HATE THAT I LOVE YOU

HATE 40

THEY had been living together for a month now. Instead of living like a married couple, they were just like the housemates. They had breakfast together in morning, then she went to work while James mostly was working from home. After she clocked out, she would go to Uncle Joseph's house. Most of the time, she did not inform James about that. James had always found it out from Uncle Joseph, but he did not get mad.

He just reminded her to inform him if she had other plans after work so he would stop worrying about her. They spent time together in their apartment lesser day by day, and Nadine loved to keep it that way. She purposely returned home late to avoid encountering James. She wanted him to realize that nothing would change her mind from annulling their marriage after a year. However, she was scared of James' enormous patience for her. The first night she returned home late, he had prepared dinner for them.

That little effort did not impress her nor make her guilt. What bothered her was the image of James fallen asleep while waiting for her to come home. She expected him to be annoyed or mad at her, but she was wrong. When she woke him up from sleep, he just stared at her before asking about her day while touching her face.

'Have you eaten? If you are hungry, I can heat the foods for you,'

'It's okay. I want to go to bed now,' Nadine wanted to be hard on James but when he was looking at her with puppy eyes while pleading her to have dinner with him, she gave in. He smiled in joy and quickly re-heated the foods for them. James seemed not care that she was spending time less with him, so she tried to irritate him by going out with Daniel. It was not a date anyway because they went out with other two friends.

'Oh, is that so?' that was James' reaction when she told him about it before he resuming his work. Her effort to get him mad at her was in vain. James had taken control over her own game, so she needed a new plan. Nadine flopped her body on the couch. She glanced at the clock wall. 6 o'clock in the evening. For the past few days, Nadine had returned home straight from office because James was not home. He had flied to Buffalo City three days ago with Arnold, the engineer for vacation house project.

They went to check the site even though the project would probably take place after winter. Nadine sighed as she looked outside the balcony. From the forecast weather, it expected to be snowing tonight. So, she would spend the first day of snow alone. Uncle Joseph had dinner plan with his friend. He invited her to join along, but she declined the offer. She just wanted to rest at home.

"What he is doing now?" Nadine took out her phone and checked the message box. She had not heard anything from James since this morning. Usually he would text her 'Good morning' or call her during lunch time, but received none of it today. Nadine shook her head. She was not supposed to think about him. Nadine grabbed her stuffs and went inside her room to rest.

************

NADINE awoke from the sleep with the heavy rainfall and loud thunder at the outside. She thought it would be snowing tonight. The room was dark and she fumbled to reach the desk lamp and switched it on. Unfortunately, the residency was out of electric due to heavy rainfall. She needed to look out candle sticks which she was unsure if it was available in this apartment.

"God Damnit!" she cursed when she realized her phone was ran out of battery. It was pitch black here. It was going to be difficult to look for candle sticks and when she was about to leave the room, the lightning flashed at outside and she reflexively covered tightly both ears using palms.

The dark memory of James tried to rape her had stopped haunting her many years ago, but the fear of thunder lasted. When the loud thunder subsided, she hurriedly left the bed. She found the way out easily and when she opened the door, there was the streak of flashlight that hurt her eyes. She reflexively looked away while trying to block the light using her hand.