All Chapters of After Three Years: She Wakes Up: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

My heart swelled with gratitude. I had thought I’d be here by myself, representing both my work and HMG, and I was fine with that until Misha showed up to ruin my good day. Now that Ryland was here, the last of the tension that had been building in my chest began to ease away. “I’m so glad you’re here today!” I exclaimed with genuine happiness, “Are you here just to watch me speak?” “There are a few other talks I was hoping to catch,” he replied honestly, “But you are the main attraction in my eyes. I can’t wait to watch you share your research.” There was a loud grunt behind us and I jumped, startled. Misha was still there–I had completely forgotten about him. Misha has never liked being ignored. He’s not used to it. As the heir to Carter Group and the CEO of Carter Tech, he expected to be the center of attention. Even in college, as a lead debater and captain of the rugby team, he was used to a certain level of constant adoration. “Who is he?” Misha frowned. “You’re married. Yo

To anyone watching me I looked calm and confident. But in truth, my hands were shaking as I reached for the elegant instrument offered to me by the violinist in the quartet. Not because I was nervous about performing, although I guess that was part of it as well, but because eight years ago I made a promise to somebody that I’d never pick one up again. And here I am, breaking that promise–all because someone else was trying to use my shame as a way to prove a point. As much as Misha has pleaded with me to “not embarrass” him, Mavis seems equally interested in seeing me do just that. We'll, I guess, if I’m going to go against my word and do something that has been forbidden, I might as well do it fully. Growing up, playing the violin and performing for audiences had been a large part of my life. A part that I had missed. “How about I play the rest of the sonata?” I offer the audience, as I stand center stage, enjoying their rapt attention as I place the violin on my shoulder. “I mi

Except, that we never got the chance to have that conversation.As soon as the plane landed and Misha turned on his phone, there was a message waiting from his mother. “Sorry, Ari, but my mom wants us to come over for family dinner tonight. Do you mind? We can just throw the luggage in the back of the car and….” “Fine,” I groaned, not wanting to argue. I looked and felt like hell, but what did it matter, she wasn’t going to approve of anything I did anyway. “Thanks Angel,” Misha exhaled in relief, his shoulders relaxing.“We’ll just have to talk later.” “Of course,” my lips curled upward, somewhere between a grimace and a smile. As we rode through the slow traffic, I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t rest. My mind was busy, trying to figure out what I should do. Misha is in denial, clueless, unable to see that his actions have already destroyed our marriage. Considering his strangely overprotective and possessive behavior yesterday at the convention, I’m sure that if I tell Misha abo

It was late before Allison finally let me sleep, and as soon as my head touched the pillow of her comfortable guest room bed, I crashed hard, exhausted from two days of unrelenting stress and misery. The next day, I was so out of it that It was 9am before my phone woke me up, buzzing as it received a dozen new messages, all from things I forgot to take care of before making my flash decision to leave Misha and head west. All I had been thinking about was putting as much decision between me and that bastard as I could. I had forgotten about all the little things, like paying bills and cancelling appointments. I scrolled through the messages listlessly until I came to one from an unfamiliar online account asking me to friend them. Thinking it might be someone I met at the convention in SF, I clicked “accept request.” Only to regret my decision immediately. As soon as the request was accepted, I received a vague message. “You should check this out.” It read, with a link to an earlier

[Misha]“How could you leave me? We’ve built a life together?”She doesn’t respond. Reaching for the door, she is only a few steps away from disappearing on me again.Panic tightens in my chest.Ariana is my wife—the only woman I’ve ever loved. She just needs to stop long enough to listen to me. Long enough to remember us.“You can’t leave me,” I say sharply. “You need me.”The words come too fast, too desperate.“Or did you forget—you still have a sick mother?”“What did you just say?” Ariana gasped, and I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth as her eyes widened, hurt flashing across her face. Silence stretches between us. After several stunned seconds, Ariana lowers her gaze. She looks defeated, broken. I did that. I broke my promise. When we got married, I swore that I’d take care of her and her family—including her mother, Lucinda, who lies trapped in a vegetative state at the Manhattan Rest Home. I promised there would be no conditions.“She’s my family too,” I h