The Death of a Bachelor

Chapter Sixty-one

Rage. Blind, unfathomable rage. It was the only emotion that consumed Debra’s body, mind and heart.

She burst through the doors of her bed-chamber, her chest heaving with the fast yet deep breaths she took. They weren’t meant to calm her down; they were something she couldn’t control because of that rage.

“The faster you acknowledge that he is mine and I am his, the easier it will be for you to escape embarrassment.”

Debra let out a glass-shattering scream full of anger. Her fingers twitched as tremors passed through them and she gripped her hair from the roots, needing something to hold on. Her breaths got quicker and louder as spots of red and black danced before her eyes.

“He tells me he loves me every single day.”

Debra stalked up the three steps to the lounge side of her chamber. She grabbed an antique vase settled on a short pillar in the corner and hurled it at a wall. It clanked and shattered into numerous pieces, sending shards flying everywhere. She then pushed the pillar to the ground.

Her hands still twitched.

She threw her chairs across the room, kicked and toppled the coffee table, swung her arms over the vanity, clearing it of its bottles, books and stationery. She pulled out all her drawers and flung them across the room, leaving clothes and items strewn all over the floor. Next, she stalked to her bookshelf and plucked out whatever she could, flinging them behind her.

“Debra.”

It was Luke calling out from behind her, but she pretended not to hear him. She kept tossing the books.

“Debra, what happened?”

She whirled around and pushed past him, stalking down the steps. He followed. She swiped a dagger from her bedside table and turned around.

Luke’s eyes widened. “Put that down.”

Her nostrils flared. She pulled up part of her coverlet in one rough motion and sliced through it.

“Deb, stop!” Luke cried and grabbed her arms.

“Leave me be!” she screamed as she tried to push him away. Luke attempted to remove the dagger from her hand while she kept up her struggle to stab her beddings.

“Stop or you’ll hurt yourself!”

An adamant Debra twisted and jerked her arms around in a bid to extract herself from his grasp.

“Ow!” Luke yelped and released her immediately so he could clutch his bleeding arm.

Debra stumbled back and her eyes went wide as sense started to return to her brain. The bloody dagger slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.

“I…” she stuttered as Luke grimaced at his injury. Blood seeped through the hand encircling his cut forearm. He looked up at her, but his eyes held no blame or hurt.

“What happened?” he asked again.
Debra’s heart clenched as the memories replayed in her brain. “I…I just can’t believe him. How could he…how could she…they can’t be…” Her breathing picked up again, and she struggled to contain it as she spoke. “He can’t just forget about me after all this time and she – she doesn’t scare me. She can’t have scared me. How dare I feel inferior to that good for nothing!”

Luke’s eyes softened. “Debra…”

“You know him. You’re his best friend. You know that he can’t do this to me. You know that he needs me. That he can’t cut me out of his life just like that because he needs me and he wants me.” The more she said them, the more she became convinced by the words. There was hope.