My Husband’s Other Self Loved Me Chapter 02

My Husband’s Other Self Loved Me Chapter 02

In the second year of our marriage, my mental health shattered.

Depression dragged me into a dark, deep place.

I took a cocktail of medications every day, but the urge to hurt myself, to end it all, never went away.

At first, Malachi was terrified.

He was afraid I’d do something irreversible when he wasn’t around, so he stayed by my side almost constantly.

To help me get better, he swore he would cut off all his other women.

When the episodes hit, I would use broken glass to cut myself.

Once, he reached out and grabbed the shard right out of my hand.

His face had gone pale with pain, but he still managed a smile.

“Greer, I know you’re hurting.”

“But don’t hurt yourself, okay? I’m the one who did wrong. I’m the one who should pay.”

Seeing the anguish on his face, I was suddenly thrown back to a night long ago.

That day, he had taken me to meet his family at the Holloway estate.

To get them to accept our relationship, Malachi had a terrible fight with his father in the study.

His father threatened to cut him out of the will and fire him from the company.

It was raining outside, the streetlights glinting in the puddles.

He emerged from the house, soaked to the bone, and walked toward me.

Then he smiled.

“Greer, don’t cry.”

“If I have to choose between my family and you, I’d rather have nothing.”

After that, he all but cut ties with his family.

He gave up his trust fund, moved out of the mansion, found a normal job, and didn’t speak to them for a full year.

At eighteen, Malachi showed me with his actions how much he loved me.

But at twenty-eight, Malachi wouldn’t care if I died.

I took a razor blade from my purse and drew it sharply across my wrist.

In that moment, I thought the love and hate would finally drain away with my blood.

I thought I would die.

But as my consciousness began to blur, I saw Malachi’s panicked face.

It was so familiar, it felt as if we were eighteen again.

Hot tears splashed onto my wound. I trembled and slowly opened my eyes.

I turned my head and looked at him.

“…It’s you.”

Malachi was shaking all over, but his hands were steady as he expertly bandaged my wound.

After a long moment, he asked in a hoarse voice, “Does it hurt?”

I didn’t answer.

I had grown used to this kind of pain long ago.

It was nothing compared to the thousand times he’d broken my heart.

Malachi seemed to understand.

He lifted his hand and slapped himself, hard, across the face.

Then he apologized to me, over and over, his voice growing hoarser with each word.

I was silent for a long time before I finally spoke.

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.”

Because this was eighteen-year-old Malachi.

The sins of the twenty-eight-year-old man weren’t his to carry.

Even if he was only an alter, another personality born from the guilt of a thousand betrayals.