It's Never Just Goodbye // Ed Sheeran

Doubt

Alice

The doctor had diagnosed me with a mild concussion. He said that he's very thankful that Oscar had brought me in to get checked out. He prescribed me relaxation, and couldn't stress enough that I needed to take it easy for a while until my brain fully healed.

Oscar blamed my quietness during the drive home on my head as he continued to throw it in my face that he was right about taking me to the hospital. The way he boasted about his superiority towards me was not playful but only made my head ache with the similar dull pain that made it throb since the beginning of our relationship.

"You said you were fine. And what did I say? I said we needed to go to the hospital." He gloated, tapping the steering wheel with his fingertips. Even the slight drumming sound made from his fingers made the headache that wouldn't leave me grow even stronger.

"I get it!" I snapped after listening to this bastard speak for twenty minutes nonstop, even with me turning the radio up to mask his irrelevant words. Despite the dosage of aspirin, the agonizing pain would not cease. It continued to palpate with every bump in the road, with every snarky comment made by my fiancé, and every hum the radio spat out through the speakers.

He was not thrilled by my loud voice much like my son who whined in the backseat from the sudden sharpness of his mum's voice. Oscar gripped the steering wheel tightly until his knuckles turned white. His face held a bored expression, his pupils were dilated with irritation.

Two fingertips pinching the bridge of my nose, I prayed that the drive would be over soon. I always hated driving with Oscar because he wasn't that great of a driver. While he didn't speed, there was always a jerking feeling whenever he whipped around a corner that made my stomach instantly nauseous.

"Finley, knock it off!" Oscar boomed. His voice reverberated off the windows and was louder than I could imagine he meant it to be. This only made my son cry more. He wailed and in the rearview mirror I saw his face grow wet and red instantaneously.

I swatted Oscar's arm and sharply retorted, "Don't you ever yell at my son like that." It came out softer than I would've normally wanted considering my head made me dizzy and my son would cry more if he heard me yelling.

Oscar scoffed, "Oh, now he's only your son."

"You don't scream at a child when they aren't doing anything."

"He's crying for no reason!" He spits back. Oscar takes the next turn and I'm thrown into the passenger door. The pot holes in the hotel's parking lot made the car bounce back and forth.

"He is cranky; children get like that when they haven't had a nap." I respond as he veers into a parking spot. Promptly, I step out onto the concrete, and opened Finley's door. Unbuckling him quickly before Oscar could intervene, I take him in my arms. "He's a year old, Oscar."

He held out his hands and said, "Let me take him."

"No."
"Alice, I'll carry him." He says, reaching for the toddler. Finley buried his head in my shoulder and whined in my ear. "You need to rest and carrying a heavy kid isn't helping."

"He obviously doesn't want to go to you right now." I said before turning on my heel and walking towards the revolving front doors.

I took the elevator up to our room while constantly shrugging off his guiding hand. He told me he didn't want me to faint, but even the nice gesture annoyed me. And even when he held the heavy door open for me, I couldn't seem to muster up a simple thank you.

The night consisted of watching game shows on the TV. It was the only network that came in clearly enough. I laid on the bed, trying to coax my migraine, and let Finley jump on the mattress beside me. In the bathroom, I can hear Oscar talking lightly on his phone. He had been talking to whoever it was for about an hour now, but I didn't have the energy to get up and see who it was.