Chapter Three

After the wedding, Richard convinced her that he needed her with him for dinners and functions to socialize with current and prospective clients. It began to feel like their marriage was on display as a model for financial success and happiness, the clients appreciating the stability a happily married couple exuded.

Richard began having Samantha schedule, organize and set up the meetings and events and before long, brought her on as an Event Specialist for the company. It didn't exactly pertain to her degree, but it was fairly similar and allowed her to express her creativity, so she didn't mind too much, even though she could have been making much more on her own. It left her with a decent salary and she was able to tailor her schedule to fit around Richard’s, maximizing their time together. It seemed like the perfect arrangement.

She doesn't know when the distance between them started. After the first three years of being so in sync and tuned to each other, a slow descent into a stale and stagnant marriage mysteriously began. He started coming home later, dinners together became less frequent, and eventually, he stopped coming home for them altogether. He never even noticed the nights she didn't eat at all, it was like he didn't even see her anymore.

She knew Elevated Financials was a burgeoning success and that Richard was planning on buying out his uncle Edward when Edward was ready to retire within the next ten to fifteen years. But Uncle Eddie wound up not waiting that long. Four months ago, Edward, and his partner Mauricio. decided to sell the majority ownership of the company to a mysterious buyer out of state, without warning or consulting Richard. Over the last two years, Richard had already begun shutting down in their marriage, and his outbursts, already becoming more frequent and brutal, were now almost a daily battle. 

Samantha had been feeling increasingly heartbroken and confused during this time, desperate to understand why she was being made to feel everything she was doing wrong; why he made her feel like a burden. She eventually learned to stop advocating for herself, becoming more quiet and withdrawn as time went on.

But through all of this, Richard always had time for his friends and expected her to attend every invitation he accepted without talking to her. Feeling like her marriage was disintegrating, in the spring of their fifth year, she begged him to take her to the beach for a weekend getaway. He denied her, his excuse was that he was too busy at work and couldn't possibly step away. Within a week of their conversation, though, something happened when they were at his friend’s Nate and Mari's for a casual dinner.

"Any big plans this summer?" Mari asked Samantha as she opened a bottle of Riesling to go with dessert. "Nate is wanting to take a fishing trip up in the mountains, but I want to go to the beach." She looked playfully disappointed at her husband.

"We don't have any plans, yet," Samantha answered quietly, feeling sensitive about the subject. She looked down at her lemon cheesecake and missed Richard's pointed look at Mari.

In the morning, Richard booked a suite at the beach for the next weekend for both of the couples. Samantha was livid and accused him of catering to Mari’s whim after so blatantly telling her no, and he snapped.

"What's the problem?" His question was sharp and condescending. "You've been up my ass about wanting to go, and we're going! Nothing I do for you is ever good enough! You complain if I don't do it. You complain if I do."

"But you didn't do it for me," she told him, frustrated he failed to see the real problem for her anger.

"Are we going or not?" he snarled. "What more do you want from me, Samantha?"

What she craved was to be more than a footnote in her own life, to feel seen and valued. The tension from that beach trip, and the dinner, coated their marriage like a toxic film, impossible to wash away.

In the fall of that same year, Samantha was involved in a serious car accident. The ER ran a CT Scan to check for internal injuries and while the results came back with no internal damage or injury, the nurse pulled her aside.

"Mrs. Covington?" The nurse unsuccessfully tried to keep a worried look off of her face, causing Samantha to become alarmed. "I'm not supposed to relay this information to you, since I’m not the doctor, but I recommend you book an appointment with a gynecologist right away."

"What's wrong?" Samantha asked. "I can't be pregnant." She had been on birth control for several years now, waiting for the company to become more self-sufficient before having children.

"No," the technician pressed her lips together. "You're not pregnant, but you have some... abnormalities that you should really have a professional look over."

Samantha took the woman's advice and booked the first available appointment. The results came back with complications to her uterus and an immediate removal was recommended. The news devastated her, but she agreed to the surgery. Her dream of having children with Richard was now ruthlessly ripped from her. Richard never understood when the grief would overwhelm her.

He took three days off of work after her surgery. And spent every minute of those days locked in his study, leaving her to fend for herself. Less than a month later, he was back to dragging her out to events and dinners with clients and his friends.

Then came New Year's Eve. She was tired and in pain, mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. When he came into the bedroom that night, he noticed she was still in her robe.

"What are you doing?" He questioned her angrily. "We need to leave in twenty minutes and you haven't even started getting ready."

"I'm not going," she firmly told him.

"What do you mean, not going?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I don't feel good, I hurt, Richard," Samantha answered. "I'm not going."

"What the fuck, Sam?" Richard exploded. "We promised everyone we would be there tonight! Quit being difficult, you're going."

"No, I'm not," Sam said obstinately. "You promised them, not I, so go if you want, but I'm staying home."

"Like hell!" Richard yelled and threw his cologne at her stand up mirror, causing shards of glass and mirror to scatter across the floor and the overpowering stench of the broken bottle permeated the air.

Her heart pounded and all she could hear was a ringing in her ears and the world grayed. Why was he acting like this? As if from a distance, she heard Richard storm out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

And that was when she saw things were beginning to spiral out of control.