My Wife, My Man?

Chapter Forty-nine

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." Friedrich Nietzsche

Perli slapped him. Not just any kind of slap, but a vicious five-finger slap. With all the rage she held in her, she painted his cheek with the imprint of her fingers. His words brought fury to her and reddened her eyes with tears.

"How dare you—" Her finger was pointed at him. "How dare you say such a thing about my husband and his family?!" There was fury in her voice that rang through the cries and pain.

Matthew's mouth hung agape. It was not his first time to be slapped by her, but each time, it caught him by surprise. He held on to his cheek and rubbed it as if to remove from it the pain that set his face ablaze.

Despite everything, he was not shaken by the slap that probably left his cheek shining red. He met her eyes with firmness and allowed his words flow out through gritted teeth, "Because it's true."

Perli broke their gaze with anger and sighed out her frustration. She didn't know what to say to him anymore. She wished to possess the strength to not let her heart be broken by his every word, but she didn't. The thought of her husband... No, she couldn't let Matthew spoil her mind. He was a liar, a cheat.

"Why do you think he left for the US without you?" Matthew asked.

Perli gave him a sharp look, sharp enough to cut through metal. She said nothing.

"A bad man he is, Perli. He is rich and wicked and like a toy, he played you..."

Without thinking twice, Perli raised her hand to slap him again, but this time, he held onto her arm. He held onto it in such a tight grip that her skin burned under it.

"Let go of me!" she demanded angrily, fighting to pull her arm away from his unreasonably tight grip. Her eyes opened a floodgate of tears and she feared soon she would be nothing but a broken heart. She didn't want to hear anything, to believe in things that were not true. Jack and his family paid Matthew? Why would they do that?

"Let me go, Matthew!" she commanded again.

"No, not until you listen to me," he told her, his eyes darkening with anger. He tightened her grip on her arm. He wasn't going to let her go until she heard the truth.

"Let go of me," Perli cried, overwhelmed by her inability to free herself from his grip. She felt powerless.

"Listen to me!" he commanded, looking at her eyes intensely.

Perli refused. She wasn't going to let him fill her mind with lies and nonsense. There was no way on this planet that Jack could have done that. He loved her! There was no way! He couldn't do that! She refused to believe it; that all these months of their marriage were a sort of game to mess her up.

"I don't want to listen to your lies," she told Matthew angrily. With all her strength, she pounded her fist-clenched hand against his chest, in an attempt to make him let go of her captured wrist. "What do you want from me, Matthew?!" she asked, tearfully, increasing the force applied to her punches. "Breaking my heart isn't enough for you? You wanna destroy me completely?"

"Dammit Perli, just listen," he said, frustrated, pulling her hand so that her body drew close to his.

"No!" Perli cried out, her heart drowning in her tears. "No!" She shook her head, finally breaking herself loose from his grip. She fell to her knees, her legs too weak to carry the weight of her body. "Jack and his family would never do that!" she muttered to herself, tears running down her cheeks. "They wouldn't."