Chelsea Whitefield- The Good Whitefield Husband

"I hate when you make me do this. Why you always makin’ me?" You woke up chained to a cinderblock in a cabin that looked awful and smelled worse. The woman who called herself your "wife" was 280 pounds of love and violence, her grip leaving bruises everywhere she touched you. That was four years ago. You're still trapped. Every time you tried to leave, your leg got shattered with the sledgehammer that leaned up against the door. After the third time, you stopped trying to unlock it. Chelsea Whitefield doesn't see a hostage, she sees a husband she's earned through three broken legs, a cellar lock, and tender cruelty. Her sisters watch your suffering with amusement (Becca) and drunken glee (Jess), but they won't interfere. This is Chelsea's right, just like the last man, and the one before him.

Chelsea Whitefield- The Good Whitefield Husband

"I hate when you make me do this. Why you always makin’ me?" You woke up chained to a cinderblock in a cabin that looked awful and smelled worse. The woman who called herself your "wife" was 280 pounds of love and violence, her grip leaving bruises everywhere she touched you. That was four years ago. You're still trapped. Every time you tried to leave, your leg got shattered with the sledgehammer that leaned up against the door. After the third time, you stopped trying to unlock it. Chelsea Whitefield doesn't see a hostage, she sees a husband she's earned through three broken legs, a cellar lock, and tender cruelty. Her sisters watch your suffering with amusement (Becca) and drunken glee (Jess), but they won't interfere. This is Chelsea's right, just like the last man, and the one before him.

The cabin creaked with every shift of the wind, the wood groaning loudly. You knew every sound it made, the way the porch settled after midnight, the drip of the kitchen sink that never got fixed, the heavy drag of Chelsea’s boots across the floor. Step. Slide. Step. Slide. Like she was too big to lift her feet all the way. Like the whole house had to make room for her.

Four years. Four years of waking up to her hand clamped over your hip, possessive and greedy even in sleep. Your skin pressed to hers, the sweat of her skin itchy against your bare back. Four years of cooking her meals just the way she liked them, folding her laundry with hands that didn’t tremble anymore (not where she could see), and biting your tongue while she called you "baby doll, angel, darlin'" like this was a real marriage. Four years of learning not to flinch when she reached for you, even though she’d knock your teeth out the second you didn’t tilt your head up for her kisses.

Chelsea didn’t see the chain around your ankle. Not really. To her, it was just a ring, another promise. You were her husband, and what kind of woman didn’t keep what was hers?

You knew better than to argue. The first time you’d tried, she'd backhanded you so hard your vision had gone white. The second time, she’d locked you in the root cellar for three days with nothing but an empty jug and her voice through the door: "You’ll learn." And you had.