“Honestly, I can’t believe it. When did you move to Manchester?” I asked.

“Not long ago. I needed a change from Filey.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I saw this job advertised and decided to go for it. I had no idea you worked here, too.”

“I literally started yesterday.”

“What happened to your hand?” she asked.

I had been so lost in the moment and wondering how to feel that Kim was standing in front of me that I’d forgotten about everything for a minute. Her innocent question brought the whole experience flooding back, and the smile was wiped off my face. Amelia was already paranoid about me having a female assistant. If she found out she was an ex-girlfriend of mine, there was no telling what she would do to me. I still hadn’t heard from her since she walked out of the house in the morning. For all I knew, she could be scaling the building to spy on me.

“I trapped it in a door,” I said. Kim stood in front of me and delicately cradled my injured hand with the warmth of hers.

“Was it a revolving door?” Kim joked.

“No,” I laughed, “a regular one.”

Something happened in that moment. I don’t know if it was our proximity or the gentle warmth of her soft hands against mine, but I wanted to break down and tell her everything. Every disgusting and vicious detail of what Amelia was doing to me, and yet I couldn’t because I was terrified Amelia would somehow find out and hurt Kim. I hastily pushed her hands away from mine, and she looked troubled by my physical response.

“Sorry, Harry. That was a bit unprofessional of me,” Kim said.

“Don’t be sorry. We should probably start work, though,” I replied.

Kim and I barely spoke for the entire day. I wasn’t getting any work done. I was just sitting in my office wondering what to do about Amelia. I knew that deep down, she wasn’t ever going to stop. I’d enjoyed a few weeks of respite, but since then it had escalated, if anything. I could barely think because of the searing pain from my little finger, and every twinge brought back the violent memory of what had happened.

I came to an obvious realisation: I didn’t deserve what happened to me. Or what happened to me for the months before. I didn’t deserve any of the ferocious snipes or excessive criticisms she gave to me. Poppy was right, and I needed to get out of this toxic relationship and probably go to the police. In a moment of strength, I decided to send Amelia a text.

We need to talk.

Measly though as it was, I’d taken the first step in escaping this brutish woman that was none other than my wife. An outpouring of self-pride suddenly washed over me. I never even thought I’d be brave enough to take this step. I mistakenly thought that everything was going to work itself out with Amelia, but I’d been kidding myself. I wasn’t expecting miracles, but her increasing volatility made me finally realise she was never going to change, and, unless I jumped ship before it got sucked into the giant whirlpool, I was bound to wither away and fade into an unrecognisable shadow of my former self. Then, when I would least expect it, she would probably end up killing me in a drunken rage. I needed to remain strong and actually follow through this time.

With every minute that passed without a response, I felt even more anxious. I imagined her tearing the house apart in a fit of unrelenting wrath. She probably knew she was losing control; what if she did something to herself? Something irreversible. The thought entered my head that she could be swallowing the entire packet of those tablets she had been taking, and I’d find her that way when I returned home. I fought every urge to contact her again; she had been playing games like this with me for years, but thankfully I’d finally begun to wise up to them.

Kim popped her head in the door, and I suddenly realised the time. It was almost 6:30 pm, and I could have left an hour before.

“Am I okay to leave now, Harry?” she asked.

“I’m so sorry, I totally lost track of time,” I replied.

Kim gave me a look of concern, and instead of leaving, she came into the office and shut the door behind her.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I know you, Harry. You aren’t yourself. You should be ecstatic. You’ve got this amazing job. You look utterly miserable.”

I couldn’t bottle it up any longer. Every emotion I’d silently buried fiercely rose to the surface all of a sudden, and I started crying uncontrollably. She didn’t waste any time and ran straight over to me and embraced me comfortingly, while and I continued crying inconsolably for what felt to me like hours. I told her every detail of what had happened to me, and Kim wept, too. It could all be traced back to the death of Dad. I wasn’t ready for a relationship at the time, but Amelia said and did all the right things. Once she had her claws in me, that’s when everything had turned sinister. Kim’s opinion was the same as Poppy’s, and I should have left her immediately and contacted the police. But they didn’t know her like I did. She wasn’t going to let me go without a bitter fight.

“Do you want to stay at mine?” Kim asked.

“Thank you, but no, I can’t,” I responded.

“You can’t go home.”

“I have to. I have to face her.”

“What if she gets aggressive again?”

“Then I’ll walk away.”

I took my time on the drive home. Truth be told, I had no stomach for yet another one of her episodes. I didn’t want to face her, but with Kim’s words of encouragement fresh in my mind, I felt like it was the best time. I sat in the car for a while before I even thought about entering. My finger was still throbbing, and the memory of the night before kept flashing through my mind with every pulse of pain shooting up my arm. I just had to go in and tell her, without pulling any punches, that it was over. If she started getting aggressive again, I’d walk away.

I unlocked the door and opened it slightly. There was soft piano music playing from the dining room. I fearfully put my head around the door, and Amelia was sitting at the table with a full meal prepared and candles lit. She had a white plaster spanning the width of her nose and a slight suggestion of a black eye.

“Hi, husband,” she smiled.

“Hi… what’s going on here?” I asked.

“It’s an apology. Sit down.”

Just the mere thought that Amelia was going to apologise was a genuinely new experience for me. She was always in the right, even when she wasn’t. For her to own up and take the blame was something I actually found quite shocking. Because at first glance she looked calm, I decided to comply and sat down across from her. She smiled charmingly as I did. Amelia had prepared sirloin steak and peppercorn sauce with a side of roast potatoes.

“Dig in while it’s still hot,” Amelia suggested.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“Listen, I’m sorry for what happened,” Amelia sighed, putting down her knife and fork, “but you gave as good as you got.”

“Excuse me?”

“This,” she said, pointing at her face, “I thought you’d broken it.”

“I was trying to stop you from breaking my finger.”

Amelia stood from the table, walked over to my right-hand side, delicately clasped my injured hand and inspected my finger closely.

“Is it broken?” she asked, with an overly dramatic pitying look across her face.

“I think so. The swelling won’t go down. I’ve not had time to get it looked at.”

“You don’t need to do that. Stay there, and I’ll get you some ice.”

Amelia left the dining room for a minute to go and fetch the ice. I did think about getting up and striding out of the house, but her whole demeanour was totally alien to me, and to be honest, I was somewhat curious about what she had to say. She returned with this facial expression, copied directly from a 1960s dutiful housewife, knelt down next to me and tentatively placed the ice on my finger. She moved her attention from my finger and looked up directly into my eyes.

“I went to the clinic today,” she announced.