He Locked The AC At Sixteen While I Bled In Pain Chapter 01

He Locked The AC At Sixteen While I Bled In Pain Chapter 01

I stared at the thermostat, locked at sixty degrees for the thirteenth time. I picked up a pair of scissors and snipped the power cord right off the wall.

Last night at midnight, I was writhing on the bed, crippled by menstrual cramps so bad I could barely breathe. I had managed to crank the thermostat up to seventy-eight degrees.

But within ten seconds, the temperature plummeted back down to sixty.

On the other end of the line, Ethan Hayes let out a helpless sigh.

“Stop making a scene, Nadia. If you turn the heat up, how is Anna supposed to survive?” he said. “She has hyperthyroidism and can’t handle the heat. Even a little sweat breaks her out in hives.”

“What about me? I’m in agony here,” I said.

“If you’re cold, just throw on a couple more blankets.”

A couple more blankets?

Before leaving for his business trip, Ethan had moved every single blanket in the house into the guest bedroom, worried that Anna might catch a chill.

He’d delay a flight and drive across state lines to fetch a custom mattress because Anna couldn’t sleep in a strange bed. But picking up a box of Ibuprofen for me on his way out? “A waste of time,” he said.

“Be good. I’m revoking your admin control over the system for now,” Ethan said. “I don’t want you messing with the climate control while you’re out of it from the pain and making Anna sick again.”

Blood dripped from the deep gash in the web of my hand—the scissors had sliced right through. I didn’t cry. I simply ripped off my heavy winter coat and dialed a local real estate agent.

“Yes, I want to list this house for a quick sale immediately,” I told the agent. “I don’t care who is currently inside. Bring a crew to clear out the property first thing tomorrow morning.”

Ethan, I am done dealing with this frozen hellhole you built to please someone else.

******

The next morning at eight o’clock sharp, the doorbell rang. The agent had shown up right on time, blocking the front door with a crowd of potential buyers.

The door to the guest bedroom flew open, and Anna rushed out. Seeing the crowd outside, she let out a shriek.

She shrank into the corner of the couch, weeping as she called Ethan.

“Ethan, there are so many strangers at the door trying to clear out the house. I’m so scared…”

In less than forty minutes, the front door was pushed open. Ethan, who was supposed to be miles away on his business trip, appeared at the entrance looking disheveled.

For a single phone call from Anna, he had canceled his entire schedule and caught the earliest flight back.

“This property is subject to a divorce property dispute. I won’t sign the transfer, so nobody can sell it. Everyone please leave,” Ethan announced. He produced the joint tenancy deed to back his claim, dispersing the agent and the buyers as quickly as possible.

The door slammed shut. The living room fell into a sudden silence, broken only by Anna’s stifled sobs.

Ethan didn’t lose his temper, nor did he yell. He took off his suit jacket, draped it over Anna’s shivering shoulders, and then turned his gaze toward me.

He looked at me with the kind of expression usually reserved for a child throwing a temper tantrum.

“Nadia, I understand you were in pain from your period,” Ethan said quietly. “But cutting the power cord to the AC and calling people to force a property cleanout? Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

His tone was flat. It was as if my agony from the night before was nothing more than a self-directed melodrama staged just to vie for his attention.

I looked at his cold face and raised my right hand. Because of the force I used to snip the thick power cord last night, the web of my hand had been deeply gashed by the scissors. By now, the wound was caked with dark, dried blood.

My face was pale, and my voice trembled.

“Ethan, I was in so much pain I felt like I was dying. Are you blind? Can’t you see the blood on my hand?” I asked. “You traveled all this way back just to see if she was frightened?”

My hand hung in midair, shaking slightly.

During our junior year of college, I had accidentally cut my index finger on a sheet of printer paper, drawing a tiny bead of blood. Ethan was in the middle of a crucial presentation that dictated his entire future career.

Yet, he had bolted out of the auditorium like a madman and ran all the way back to our rented apartment, gasping for air. He held my hand with bloodshot eyes, gently blowing on the tiny cut, his voice shaking.

“How could you be so careless? Does it hurt? Come on, let’s go to the hospital,” he had said back then.

And now, the gash on my hand was deep enough to expose the white flesh underneath, the blood hardened into a thick scab.

Ethan’s eyes lingered on my wound for a single second. Just one second.

He averted his gaze with total indifference and pressed the voice memo button on his phone.

“Bring the stuff in,” he ordered.