Out Of Time | A Shelby

four

TW; it's incredibly vague and not detailed but if you have any triggers to do with assault maybe avoid this chapter!

Nancy sat with her hands in her lap, staring at the front door as the rain hammered on the windows and the flames jumped in the fireplace.

Henry had been drinking since he finished work at five that afternoon, and six hours had passed since. Nancy had made dinner, bathed their son and put him to bed a good few hours ago. She hoped he'd be fast asleep when his father returned.

Henry stumbled through the door five minutes past midnight. He had coal staining his face and his clothes and his hair was soaked with rain.

"I have your dinner ready for you, Henry."

He just laughed, pulling off his boots and throwing them against the wall.

"I'm not hungry."

He took off upstairs, leaving Nancy alone. She sighed and cleaned up the kitchen. She was growing tired of her husband more and more by the day. He was draining her energy and she had little to no happiness left. She was singlehandedly raising their son, but Henry didn't see it that way. He thought taking their boy to St Andrews every Saturday to watch the football was doing a good enough job as a father. It wasn't even close.

They had been married for five years, it had been a shotgun wedding after Nancy found out she was pregnant. She wouldn't change anything, she loved her son more than she could put into words, but she couldn't help herself from wishing she hadn't married his father.

Nancy made her way upstairs after locking up the house. Henry was in bed reading the back pages of a newspaper as she picked up his dirty clothes from the floor. She began to throw them into the washing bin, only she stopped when a bright red mark on the collar of her husband's shirt caught her eye.

She looked closer, her heart sinking when she realised that it was lipstick that had stained her husband's shirt. Nancy rarely ever wore red lipstick.

"Henry?" She said quietly, turning to face him.

"What?" He threw the paper down onto the floor next to the bed.

"Why is there lipstick on your shirt?"

"I don't know," he said, "It's your lipstick."

"No," Nancy shook her head and held the shirt in her hands, looking at her husband, "It's not my lipstick."

Henry pushed the covers from his body and walked over to a Nancy, yanking the shirt from her hands. She gasped and took a small step away from him as he towered over her, his eyes boring into her own.

"What are you trying to say? Hm?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I, I don't know, I just-"

He laughed and threw the shirt on the ground before turning back to Nancy and grabbing her by the throat suddenly. Her eyes widened as she felt her husbands hand close around her neck.

"Maybe if you weren't tired all the time, or would stop with these awful excuses about how you can't be a proper wife to me, I wouldn't have to go round fucking other women, would I?"

Nancy gasped as he let go of her for a split second, not before pushing her onto the bed face down and pulling up the hem of her dress.

"Henry, please stop." She whispered, choking quietly on her tears so she wouldn't wake their son as he slept in the next room.

"Shut up, Nancy. Don't make this harder for me."

***

Nancy had dropped off her son at school the following morning when another woman she recognised but didn't know the name of approached her in the school playground.