Hey everyone! Thanks to everyone who keeps reading and reviewing. I'm really looking forward to feedback for this chapter especially, because for once I'm actually quite happy with what I've done! It's not long til the end now, and those of you who have read/heard ROTOQ know where this is going. How about letting me know your ideas about what the last of my chapters will entail as well as what you think of my work? Would be greatly appreciated! Hope you like it x

At first I thought that he was having an affair: the late nights, waking up to an empty bed, his anxiousness spiking and the unmistakable smell of a bar. Yes, I put on a brave face when he was around; part of me thought that his actions would have been justified since I had had two affairs, one of which being only a few hours we were engaged. He had learned to live with a few bad habits that I had picked up and forgiven my indiscretions, so I had to allow him to continue, right? I tried to; I really did, for I was also keeping a secret from him. Many, actually, but they soon came out – I wasn't good at covering my tracks.

Brad hated my drinking habits and, on more than one occasion, begged me to stop. It was like the old Brad had came back to protect me and care for me but, the ridiculous thing was, I kept on drinking. I suppose I knew that if I stopped that the old Brad would disappear again. Now that I say it, I know how naïve and childishly attention seeking it sounds, but I also know it shows how desperate our situation had become. In the end, I only managed to push Brad even further away and drinking to forget the Denton Affair gradually grew into forgetting our marital problems.

Once he knew that I drank, I didn't have to try to hide it, which extended our liquor cabinet's opening hours. He soon discovered the empty packets of cigarettes in the bin and my stash kept in said cabinet. These discoveries coincided with Brad's sudden urge to spend as much time away from me as possible. He had went from being terrified of the outside world to storming out into the car whenever we fought. He had managed to get a small job just after we moved at a shop just a street away which he seemed to manage, even on his off days. When he said he had decided to get a city job, I was so happy that I didn't notice his increased confidence… or the fact his new 'job' paid less than a corner shop. I suppose being drunk for the majority of the day does that to you.

Then I found myself spending most days alone. Although things weren't going great, I really missed having Brad to look after and argue with. My drinking and smoking wasn't helping our already dwindling bank balance, even though we never went out. I thought of looking for a job, perhaps Brad's old position in the shop, but no-one was going to employ a chain-smoking alcoholic, not even in this town. Even when Brad came home from a day's work at his 'new job', he would be called back late or say he was meeting work colleagues, which would inevitably lead to us fighting about his hours and then about everything else – his favourite retort was that I was quite happy using his hard-earned cash for my shameful vices.

So I decided that I would start to pay for them myself. I was apprehensive about my choice of career at first, but, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I could do something I loved, gain some independence and manage to avoid my broken home and broken husband. And that's why, basically, I decided to become a prostitute. I took what Frank had taught me so long ago and the dislike of Brad which had crept up and over me over time and converted into energy and skill for being a… creature of the night.

Although my experience with Frank had undoubtedly led me to this moment in my life, the alcohol slowly breaking down my body eventually allowed me to forget them. The first few times, I sometimes imagined that it was Frank I was with but, eventually, I managed to do it because I wanted to. I felt liberated and, for the first time in my life, completely in control. The money was average but I soon forgot my original motive to begin work and it no longer mattered. And neither did the fact that I was lucky if I saw Brad for more than an hour each day.

Brad never saw a penny of my money, but he soon became suspicious that I was no longer dipping into his wages yet still managed to increase my alcohol and tobacco intake. Of course, once Brad confronted me, I could no longer hide it from him. I decided to tell him about my line of work and, to my despair, he hardly reacted. I wished him to scream at me and tell me that I ought to be ashamed because, as we know, I like a forceful man and I need excitement. His eyes simply began to shine with the sheen of pre-tears and his face froze in a look of shame. Perhaps it was the shame I brought to him with my wicked deeds, but now I think this was only half true. Perhaps it was the shame he felt for keeping an equally shocking secret from his wife.

When he left that night, I didn't know it was the last time I would see Brad alive. But now that moment is engraved in my mind as the moment I set the wheels of his death in motion. All I knew at that moment was that my husband may never return as my husband, and that terrified me. I realized that I had been pushing him away just to see if he would come back, and I had pushed him too far. I thought I had pushed him into the arms of another woman, that that was where he was heading to when he left that night. But, I had to check where he said he had worked, just in case I had projected my own feelings and actions on to him to make our demise more bearable.

Turns out, I was wrong either way. After rifling through his possessions, I found some paperwork from his office. I looked at the name and address and grabbed the phone to dial their number. But there was something amiss. The number belonging to the office didn't have our area code… it was a Las Vegas area code. We lived about an hour outside of Vegas… I found the number in the phone book for the office and, as I suspected, they had no record of my husband even visiting the place. And, for the first time in months, I didn't reach for the bottle. I simply sat, cried, wondered how my life had ever come to this and waited for a miracle, for something that could never be: my husband to come home.