find out what it was that had caught his attention. I started playing with my fingers nervously as he picked up the broken pieces of my phone. The screen had a crack through it and the back was dented heavily. I had made sure to render it completely useless so that I wouldn't be tempted to call him or return any of his phone calls. Luckily or rather unluckily, depending on how you see it, I could never remember phone numbers and without the help of my cell phone there was slim chance that I could ever contact Noah again. It was better that way.

He held the phone up, examining it and then looking at me for an explanation. I shrugged casually and said, "It fell." He pursed his lips at my response and for a moment it looked like he was actually tempted to ask more questions, like he actually cared but then something must have made him change his mind. He pocketed my phone and nodded. "I'll get you a new one. I'll take this so that they can take out the sim card." I was about to protest but then rationality caught the better of me. I didn't need to give him a reason to get curious, not that he ever would. He exited my room and again left me in silence. I switched on the TV and tuned into the news. Laying my head down on my pillow, I let the voices of the reporters become background noise and closed my eyes. It was a technique that helped; as the reporters spoke, I conjured up images in response to their words. This kept certain images from flashing across my eyes till I went to sleep.

The next day, the butler and the rest of the help hovered over me, helping me pack. I had no idea what to do since my mom had always done my packing if we ever left for an extended period of time. I let Mrs. Hotch go through my stuff and decide what I was supposed to take. Zach had already packed and I was told that he was having breakfast in the dining room downstairs. I never joined him for any meal and preferred for it to be delivered to my room. This morning however I had a strong urge to just leave my room and go sit with him. Somehow I was hoping that leaving the city would mean that something between the two of us would change as well. I wasn't expecting us to fall in love, far from it, but maybe we could learn to get along more, just till we got the situation we were in figured out.

"Miss, Mr. Price is waiting for you downstairs," said a meek little voice and I saw a young girl, barely 16, looking at me with frightened eyes. I smiled warmly at her and nodded. It was time to go and I for one couldn't be out of this house sooner. Walking down, I saw that all of our luggage had already been loaded into the car and that Zach was tapping his foot impatiently, leaning against the door frame. I hurried downstairs, the sound of my heels gaining his attention. With a bored expression on his face, he signaled the driver to bring the car to the front of the house and left without acknowledging my presence. I glared at his retreating figure and stopped myself from stomping my foot. Who did he think he was? Could he not be bothered to even say a 'hello'?

"Did you pack everything you need?" he asked me once we were in the car and headed for the airport. I nodded and turned my face away from him.

"Are you sure?" he asked again. "I don't want to have to turn back all the way just because you forgot a pair of earrings or something."  I rolled my eyes and before I could stop myself uttered the words, "I'm not Olivia." I bit my lip as soon as I'd said that and watched my husband flinch and clench his fists. I wanted to apologize but somehow the words never left my mouth. I didn't feel like I owed him anything, not even an apology.

The rest of the journey passed in silence and soon we were at the airport, checking in. Zach was taking care of everything, treating me like a child who couldn't be trusted to handle such responsibility. I wanted to tell him that I'd travelled alone plenty of times but seeing my earlier slip-up, I kept my mouth shut and let him do what he wanted. After we'd checked in, we headed for the waiting area with Zach walking at least twenty steps in front of me. I rolled my eyes and trudged after him, focusing my eyes on the back of his head. I was concentrating so much on glaring at him that I didn't notice another person walking towards me. I only realized it when I barged right into the figure and her things fell to the ground, making a loud noise. Zach turned to see the cause of the commotion and groaned when he realized that I was involved in it. I bent down to help pick up the things the woman in front of me had dropped, muttering sorry constantly.

It was only when I was handing her some papers that I got a chance to see who she was. One look at her and I froze. I could hear my blood pounding and the heavy thudding of my heart. The woman had just turned 21 and was staring at me with her mouth wide open. Before either of us could get a word in, Zach came and stood beside me, looking as polite as ever.

"I'm so sorry for my wife's clumsiness, I hope nothing got broken," he said, pointing to the laptop she carried in her arms. I had gotten it for her on her birthday, in her favourite colour red. The red of the laptop now matched the colour of her face as she glowered at me. He'd said wife, she must have picked that up. I had to explain things to her before she got furious and told him. I opened my mouth to speak, my eyes watering slightly but she beat me to the punch. Her hand made contact with my cheek and it stung where she hit me. The pain made my already watery eyes pour over with tears and I said in a shaky voice, "Lexie, please this isn't what it looks like."

"You bitch!" she spat and raised her hand as if to hit me again. I closed my eyes waiting for the pain but that's when Zach finally came back to his senses and stood in front of me protectively, catching her wrist just in time.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed at her, his eyes raging.

"I'm giving this cheating whore what she deserves," she replied, her tone acidic.

Zach looked from me to her and then back. He then stared at me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his figure hiding Lexie behind it.

"Arianna what is going on?" he asked me, the anger and embarrassment obvious in his tone. Everyone in the area was staring at us and Zach's ears had turned red because of the show that we were putting on.

I gulped and looked down at my feet, wondering whether to lie or not. I guessed the truth would be better seeing how Lexie was right there.

"I used to date her brother," I said, each word feeling like it had echoed a million times.