Read Online One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison - Free Book Online Page A

had insisted were the latest and greatest thing, even though I’d found them as industrial and depressing as a Walmart floor.
    Finally he turned me back around, looked down, and saw me bleeding where the hardware had cut me.
    He drew back, reviled.
    Leif hated blood. Total phobia. It was amazing; as strong and bullying as he could be, the minute he saw blood he’d go pale and shaky. Not visibly shaky, but definitely shaky.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” I asked, anger sharpening my tone to a point. “Don’t like your handiwork?”
    â€œThat’s not my fault.”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œYou were just as into it as I was.”
    And, in a way, he was right. God, I hated that most of all, but in a very real way he was right. He’d pushed all the right buttons, and my body had responded exactly as it always had, exactly as he wanted it to. Exactly as he expected it to.
    That damnable moment of pleasure ultimately just prolonged my pain.
    Most of it was emotional. I could get over the physical. I’d done it before. The most painful thing was that he’d just lured me in, against my will, again, and he’d done it so easily . Piece of cake.
    I was sleeping with the enemy, not just because I was afraid of him but more because I was afraid of my own weakness. As long as I was anywhere near him, I was never going to be able to let go.
    In that sense I was my own enemy.
    He turned and went back to bed.
    And I? I followed. Just as I always had. But this time I didn’t snuggle up against him, wrapping my arm around him and spooning up against him. (Did it mean something that I was always the one doing the holding and he was always the one being held?) This time I turned away from him and sniffled quietly in the dark as my pillow grew more and more damp from my tears.
    I couldn’t live like this anymore. This wasn’t even living. It was killing me. It was time to let go. I didn’t know if I had a chance at life at all, but I knew that as long as I was with Leif I would not be long for this world.
    The problem was, I had nowhere in the world to go. My parents were gone; my sister, Meghan, was estranged (in part because she’d never liked Leif, though the truth was she wasn’t much more likable than he himself was).
    So the bare fact was that I was really all alone in the world without him.
    In fact, maybe that was another reason I’d stayed so long. Once upon a time—when I was young, stupid, and madly in love with him—I had dreamed of the family we’d have together. I’d planned on it. After we got married, he changed his tune about wanting children, however.
    Now I was twenty-nine and looking at a long, lonely life if things didn’t change.
    I spent a long, sleepless night thinking about it. I stayed on my side, facing away from him, even while my arm and shoulder cramped and grew sore. I could not face him.
    I didn’t know that I could ever face him again.
    But I couldn’t kill him, either. I wanted to say the idea had been tempting, but the truth was that it had only felt like a “solution” because it was theoretically possible, not because I’d actually do it. It was my cyanide pill, and, like all who carry a cyanide pill, I knew that eventually this situation was going to kill me .
    I was going to be the only casualty.
    He would skate by, as he always had, looking out for number one and apparently having a great time doing it. The only price he ever paid was the occasional few minutes of mollification and seduction he had to spend on me.
    I couldn’t harm him.
    I couldn’t even faze him.
    All I could even try to do was to save my own life.
    *   *   *
    IN THE MORNING, as he got up and got ready to leave, I pretended to be asleep so he didn’t talk to me. So I didn’t have to look at him.
    Partly, God help me, so I didn’t weaken toward him.
    It seemed like it took forever, but