Author's Note: Only a few more chapters to go! However, I will be out of the country starting super early Friday morning for a week and a half. I am not sure how much time I'll have to write and post, but I'll try to get at least another chapter done and up during that time. Hope everyone has a wonderful and happy 2023!

Jane's apartment, 8:00 pm

Paul hadn't spoken on the short drive, and now he stood across the room from her, his arms crossed over his chest, not looking at her at all. Jane sat on the couch, the envelope she'd dug out of her purse on the coffee table in front of her. Her heart raced. She wasn't entirely sure how to start. "I should have told you the truth from the beginning," she said.

Paul lifted his eyebrows, but still didn't look at her. "You think?"

"What did Ken tell you?"

Paul sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "That you're still married. That you ran out on him out of nowhere and broke his heart. That I'm just a…" He closed his eyes and shook his head, looked toward the window and out it at the darkness.

"That you're just a what?"

He hesitated. Still didn't look at her, but at least brought his gaze back inside the apartment to linger on the coffee table. "That I'm just a midlife crisis for you."

Of course Ken would say something like that. He had a talent of sizing people up almost instantly and knowing what would hurt the most. A good detective skill, certainly. Not such a great skill for a decent human being. Her eyes burned and she wiped away the tears already falling. "He's wrong, Paul. So very, very wrong. You're…" She tried to breathe, but her chest was so constricted it was difficult. "You're…a miracle to me." She stared at him, willing him to look up and at her so he could see the truth of her words. He did, and his eyes were shining, which cracked open her heart. Killed all her lingering hesitancy. She leaned forward. "Paul, I never knew a relationship could be like this. Sweet and fun and…passionate. So…happy. And so…absolutely beautiful. When I told you I've never felt this way, I meant it. Not about anyone. Not until you."

She saw the longing in his eyes, the longing to believe that she meant what she said. The longing in him that she really felt that way about him. She stood up even as he looked down again. It was time.

"I did not break his heart. He doesn't have a heart to break." She picked up the envelope on the coffee table and took the pictures out. "The rest is true. We are still married, but in name only. I don't love him and I haven't for a long time. And he does not love me. He…he can't. Not with the way he treats me. I've asked him for a divorce so many times, and he always makes me stay."

She'd been a coward. Afraid to stand toe to toe with Ken and go up against him. Afraid of all his threats. Afraid of the connections he'd made, and how she'd likely lose much of the money she'd earned. Afraid of the humiliation he'd heap upon her.

But not anymore. Now her life depended on getting out of the marriage. And even though she knew her relationship with Paul would likely make things worse for her, she didn't care. She didn't give a damn, frankly. She wanted out. She wanted Hohman. She wanted, most of all, Paul and what they shared.

Paul looked up. She walked over to him and stood in front of him. This was the beginning of the worst of it. The beginning of what might be the end of the love dream this had been with Paul. Tears fell, and she didn't care. "I had to run out on him, Paul. I had to get away from him. He was going to kill me, and I mean that literally." A deep breath. Her arm raised up and she held the pictures out to him. "This is what he did to me."

Paul stared at her, seemingly hesitant. She took a deep breath, steeled herself. "Go on. Look at them."

He took the pictures and she watched his face turn pale as he took in the first one. His eyes lifted to look at her questioningly, and she nodded.

But it was too much, and so she went back to the couch, sat, and pulled her feet up on it so she could rest her chin on her knees. The pictures were brutal – she'd looked ten times as beat up as Paul did today. And it wasn't only her face. Her back. Her stomach. Her thighs. Bruises of every possible shade of blue and black and purple and green and yellow. Scrapes on her face where the carpet had peeled off her skin.

"What the fu…Janey, he did this to you?" He took a few steps toward her, then looked at the pictures again. "When you said he hurt you, I thought you meant he cheated on you, but you meant…he did this to you?"

She nodded against her knees and stared at Paul's feet. "Those are from four months ago when I was in the hospital. We had a fight, and he…punched me around, and then…he pushed me down the stairs." She lifted her head and found Paul watching her, his face drawn in lines of horror. "Not for the first time." She hugged her legs. "This last time…the nurse, she was suspicious, even though like always, I told the story he told me to. But she asked if she could take pictures…just in case, she said. And she wrote her name on the back of them and her phone number…just in case."

She noticed that the pictures were shaking in Paul's hands.

"Oh my God," he said, so quietly she hardly heard him. "Oh, Janey."

He walked toward her, dropped the pictures on the coffee table, and sat down next to her, close. He put his hand on her back, and just that sweet, soft touch broke her open. She let out a gasping sob and rolled into Paul's side, her face landing on his shoulder. His arm tightened around her, and she shifted until her legs were slung over his lap, her head slipping from his shoulder down to his chest, and both his arms enveloping her. He held her tight even as she shook from her sobbing.

She felt his lips on her head, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss through her hair. She rested her hand on his chest just to the side of her cheek. She heard his heartbeat, and felt it against her hand, and the rhythm of it soothed her. He stroked her back in the same gentle rhythm, and he was so warm. So very warm. Her sobs quieted, and she could speak again. She lifted up just enough her voice wasn't muffled.

"He was always controlling, even when we were just dating. I guess I thought marriage would fix it…but instead he just started getting angry. All the time. And I never knew what would cause it. And when I started getting published, that's when it got physical. It started out just…about a year after our marriage, he started pushing, and pulling my hair, grabbing my arms too hard. Shaking me by the shoulders. And then…he'd slap me, or punch me in the stomach or on the back. Anywhere that would be covered up by my clothes."

"Did you tell anyone?"

"I did. They didn't believe me. My parents didn't believe me. My sister didn't believe me. And the police? The ones Ken worked with? I went to see them. They said they'd look into it. Instead, they told him what I'd told them and that led to my first trip down the stairs. I tried another police station. Same thing happened, although that time, I just got two black eyes. He said I was lucky. After that, I stopped trying to tell anyone. I mean, why bother?"

Paul took the Lord's name in vain. And repeated it with an additional curse in between the Jesus and the Christ, the one that used to get everyone's mouth washed out with soap.

Suddenly, she didn't feel close enough to him. She lifted herself up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, buried her face in the crook of his neck. He smelled a delicious combination of woodsy and soapy; he must have showered after work. The skin of his neck was so warm, and she felt slightly guilty for soaking it with her tears, but now they wouldn't stop. His arm crisscrossed her back, his hands gripping her tight.

"I'm so sorry, Janey." He whispered against her skin, just underneath her earlobe, and his warm breath tickled her. "God, I am so, so sorry."

She hadn't cried this way in years, and certainly never with someone holding her. She thought she ought to stop, and she drew back, trying desperately to push it all back inside.

"Don't stop," Paul said, his voice low and gentle. "Let it out. You've been holding it in too long."

She shook her head. If she did as he said, she might drown. She might never breathe again. She allowed herself to look into his eyes and shook her head again. She wanted to say "I can't" but no words would come out of her mouth.

He kissed her forehead and drew back, a sad, slight smile curving up his busted-up mouth. "Janey. It's okay. I'm here. Not going anywhere." He pressed her head back to his neck, then pressed a long kiss to her temple. "I've got you, baby. I've got you."

She nodded against him and did as he said. Fifteen years of pain. Fifteen years of being called stupid and worthless and ugly and a bitch and so many other horrible things. Fifteen years of doubting and hating herself even more than she hated Ken. Fifteen years of fear and physical pain and being so damned lost even in her own skin.

And through it all, Paul just kept holding her. Kept whispering to her. Kept reminding her that there was something worth going through this for. Someone worth this and so much more.