"It's crazy right? We are married and it feels like we are strangers I almost even hate him. I don't know why he asked me to marry him. I don't know the grand plan he had cooked up in his head when he said those words and I don't know what in the world possessed me to say yes. It must have been love, but love is very stupid and I want to stop loving him but that seems like it us not an option," Stephanie said.
"I don't know Stephanie. He is not good for you, please leave. You can't kill yourself over a man, he doesn't deserve you, not one bit," Astra said. She did not even need to hear more. Ray was not deserving of Stephanie. She had wasted enough years on the man, she did not need to spend more.
"What about the baby? I can't leave now. You know Ray, I would come out of the divorce with nothing. It's like he wanted me to be totally dependent on him so that I couldn't leave. I have nothing of my own, Astra. How will I take care of a child on my own?" Stephanie asked.
"Relax Steph. You have a life of your own, you have skills you have a degree. You are a woman of your own Stephanie. Ray might have tried to manipulate you into being totally dependent on him, but you have a choice now, you have a choice to change. Now that her claims not to be around you can start looking for a job," Astra said. Stephanie was quiet and seemed like she was in thoughts before she shook her head.
"Who would hire a pregnant woman?" Stephanie asked. Her countenance was low and it seemed like she had given up all hope.
"I understand how you feel, but I will be here to help you. Promise me you will take steps to leave Stephanie. You cannot keep on being in bondage all of your life," Astra said. She did not need her friend in so much pain.
"I don't know Astra, I cannot go back to the way I was before. I can't go back to living from hand to mouth. I can't make my child live the life I lived as a child," Stephanie said. Astra knew how Stephanie grew up. She was the third child out of seven. No one really cared about how the other fended for themselves. Their parents did not care enough, they were all hustling for survival and one day there was a fire and all her siblings had died then. Stephanie was all alone from then. She was put into a foster home and managed to get into college. It was not easy but she did it all. Stephanie badly did not want to go back to where she came from. Astra knew that Steph was severely abused and had do a lot of things for money to eat, and poverty scared her, that was probably the reason she stayed for so long.
"You have to try Steph, you can be rich and comfortable on your own. You don't need Ray," Astra said. Stephanie did not seem to hear her, she was lost in her own thoughts.
"I think the only reason why Ray married me and is still with me is you. He is obsessed with you Astra. Even if I leave him, he would not leave you alone. He will never leave you alone," Stephanie said and Astra felt a chill go down her spine. She did not like the thought of Ray being obsessed with her. She flashed back to when he followed her everywhere back when they were in highschool. It actually seemed cute then, but a lot had changed over the years, it was certainly no longer cute.
"Do you think he has actually been following me?" Astra asked and Stephanie nodded.
"Sadly, yes. At the beginning, he talked about you so much that it is unnerving, I figured he was still into you and eventually he would move on. When that didn't happen, I approached him about it and he was angry. He told me that he was in love with you and that he was never going to stop loving you and that if I didn't like it, I should just leave. I was not so sure what I wanted to do. I decided to stay because I felt that time would change him and that I didn't have anyone else to go to," Stephanie said. Little tears had begun to roll down her eyes by then.
"I am so sorry Steph," Astra said hugging her friend. Astra was sure that something was wrong with Ray. It was not normal to be so obsessed about someone. It was not love anymore. Astra was sure of it.
"He messed so much with my self esteem. He compared me to you at any provocation. At a point I started to hate you, I hated that he loved you for so long and he could not bring himself to love me, it wounded me each and everyday and I did not know what to do about it. I tried to distance myself from you at a point, but he was still very toxic towards me. Nothing I did was ever good. I tried so much to please him that I lost myself along the way. It was then that I knew that it was not your fault, not at all. I had just married the wrong man," Steph said.
Tears began to fall from Astra's eyes too. They had both been through so much, things that they did not deserve. If it was by being nice or good, Astra and Steph were good enough people, they both gave to others and were good citizens. They did not deserve what was happening to them, not one bit.
"Just try to relax Stephanie. It will all be good at the end. It will be good at the end," Astra advised as she rubbed her friend's back.
"I need to leave him," Stephanie said after a while. They were both basking in silence before then, her friend was not saying anything and Astra did not want to break the silence.
"You do," Astra agreed. It occurred to her then that Steph had been advising her to leave Nicholas for years when she had not been able to leave Ray herself.
"I don't know how to start. I need to rent an apartment first. I have some money that I have invested over the years. I did know that a day like this would eventually come," Stephanie said with a sigh.
"Well, that is a step, you need as much money as you can get. If Ray is as obsessed as you say, you need to go far and he doesn't need to know where you are moving on," Astra said.
"I agree, but I am scared. Once Nicholas gets fixated on something, it takes the whole world to drag his attention away. You did say you saw him last week, he might still be in town, he might just be avoiding me," Stephanie said.
"Oh, that's another angle. You have to keep living in his house for the mean time. We can start searching for houses outside the state immediately and when it's time to move, we will make the appropriate plans," Astra said and Steph nodded.
"I like that plan very much. I don't know when he will be back though. He can come at any time and that can be dangerous," Steph said.
"We will think of something before then Stephanie. I am just so happy you decided to confide in me and that you are taking steps to leave the bastard," Astra said.
"I think I needed someone to talk to. I have been living in this bubble of just Ray and I for so long that it's hard to separate what we share from real love. I also think a child changed that for me. The fact that he wanted me to kill the child even while we were married. I cannot live with such a man, he is driving me crazy. I need to leave," Stephanie said.
"We need to make a toast, to leaving toxic men, we don't need them in our lives," Astra said, chuckling. She went into the kitchen and brought out a glass of wine.
"To leaving toxic men," she said, raising a glass.
"To leaving toxic men," Steph agreed. Neither of them knew that it was far more than that.