The Car Ride
Everything had been going… great. Blended in that numbing kind of way that comes when you’ve stopped expecting anything different from life.
It had been ten months. Ten whole months since I married Cullen, ten months since I moved into the Cincinnati mansion and started playing the role of someone who belonged there. Christmas had come and gone. New Year too. All in a blur of lights, fake smiles, and half-full wine glasses.
I think I was drunk for most of it. Not the messy kind. No, I had composure. I’d become the nice drunk—non-talkative, helpful, present but never quite there. Most of the time I stayed tucked away in my own head. Nobody bothered me, so I returned the favour.
It was Cedric Cincinnati and his wife’s wedding anniversary, and they were throwing a mini celebration at one of their hotels. Naturally, as the daughter-in-law, I was expected to go. Lately, I hated going anywhere. It took too much energy. I just wanted to lie down, pour a drink, and forget.
But no, I had to show up.
I knew my father would be there. Maybe even one or two of my brothers. That alone was enough reason to skip the whole damn thing. But my mother-in-law and father-in-law had already left in separate cars, and guess who had to take me there? My amazing husband, Cullen.
It was going to be just the two of us. In the same car. Alone.
Not that it mattered. We’d been sleeping in the same room for months without uttering a word to each other, and it hadn’t bothered me one bit. Silence had become our language.
Cullen texted to say he was downstairs in the driveway. Not even a knock on the door. Not even a you ready? Just a cold, emotionless text telling me to come out.
He wasn’t a gentleman. He didn’t know how to take care of a woman, not even out of basic decency. And frankly, I didn’t care. I had enough wine in me to survive the night, and I knew there’d be more at the party.
I wore a beautiful black dress. Put on makeup. Looked at myself in the mirror. I knew I looked divine, one of those rare moments where I didn’t need anyone else to tell me.
I walked down the stairs, out the front door, and towards the car. I paused at the door, waiting for Cullen to open it. Of course, he didn’t. The driver got out and opened it for me.
I slid in without a word.
Silence.
We began the drive, and I stared out the window, letting the glass and lights blur into something meaningless. I wasn’t planning to say anything. I didn’t want to say anything. Let the man breathe his air. I’d breathe mine.
Then suddenly, he snapped.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he barked. Loud. Abrupt.
I blinked, confused, still in my daze. Maybe he was on his phone. I didn’t care. I was in my own world.
“Are you kidding me right now?” he repeated, louder. “Sarah, I’m talking to you!”
Oh. So now he remembers I exist.
I turned to him slowly, already annoyed.
“What?”
“Are you drunk right now?”
“I’m not drunk,” I said, voice flat. “Just… a little buzzed. Leave me the hell alone.”
“You cannot.... What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped again. “This party is important. There are important people there. Your family is going to be there.”
I blinked, tilted my head, and looked at him with dead calm.
“Yes. And...?”
He stared at me like I’d just cursed out the Pope.
And I stared back, genuinely confused at what exactly his problem was.
“And the fucking problem is,” Cullen snapped, “you go out there and give people a bad picture, and you know who you're gonna embarrass? You know whose name you're gonna drag through the dirt? Mine. The Cincinnati name. And I won't let you.”
I burst out laughing. Loud, sharp, hysterical.
“You won't let me?” I mocked. “Why? You can't, Cullen.”
I looked away from him again, closed my eyes, and drifted into that faraway place in my head, the only place I ever felt safe these days.
But then I felt it—his hand on my side, gripping me hard.
So hard it made me flinch.
His fingers dug into my ribs like he was trying to bruise me like he wanted to hurt me.
“Let me go. You're hurting me,” I said, my voice tight as I tried to push his hand off.
But he didn’t let go.
He squeezed harder.
That was his answer.
So I did what my instincts screamed at me to do, I bit him. Hard.
“Help! Get off me! You did this to me, you son of a....” I shrieked.
He yanked his hand back, and I saw the damage. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket yet, just a white shirt—and there was a pinkish, angry mark on his sleeve, right where my teeth had sunk in.
That mark felt like a victory. My little trophy.
I didn’t say a word. Just laughed. Hysterically. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t even tell if I was laughing or crying anymore.
Cullen cursed under his breath. “That’s it. If you don’t stop, we’re not going to that party. You are not going to embarrass me.”
“Oh, okay,” I sneered. “So what....? does that mean I get to stay home and ‘make love’ to your ego instead?”
He didn’t respond. He just sat in silence, fuming. When we arrived at the venue, he got out of the car and slammed his door shut without another word.
I waited for the driver to open my door like always. But then the car started moving.
“Hey! Stop!” I yelled. “I haven’t gotten off yet!”
The driver glanced back at me with an awkward, sympathetic smile.
“Mr. Cincinnati instructed me to take you back home.”
“What?” I gasped, reaching for the door handle but it was locked. And then the glass divider slid up slowly, sealing me off from the front.
That bastard. He really did it.
He was going to the party without me. He was banishing me back home.
Furious, I began pounding on the divider with my fists. “You son of a bitch!”
He was taking away my chance to see my dad. I wanted to see him.... even if I was nervous about it. And Cullen was taking that away. Because I might “embarrass” him.
Oh, he had no idea what embarrassment looked like. But he was about to.
When we got back to the house, the driver opened the door for me, and I marched inside, rage pulsing through my veins.
You know what? I was going to the stupid party.
I stormed up to my room and changed, ripped off the black dress, and tossed aside the heels. Threw on a pair of jeans, and a hoodie. Something simple.
But then I paused.
If I walked in like this, someone might recognize me. Someone might say I wasn’t allowed at the party. The whole damn area was Cincinnati territory.
But then I remembered how the maids dressed, dark clothes, plain, invisible.
So I did exactly that. I dressed like one of them. Pulled my hoodie low over my head. Slipped out through the back door like I’d watched them do a dozen times. Quiet. Unnoticed.
When I reached the outer gates of the estate, finally past the painted boundaries of the Cincinnati name, I pulled out my phone and called an Uber.
I climbed in, heart pounding but not from fear. From something else entirely. I was going to that party.
And Cullen could choke on his own name.
\-
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