Dangerous Daydreams

Chapter 6- Divorce

The words that just spilled out from Ellie’s lips are words that she will always remember. But in a way, it’s a good thing. When Chase proposed, Ellie assumed she had to marry him. It made sense. Why shouldn’t she? He was the father of her son. People expected her to marry him. Never did she actually ask herself if she wanted to marry Chase. She just did… because that was what everyone else wanted. It seemed natural. And now here she was, fourteen years of marriage later, finally screaming out the truth that had been buried deep inside her mind for so many years. Ellie never wanted to marry Chase Taylor. Her entire marriage she had been struggling to get through every day with him.  Once, just once, Ellie thought about divorcing her husband, but then she got pregnant again with Kennedy, and she dropped the idea. She hadn’t really thought much about it since…just that she didn’t care if Chase came home late or that she wouldn’t care if he would come home smelling like alcohol some nights… Deep down, she was waiting for Chase to give her a good enough excuse for her to divorce him. And now he had. Little did he know that Ellie had been counting down this day since the day they got married.

            “W-What do you mean you never wanted to marry me?” a dumbstruck Chase asked, his mouth in the shape of an o. He had always thought Ellie loved him and wanted to be with him every day. What did he miss? Surely she hadn’t always felt this way.

            Ellie didn’t care that it was almost midnight and that her husband looked like he was about to cry. She had finally cracked. She had seventeen years’ worth of nasty comments to tell Chase. “We were fine in high school. I actually liked you then. And hell, I even like you those first few years of college. But then you knocked me up, and what do you do? You ran, like the little girl you are. You claim we were trying to work things out but I have a hard time believing that. Then what? All of a sudden you love me to death when you almost kill me?”

            “Ellie… it’s not like that. It never was.”

            “I’m not finished,” she growled, cutting Chase off mid-sentence. “I thought I had to marry you, Chase! I married you because everyone else thought it was the right thing to do. You know I was about to file for divorce when I found out I was pregnant again? I just let it drop. I wish I wouldn’t have.”

            Chase was quiet for a few seconds, not quite sure what to say. “You know what I think?” he asked, not giving Ellie a chance to reply. “I think that your stupid little make believe land you had in your coma made me look like the bad guy. Do you really trust something from your dreams? Ellie, c’mon. You know that sounds stupid.”

“I know that you sound stupid,” she said, her voice becoming a little quieter when she heard a bedroom door from upstairs open. “And I know that I want you out of my house. And I want a divorce. That’s final. Maybe I’ll pack my things and the kid’s and we’ll finally go to London… since you’ve only promised me you would take me for ten years now.”

“Ellie, darling…”        

“Whatever you do, don’t ‘darling’ me. Never again.”

He honestly looked crushed. A part of Ellie couldn’t believe everything she had just said. Yes, it was true, but did she really want one of her meltdowns to be the cause of her divorce. The more she thought about it, the less she cared. She was finally going to be free… and not tied down to the only boy she had ever been with.

“Are you sure that’s what you want, Ellie?” Chase asked, with a hint of hope in his eyes that she would  change her mind. She didn’t.

“It’s what I’ve wanted for fourteen years….” she whispered, now really seeing the hurt on her soon to be ex-husband’s face.

Sighing, Chase wrapped his arms around his wife. It would probably be the last time he could. “Then that’s what you will get. I love you Ellie,” he mumbled.

“I know. And I’m sorry, but things just have to be this way.”

With a nod, Chase spun on his heel and from the sound of it, was pulling out a pillow and a blanket to sleep on the couch. Not once had he done that. Not once had Ellie kicked him out of the bedroom. That stuff only happened on TV. At least that’s what he used to tell himself. But now, as he turned the lamp off in the living room- Ellie in the bedroom- he broke out into tears, not caring who saw him. He had been faithful to Ellie… thanks to his sister, Taylor, he had met and fell in love with Ellie in the ninth grade and only dated her… for nine years they dated before they got married. What a mistake that had been. The only thing he kept asking himself is when? When did Ellie stop caring for him? Did she even care for him at all? Deep down he wanted to believe it had only been a few months at the most, but Ellie herself has just admitted that it had been since the day she woke up from her coma.

Ellie had told him that he had died in the wreck-that’s how it was in her head when she was in her coma or in London with Zayn. She said he was the bad guy and how those memories of him were the only things she related to him when she woke up and even now. They say a coma can mess with a person’s brain. But how deep can the messes go? Do they go deep enough to make you hate the only person you’ve ever loved? So now, as he cried himself into a restless slumber, his question isn’t when. It’s why. 

Why could the only person he ever loved break his heart in just once night? Why could twenty-three years of memories suddenly mean nothing to the girl he shared his entire life with? Why didn’t Ellie love him anymore?