The Direction I Failed to Run Toward at Eighteen Chapter 1

Alistair Marshall’s voice was poison as the needle slid into my vein.

“Lydia,” he whispered, “go back to the girl who only had eyes for me.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw his face—a mask of false devotion. I pulled my hand back, finding hands once insured for millions now cracked and calloused.

Seeing my daze, he smiled. “The drug worked. It reverts your memory to eighteen.”

“Welcome back, Lydia. For ten years you’ve been hysterical, accusing me about Penelope. Now we can start over.”

I looked toward the doorway. A woman in white stood there, timid yet provocative.

“Lydia, you’re awake,” she cooed. “Mr. Marshall turned down a million-dollar contract to stay with you.”

I ignored her. Under my pillow, my fingers found a leather journal. Inside, in my own writing:

Lydia Prescott, if you’re reading this, that bastard Alistair really did it.

Do not trust him. You are the Prescott heiress. You never loved him.

I closed the journal, heart aching.

So this is what I became? This broken shell?

Alistair waited for me to fall into his arms. Fighting nausea, I smiled mockingly.

“Sorry, old man. Who are you?”

* * *

The smile on Alistair’s face froze.

But he quickly composed himself, chalking it up to the kind of playful tantrum my eighteen-year-old self was known for.

“Lydia, don’t play games. I’m your husband, Alistair Marshall.”

“You used to love calling me Alistair. You told me it was love at first sight, that you were willing to cut ties with your family just to marry me.”

He spoke as he reached for my hand.

I sidestepped his touch, my gaze landing on the dust-covered Steinway grand piano in the corner. My most prized possession. Now, it was treated like a storage shelf, piled high with junk: Penelope’s cheap handbag, a stack of Alistair’s files, and an unopened, tacky piece of lingerie.

“That’s my piano.”

My voice was ice as I pointed at the heap of garbage.

Penelope scurried over, making a great show of sweeping the items aside. But in her haste, she “accidentally” knocked over a cup of coffee, spilling it all over the keys. The dark brown liquid bled between the black and white, a grotesque scar.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Penelope gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as tears instantly welled in her eyes. “Lydia, I didn’t mean to… I was just trying to help you clean up…”

A furious roar filled my ears. Almost instinctively, I raised my hand to slap some sense into this insipid, conniving woman.

But before my palm could connect, my wrist was caught in an iron grip.

Alistair pulled Penelope behind him, a look of pained concern on his face as he frowned at me.

“Lydia, don’t take it out on her.”

“It’s just an old piano. You haven’t touched it in five years anyway. Ever since you fired the housekeeper out of jealousy and insisted on doing all the chores yourself, these hands have been useless. What’s the point of keeping it?”

He grabbed my ruined hand, his tone laced with a sick, twisted sort of pride. “Look. These hands may not be able to play the piano anymore, but they’ve washed my clothes. They’ve cooked my meals.”

“Every callus on them is a medal of your love for me.”

I stared at his self-satisfied face, then glanced down at the journal on my lap.

On page 15, it read:

Alistair was drunk. He burned the back of my hand with his cigarette. He said he hated the way I looked when I played the piano, so aloof and superior. He said I only looked like a real wife when I was on my knees, scrubbing the floor.

I turned my hand over.

Sure enough, there was a round, ugly cigarette burn marring the skin.

So this was his “medal.”

A wave of bitter sorrow washed over me. Not for him, but for the version of me who had cried herself to sleep, night after night, in utter despair.

Lydia Prescott, what did you go through to be broken so completely?

“Alistair.”

I snatched my hand back. I took a wet wipe from the nightstand and began methodically cleaning each finger he had touched, as if trying to scrub off a virus.

“Since the piano is dirty, just throw it out.”

“This entire house, in fact, makes me sick.”

Alistair’s brow furrowed, and he was about to retort when his phone rang. To display his supposed transparency, he put it on speaker.

A man’s fawning voice came through the line.

“Mr. Marshall, that ‘Eternal Love’ diamond ring you ordered has arrived. The inscription ‘For my beloved Penelope’ is all done. Should I have it delivered tonight?”