Crushed By The Man I Saved
In my fifth year on the night shift, cleaning a luxury hotel in New York City, my ex-husband, Jasper Stephens, bought the place.
Wearing handmade custom brogues, he crushed the six-year-old hearing aid I had just dropped—a device yellowed with age.
With a sickening crunch, my world plunged into absolute silence.
I frantically reached for it, but he kicked my hand away. The back of my hand instantly flared red and started to swell.
Jasper Stephens loomed over me, his thin lips moving, his eyes gleaming with vengeful satisfaction.
I read his lips: "Aurora Dawson. Five years ago, in that wildfire, you were quite the survivor, weren't you? Ditching me to save your own skin. Look at you now—a pathetic, mute wreck."
A ripple of suppressed snickers went through the people gathered around us.
Jasper raised an eyebrow, pulled a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, and tossed them contemptuously at my feet.
"Go on, pick them up. You need the money more than anyone, don't you?"
I lowered my eyes and numbly reached for the cash.
My quiet compliance only seemed to stoke his fury. He lunged, his hand clamping around my neck. "Stop playing dead! Speak!"
He didn't know.
The thick smoke from that fire had already ravaged my voice.
And I hadn't run away.
I had carried his unconscious body on my back for miles, stumbling along a rugged mountain path until the sheer exhaustion stole my hearing—and with it, the sound of him ever saying he loved me again.