Chapter 07

“Ella, stop it.”

“Stop what?” Ella retorted.

“Just let me sort out my own shit, please,” Shaun held out his hand to maintain the distance between them.

“Everything I’ve done has only been to help you.”

"But I didn't ask for it."

“Yeah, but the way you’re arranging them is wrong. It follows neither logic nor common sense. It needs to be –”

“Ella, they’re goddamn work files.”

That was enough for Ella to make the first move.

"Why can't you see," Ella hurled a pan across the living room and belted at the top of her lungs, "That I'm just trying to fucking help you?"

He picked up the bulk of the pan.

"I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for it. I didn't fucking ask for it," he growled through gritted teeth, his fingers whitening around the handle.

"Of course you didn't ask for it, you're too stupid to realise it's wrong and that you need help and –”

“Just,” Crack.

“Leave,” Crack.

“Me,” Crack.

“The,” Crack.

“Fuck,” Crack. Crkt.

“Alone.”

The sound of snapping wood disappeared, as the pan fell through the hole bored into the wooden floor.

A sigh escaped his pursed lips.

He fetched his keys from the key rack and strode past Ella – once his whole world – without so much as a glance, heading for the garage door.

As his car disappeared into the distance, all warmth deserted her.

She wasn't going to cry. No, she couldn't waste her tears on an ungrateful man. How could he not understand what she had done for him?

She had made his life infinitely easier, and he repaid her with a hole in the floorboard.

Ella had to make sure Shaun would regret what he did. She took one glance at the wedding poster that adorned the living room before she sliced through it with a knife. Photo frames smashed, flowers burnt; when he'd next return, there would be nothing but the frozen timber skeleton of the house. He had earned himself a place on her checklists – a new checklist: