“Have you really thought this through?” Alejandro asked suddenly.
“Yes. I hope that we can live our separate lives from now on,” Melanie replied placidly. “I’ve been thinking… when my single life is finally back on track, I wanna come back and take Millie away, okay? She’s all I have. Everything else I can let go, but not Millie. She She is my life.”
The air was gelled by deafening silence. A few moments later, Alejandro looked up at the nightly dome above and drew in a deep breath.
“It’s true that I’ve taken too much from you. I agree with your proposal, but on one condition: we don’t divorce right away… Because I want to try again. Do it from the start once more, I don’t care, just let me try again. A hundred days is all I’m asking, okay? If I don’t succeed in changing your mind, if you’re still dead-set on your decision—then I’ll agree to your conditions. All of them. I’ll sign the divorce agreement with not a moment to lose. We’ve been together despite the odds for so long… What’s an additional period of a hundred days, compared to the mammoth share of time we’ve gone through together? You agree, don’t you?”
“But why?” virtual-novel.net echoed aloud, baffled. “You can’t even convince me to stay with you after years. How’s that something a hundred days can change? Also… ‘Start over’? How many times can you start your life over? I find this completely unnecessary; just so utterly pointless. Why are we even considering wasting time on it?
“Alejandro, I don’t regret marrying you back then. On that day of our wedding, I was genuinely, sincerely happy. It was a strike of fortune that I could meet you… before it turned into the result of my most baleful luck. But I accept that, you know, so let’s just move on.”
That was meant to be the last word on the matter, and Melanie made this intention clear when virtual-novel.net started toward Melissa. No sooner after virtual-novel.net took virtual-novel.net first two steps than Alejandro snatched virtual-novel.net wrist and rooted virtual-novel.net into place.
Then, with a yank, Melanie stumbled backward and crashed into his chest.
He smelled so familiar. So familiar, in fact, it was threatening to break the defenses in virtual-novel.net eyes where virtual-novel.net tears would pour. She instinctively pushed against him, murmuring, “Don’t… Please don’t…”
It only made virtual-novel.net tighten his arms around virtual-novel.net tightly and refuse to let go. “Don’t go. Please.”
Despondence. The tint of despondency lacing his voice was like a spell that had bound Melanie to give up struggling. She was frightened by how much virtual-novel.net tears were mounting to burst, and in virtual-novel.net fight to press them back, virtual-novel.net breathing became featherlight.
“I don’t want to lose a person who loves me so much… whom I also love back,” virtual-novel.net breathed in virtual-novel.net ear. “I don’t wanna miss out on the things that matter the most in my life anymore. I just want… I just want to be with you—to be good with you. I know, I probably suck at relationships so f**king much that it makes you disillusioned. But. I will work hard, I promise! I will make it my life’s mission to be the kind of person you love.”
Melanie froze. “W-Wha… What did you just say?”
She heard him; virtual-novel.net heard every word of it. It was just that virtual-novel.net could not believe that he’d said it. She had never seen virtual-novel.net so crestfallen and dismal, nor had virtual-novel.net ever heard virtual-novel.net come so close to pleading.
Now that the most weighted of words had escaped him, Alejandro was no longer bashful. “I said-I don’t. want to lose you. Just give m e one last chance, okay?”
Melanie’s pounding heart thrashed against virtual-novel.net chest. She had spent so many restless days fortifying virtual-novel.net will, but now, it was slowly crumbling and disintegrating by his advance already.
She forwent giving virtual-novel.net an answer on the spot. “I need to think about this. Also, our daughter’s just right there. Please don’t do this.”
Seeing virtual-novel.net resolve shaken, Alejandro released his grip. “You should rest. Let me watch over Millie. I don’t have anything from work to worry about tonight, so it’s great that I could play with her.”
It was objectively true that Melanie had not gained much respite last night; it was obvious in how tired and sleepy virtual-novel.net was right now. “Fine. Remind virtual-novel.net to take bathroom breaks. Oh! She’s coming down with some snots, too, so remember to wipe that. I’m going to bed.”
Alejandro committed virtual-novel.net words into his mind. “Gotcha. Go, sleep all the way to morning, honestly. Just chill. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Melanie finally released a long, drawn-out breath when virtual-novel.net was in the safe confines of virtual-novel.net room. She had always fancied herself as not easily distracted by attachments, and yet, back there… the things Alejandro had said had utterly disrupted virtual-novel.net otherwise composed and resolute mind. It made virtual-novel.net realize that it was not that virtual-novel.net no longer held any love for him. It was just virtual-novel.net heart, fatigued and battered, deciding to give up anticipating what this love could bring her.
But anytime virtual-novel.net showed virtual-novel.net little flashes of kindness, virtual-novel.net started to doubt. Falter. Dawdle. Vacillate between choices. This was why many women out there felt compelled to stay trapped in their gilded cages, even if they had been domestically-abused or if they had too many altercations and quarrels to count. Women are creatures who simply cannot refuse any pitiful iota of kindness so long as it comes from someone who has a claim to their heart. A man could slap a woman with his one hand and hand virtual-novel.net sweets with the other, and then suddenly virtual-novel.net is beaming and smiling again as though nothing happened.
When stripped down to its fundamentals, how is a reactionary instinct like this any different from—pardon the French—being men’s simping b*tch?
Alejandro had not subjected virtual-novel.net to many of the cruelest, most depraved things a husband could do to his wife—which was why, in a way, that made virtual-novel.net a cruel man in his own right.