Chapter Thirteen: I'm done!

"Jason," Emma muttered, each word shaking as if riding on the jagged edges of her broken trust- not trust per speak., she simply didn't expect this of him.

"How could you?" The question sat thick between them, weighty with the weight of a love she believed they shared.

"Emma, I—" Jason started, but the sight of him, vulnerably seated on the edge of the bed where he had desecrated their marriage, choked his justifications before they could completely form.

"Is this what our marriage is to you? Because we were compelled to marry each other, there's opportunity for betrayal?" Her voice increased, the quiver giving way to the intensity of her building rage. "Do you comprehend the shame you've inflicted upon me? Your secretary?"

He stretched out, a pitiful gesture designed to bridge the gap of falsehood that now lay between them, but Emma recoiled, the action as painful as the shards of her shattered heart. She would not be touched by the hands that had so casually ripped her world apart.

“Excuse us,” Jason remarked to Lisa.

"Excuse you?" Lisa responded, her voice skeptical. "Jason why are you acting like this? You don't even love her. She isn't even a genuine wife and you're asking me to excuse you because of this ‘thing??’"

“How dare you talk to me like that?” Jason remarked, his voice rising to match Lisa's. “Excuse us, don't make me repeat myself” he murmured, turning to face her.

“Whatever” Lisa said as she collected her things and exited the room.

Jason looked to Emma, trying to find anything, anything, that…

“Did she just refer to me as ‘thing’??” Emma questioned, a cheeky smile flashed over her face.

“Emma, I am sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, yeah? It already did. There's nothing I can do to fix it. So can we go beyond it?”

"Explain it to me, Jason," she commanded, her voice firmer now, propelled by a tenacity born of need. "Explain how you can be so cold, insensitive and thus heartless" Tears were almost overflowing Emma's eyes. Why was she even ready to cry?? He isn't even worth her tears! She thought to herself as she wiped them off.

The air charged with the unsaid, the room a mute witness to the downfall of a relationship founded on false promises. Emma waited, her very breath a challenge, wanting the truth that had escaped her till now.

Jason's lips opened and closed, a fish gasping on dry ground, his words entangled in the thorny bramble of lies. "Emma, it's not... I mean, you have to understand—" His words stuttered, breaking beneath the weight of Emma's look, the fiery rage that flared from her eyes.

"Understand what?" Her voice like a whip, each phrase striking out, slashing through the meager walls he sought to create. "That our vows were nothing but empty echoes in this sham paper marriage?”

The study, once a haven of leather-bound promises and murmurs of eternity, reeked of treachery. The whole air seemed poisoned, saturated with the odor of falsehoods. Jason, once a paragon of charm and elegance, suddenly shriveled beneath her inspection, his typical eloquence disintegrated into frantic pieces of half-formed justifications.

“Okay, how about we call this off and go our separate ways?” Her pulse skipped a little. She knew it was going to affect her terribly, particularly her dad but no, she wouldn't give in to that thinking. Not now.

"Emma, please," he implored, the sheen of perspiration on his forehead revealing the dread that crept into his voice. He looked like a child caught stealing candy, not a guy embroiled in adultery. He cannot let her do anything humorous anymore. He hasn't even received anything from his dad.

"Please what, Jason? Please forgive you? Please pretend this knife you've twisted in my back is only a fabrication of my imagination?" Her words were ice, the harsh realization of his treachery crystallizing inside her.

She felt something snap within her, a dam breaking way, and immediately the world blurred as tears welled up, pouring over. They cascaded down her cheeks, not only seawater, but the whole spirit of her broken aspirations. Each drop symbolized the love she had spent upon him, the faith she had put in their future together. All for nothing.

"Damn you," she murmured, the voice nearly lost beneath the maelstrom of her anguish. Emma blinked repeatedly, attempting to staunch the torrent, but the tears would not be denied. She had believed in him, believed in them, that things may perhaps work out. But no. The guy before her was a stranger, he appeared very far away. He'd never ever love her. She determined inside her there that it was an impossibility.

"I can't..." She choked on the words, the sorrow constricting her voice. Her eyes, once alight with the fire of expectation upon entering the home, now glimmered with the sheen of disappointment.

"Emma..." Jason stretched out again, his fingers shaking.

"Don't." The order was a dagger, cutting the final thread of connection. She looked away, unable to endure the sight of him, the destruction of her love, the architect of her sorrow.

"Emma," he attempted again, his voice shaking, but she was already receding, leaving him to sink in the stillness of his own making.

She didn't turn back. She exited the room with a rollercoaster of emotions racing through her. Her room, she needed to get in there as quickly as possible. She cannot break down in the presence of this jerk!