My Savior Became My Betrayal Chapter 01
Ever since I caught Kennith Rowlett cheating, his daily routine whenever he came home had been exactly the same. I’d pin him against the entryway wall, pull down his pants, and spray his groin with rubbing alcohol to disinfect him.
Knowing he was entirely in the wrong, Kennith always cooperated. With red, teary eyes, he would gently ask me to stop, telling me how much he hated seeing me so upset.
But today, he came home a full two hours late.
The second I caught the scent of perfume on his clothes, I frantically tore at his belt.
“Last time you were half an hour late, you slept with another woman!
“You’re two hours late today—tell me! Did you sleep with four women?!”
After I shoved him away following his twenty-ninth apology, he finally snapped. Raising the back of his hand—which was bruised and bleeding from a recent IV—he yelled at me.
“That’s enough! I had a severe fever, and I was incredibly sick, and you didn’t even bother to ask how I was doing. Are you ever going to let this go?
“All I did was have a drunken one-night stand! You think you’re so pure?
“No wonder you were dragged into an alley, stripped, and assaulted when you were sixteen! Melinda, a paranoid maniac like you deserves everything that happens to you!”
The spray bottle shattered at my feet. The sharp, harsh fumes of the rubbing alcohol burned my throat, rendering me completely speechless.
As I looked at the irritation in his eyes, a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me.
Whatever. I was done with this irreparable relationship.
***
The entryway fell dead silent.
The front door was still ajar. The two friends who had brought Kennith home stood frozen behind him before awkwardly trying to smooth things over.
“Melinda, Ken’s really out of it because of his fever today,” one of them said. “He didn’t mean to yell at you.
“Besides, nobody could put up with getting sprayed with rubbing alcohol every day. Just let it go.”
The other quickly added, “Yeah, and that one-night stand… he ended things with her a long time ago.”
The mere mention of that incident turned my stomach.
When I was sixteen, my stepbrother and his delinquent friends dragged me into a dark alley behind a building.
As they tore at my clothes, eighteen-year-old Kennith appeared and fought them off with a brick with tears in his eyes.
Then he took off his school jacket and wrapped it tightly around my trembling body.
Holding me, he cried even harder than I was. “Melly, don’t be afraid,” he’d said. “If anyone ever lays a hand on you, I’ll kill them!”
Because of that trauma, I reacted strongly against intimacy after we got married. Even the slightest touch made me tremble all over.
Back then, Kennith would just hold me and kiss my forehead with absolute gentleness.
“Melly, don’t be scared. It’s okay. I’m willing to wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”
I had always believed he was the savior who rescued me from my worst suffering.
That belief lasted until six months ago. His stomach issues had flared up, so I went to his rescue base late at night to drop off his medicine.
Instead, I saw him pinning the new crisis counselor against the sofa and kissing her passionately.
He was breathing heavily into her neck, moving with an aggressive lack of control he had never once shown me.
The woman’s black lace bra hung openly over his honorary rescue uniform.
When I caught them in the act, he dropped to his knees with tears in his eyes, swearing he was drunk and had mistaken her for me.
For twelve whole years, I had seen him as my savior.
I never imagined that the man who saved me from my greatest pain would one day become the source of an entirely different kind of suffering.
As my thoughts snapped back to the present, Kennith seemed to come to his senses a bit. He took a step forward, reaching for my hand.
“Melly, I’m sorry. I was just so angry, and I didn’t mean what I said. I really do have a fever, and my head hurts…”
He moved closer, his voice soft, his face full of regret.
I stepped backward, avoiding his outstretched hand.
“Go get some rest.”
Kennith’s hand froze in mid-air.
He furrowed his brows, looking anxious, and tried to step forward again.
“Melly, please hear me out…”
“I’m tired.”
I cut him off, turned around, walked into the guest bedroom, and locked the door behind me.
Through the door, I could hear his friends helping him into the master bedroom, quietly assuring him that since I wasn’t arguing, I had already moved past it.
Had I moved past it?
I leaned against the door and slowly slid down to the floor.
I hadn’t moved past it. It was simply that this marriage was beyond repair, and I no longer had any desire to keep holding it together.