The Marriage (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 3), Bethany-Kris [books for 8th graders txt] 📗

trapped in this institution, that didn’t change what was. Her marriage to Roman was still very much real. It didn’t change that, for a moment, he had made her feel that unimaginable happiness, and she didn’t think it was entirely a lie.

Not all of it ...

It couldn’t be.

The ring reminded Karine of the necklace. One of the few items Sylvia and a male nurse had provided with Karine the day after her admission because, as they explained it, the chain was too delicate for her to use as a weapon. Whether against herself or otherwise. They had nearly taken her wedding ring, convinced she could use it as a sharp object to self-harm but because she didn’t have a history and threatened to throw an unholy fit, she kept the ring.

For now, the therapist warned.

Right.

Karine toyed with the idea of taking the necklace out and wearing it. He’d picked it out for her. Would it help to close the emptiness in her heart, even if it didn’t soothe the anger—would wearing it make this bearable?

Did she even want to feel closer to Roman?

There was that voice, never far from the back of her mind; familiar and vicious, reminding her every day that he had let her down—just like she said he would.

Katina had been so used to taking over when things got too difficult for Karine to handle that it was hard to shut out the high-pitch ring of her warnings. At least, Karine had learned to pay attention. To try and understand why she was saying what she did.

Pressing her eyes closed, Karine reminded herself the voice and person it belonged to was a part of her own thoughts.

Michelle had helped her with that—understanding the core of the disorder she had lived with daily for a decade.

Those thoughts of Michelle quickly brought with them the faces of the other women who had broken down the walls Karine hadn’t even realized she’d erected around herself over the years. Claire.

Masha.

Where was Masha?

Loneliness was the worst kind of prison for Karine. A personal hell she had lived in for far too long, leaving her constantly clinging to the scraps of attention she was sometimes given. It made the deep sadness in her heart all the more cruel and painful when she thought about all the people who were taken away from her.

People he took away from you.

Karine shook her head, ignoring that invasive, sharply hissed thought. Not that it stopped that fractured part of her mind from fighting to fill her mind with more.

Why couldn’t he leave you in Vermont, huh? You said it—you were happy. You couldn’t have a life there, Karine? What does he expect you to do now? Start over?

With people she didn’t know or trust, Karine finished herself.

Not fucking likely.

The urge to pull the ring off her finger and throw it as far away from her as the room would allow was strong.

Karine ignored it.

Somehow.

She wondered if it was some sort of karmic irony that now she was married to Roman, she found herself wondering if she had to escape him.

He’d done exactly what her father did, after all. What Dima would have done if she married him instead—eventually. Once he’d likely had his twisted, sick fill of her and had enough of abusing every piece of her that he could.

Roman was a different man, sure. It didn’t change what this was, though. Keeping her imprisoned, without any real choice, and creating only the illusion of freedom.

How is it different?

Katina demanded her answers, slinking into Karine’s thoughts to warp them to her own advantage when she had the chance, never missing the opportunity.

She hated that.

Didn’t want it.

Karine could be angry all on her own—she didn’t need Katina’s violent emotions warping her own, too.

“Shut up!” she screamed, cupping either side of her head.

It was just unfortunate that Katina’s voice had grown too loud too fast, taking over every thought and movement.

Telling her she was better off without Roman.

You need to get away. Run.

That their paths should never have converged—the universe had gotten it all wrong.

No.

“No, no ... no!” Karine snapped. “Stop it right now!”

The thing was, well, the voice was wrong.

She couldn’t stop loving Roman, even though she didn’t understand him. Or entirely why he decided this was his only option for her.

He had kept her safe—a promise he hadn’t broken. Didn’t that mean something? Didn’t that count for anything?

Didn’t that prove it was real?

To her, yes.

For Katina ... not so much.

That was the hard part.

“Karine? Are you okay?”

It was Sylvia—again; she was never too far away from Karine, it seemed. Her calm disposition only rattled slightly as her tone of voice raised an octave when she came through the door of the private room to stand just beyond the threshold. Lines creased her brow when she added quietly, “I heard you yelling. I was just next door speaking to Miss Tanny.”

Oh.

Yeah.

The lady who’d apparently hoarded so many animals in her bungalow home that after an unfortunate incident with a five-foot pile of paper the old woman had been saving for forty years fell over ... Karine winced, still able to hear the women crying as she told the story from where she sat playing cards just outside of her room in the hallway the day before.

It was an unfortunate thing.

Her family decided to step in, then.

Didn’t really want to keep being here, just living, after that, the woman had admitted while she’d gathered her cards before leaving. But it was the way she’d spat out the words—just living. As though the idea was simply unthinkable.

And that ... well, Karine did understand.

Not that she’d engaged the woman.

She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Nothing personal.

“Do you need some help?” Sylvia asked, moving towards her bed with careful, slow steps.

In her gaze, Karine could see the therapist expected rejection. For good reason because she’d offered nothing more and nothing less.

Still ...

“Maybe I do,” Karine replied.

*

“I don’t want to eat in my room today,” Karine told Sylvia.

She noticed the