Sweet Romance15 min read
"Don't Leave" — How I Married My Bad Boy and Broke a Monster
ButterPicks16 views
"Hey—it's me," I said into the phone, voice high and too cheerful for midnight.
"Faye?" Estefania's sleepy voice replied. "Are you at 19CLUB again?"
"I'm fine!" I sat up too fast in a stranger's booth and nearly dropped my drink. "I'm not drunk. I'm tired. I'm at a safe place. It's Garth's bar. I can go home myself."
"Do you have your license?" she asked, and I heard a teasing smile.
"Uh..." I squirmed.
"Wait there. Be good. Don't drink too much." The line went dead. I flung the phone on the table.
"You're impossible," Estefania laughed. "You're twenty-three. Why are you afraid of your brother?"
"Because you don't have a brother like Gilbert," I said and downed my glass. "One glass or ten, he will scold me anyway. Might as well have ten."
Estefania winked and slipped into the crowd. I scanned the floor, then felt broad hands wrap around my waist.
"Faye." He murmured in my ear, and the world steadied.
Garth Vorobyov smelled like petrol and cologne. He set me straight without a word and guided me out the door like I weighed nothing. I loved that.
"Your brother called," he said as we walked. "He said he was working late. I should bring you home."
"He did?" My voice pitched higher. "He didn't! He—ugh."
"Come on," he said, the corner of his mouth up. "Get in."
I clung to him like a child who had fallen. The club lights were still behind us, making his jaw darker, his eyes deep. I was drunk enough to tell him everything, to tell him I liked his laugh, that I had kept the little childhood secret that Garth had been my first crush. He only smiled and ordered the softest wine the waiter had.
"Two low-proof fruit wines and yogurt," he told the server. I pouted. "Martini."
"You remember how you said you'd be safe here?" he said, one hand at the back of my head. "Who will take you home if I drink with you?"
"Call a ride!" I tried to sound tough, and failed.
He sat me down, joked, fed me fruit, and when I started hiccuping nonsense, he just carried me out, one long stride to his car.
In my pink room, he crouched by the bed and took off my makeup with careful fingers. He left when my lashes fluttered out of sleepy coherence, but he hesitated over my lips.
"Wash up before bed," he said, then paused, looking oddly tender. "I'll call Lan. She'll come and help if you need a bath."
I opened my eyes. "Don't go," I said like a lost kid. "Stay. Wash me. I want you to stay."
He chuckled and pretended to be stern. "I'm not a good man."
"Yes you are," I sniffed, and then, ridiculous and loud, "You're the worst kind of bad man!" I grabbed his cheek. He laughed and stayed. He fell asleep sitting up like a guard, and I slept like a kid on a sofa, safe.
The next morning sunlight hit our two faces in the bed and turned us both pink.
"Why are you here?" I muttered, burying my head. He half-awoke and patted my back.
Then my grandmother—Carolyn Moreau—arrived at the door like a royal summons, followed by his mother, who hugged me twice and called me "my dear." Then Garth's grandmother was there, then my own grandmother started arranging chairs and smiling like she'd won the lottery.
"Faye," they all said, one chorus. "You and Garth slept in the same bed."
I sat bolt upright. "We did not! We just fell asleep there!"
"Garth saved you," his mother sang. "We'll come propose tonight." Garth's family laughed and winked. I wanted a hole to crawl into.
"You're married," someone announced in that tone that people use to tell the world an event happened but call no witnesses.
"Married?" I wheezed. "We didn't—"
Long story short: the families met. The laughter died slower than my panic. People liked Garth. My grandmother liked Garth. My brother—Gilbert Sullivan—squinted through his glasses and warned Garth, like a hawk warning another hawk away from its nest. I said again and again, "We didn't mean to—"
Garth looked at me like I was a private joke he'd been waiting to unfold. He shrugged. "We can get a certificate. It's fine."
We walked into the civil affairs office, signed papers, and walked out with a red booklet heavy in my hand. I couldn't stop staring at it. The word "married" felt stupid and ridiculous and strangely real on paper.
We had a tiny ceremony that night—too many toasts, too many eyes—and then the world settled into a new, comfortable rhythm.
"Two floors," he said as he carried me to our house. "The third is yours."
"You mean I actually have a closet?" I gaped.
"You are my wife," he said, sliding a ring onto my finger—two rings—and I placed the smaller one on his finger like I was doing something cosmic and brave. He kissed my hand lightly and said, "We're married."
My heart gave a thud that wasn't the panic kind. That was something else. I started to understand that being married to Garth meant mornings like this—him teasing my hair, me naming endless wedding dresses, our families fussing like a village.
Three days later he had a race.
"Go to the stand," he said. "Be my wife."
"I don't even have a license," I said. "I don't know what to do."
"Then stay with me." He winked in a way that made enemies of my common sense. "Wear this jacket."
I refused at first. Then he gave me the black jacket that smelled of him and I refused no more.
"Don't let her drink," he told the team captain. "She is my wife."
I cheered because cheering is what you do when your person is on a track with a roaring machine and ten hands trying to stay alive on purpose. He won. I threw my arms around him and shouted promises I meant later. A woman walked up and flirted. I waved at her like a tourist and said, "Wow, very pretty." Garth pulled me away and kept me like a shield.
After the win, we came home and everyone fussed over the red mark where I had burned myself with a curling iron. I fell on the floor laughing because the doctor asked what I'd been doing to my hair. He didn't laugh.
Garth began to teach me little things—how to run, how to drink water after a workout, how to look at the world and not let it hurt me. He spent mornings waking me up, nights making sure I was tucked under appropriate blankets. He told me to stop uploading half-naked gym selfies when I hadn't yet earned the sweat.
"You're too soft," he scolded me once when I wanted to spend the night at a club. "That's where the bad stuff is."
I winked. "I know. That's why I come to your club."
He packed my schedule with rides and lessons and food and smoothies and a weekly dermatologist for my skin. I protested at first, because I like ice cream at midnight, but the nights of nightmares after the wrong man's touch made me stop being reckless.
We saved a cat. We called him "Midsummer"—in my family we named things after seasons. He crawled into my lap like he'd always belonged. When I found him his fur was matted; when he purred he sounded like a goldfish swallowing. Garth set up a tree and a bed, and I messaged every veterinarian friend I had.
"That doctor is so sweet," I said when we went to the small clinic.
He smiled too much. He had the kind of voice that made people trust him in small rooms with bright lights.
"He's busy today," the nurse told me. "Doctor Gerard will be in later."
"Okay," I said. Later, in an examination room, I sat and held the cat and laughed about how I would make him a princess.
Gerard Wolf was the kind of man who said, "Hello, Faye," like a secret. He smiled too long. He asked me questions that weren't about the cat. He lingered. My hair felt suddenly like a live thing on my shoulders. Something about the situation made my skin go a little damp.
He was "helpful." He told me not to worry if the cat's stitches would upset me, that he would take care of everything.
When he found me alone in the office later, the lights were too bright and he closed the door behind him.
"Talk to me," he said softly. "You are beautiful."
"I have a husband," I said. I didn't have the courage to call him a wife yet. I didn't have the courage to use the word for myself in that moment.
He smiled and stepped closer. He let his hand hover across my shoulder and then my chest. There are people who touch you like gravity. He touched me like ownership.
"Don't," I said, and my voice shook.
He laughed. "We are grown. Don't you like to be admired?"
"No." My voice hardened. "You need to stop."
He reached for me. He snapped the strap on my dress. He leaned close and tried to kiss me.
I froze like the floor beneath me was quicksand. Then a shadow crashed into the room and everything went loud.
Garth's hands were around his neck. I saw him through my fear like a storm. He hit, not gentle. His hands were all fists until Gerard fell down and went still. My limbs didn't feel like mine anymore.
"Garth!" I screamed, half shrill, half broken. "Stop!"
He didn't stop at first. He wrapped the man in his tie and slammed him to the floor. The room smelled like bleach and sweat and too much light.
When the men in suits came, they took Gerard away with police cuffs that were colder than his previous smile.
"He will pay," Garth said in a voice that had been buried for me. "He will not walk free."
The next two days were a blur. I had fever from the shock, family came, the police took statements. I could not sleep without him at my side. I cried until my throat hurt. When I woke and saw his eyes, I could breathe.
The truth is uglier than I can say simply. Gerard had done this before. We found messages, videos, bank transfers. He had been a man who performed kindness to hide his hunger. He had a record, but a clever one. He had been able to keep his job with polite smiles for a long time.
Garth wanted more than the cops. He wanted his girl to not tremble when a doctor stepped into a room.
We made a plan. It was his idea, and I was too raw, too full, too willing to nod. He asked me if I wanted to push, and I said yes.
The public reveal started with a press conference.
"You're sure?" I asked, voice nothing but a brittle wire.
"We will let everyone see him," Garth said. "We will not let anyone say he is a victim of rumors. We will show the receipts."
"We can do it in private," I said. "We can sue. We can whisper and win."
"No." He shook his head. "No whisper. You whispered while he carved. I want screaming. I want the light of every phone on him. I want to ruin the shelter he built."
He called reporters. He called victims who had been silenced. He called lawyers who had been gagged with money and promises. He lined up the evidence like trophies: messages Gerard had sent, recorded partial videos, bank statements, patient notes, and names of women who had been hurt long before me.
The day of the reveal dawned gray and electric. I stood behind him in a plain dress and a coat for my hands. He looked like a man in motion—quiet, prepared.
"Faye," he said softly. "You ready?"
I nodded. We walked into a room full of cameras, microphones, and people whose eyes would become mouths.
"Garth, you can't do this," my father said, fear ripping him. "Let the police do their job."
"We are," Garth answered. "But they need to know the truth. The law will do the rest."
I spoke first. I told the short version, the facts. I didn't dramatize. I said, "I went to the clinic with my cat. The doctor tried to take advantage. Garth came. He saved me. We have evidence. There are other victims. We want justice."
One woman stood and cried. "He took everything from me," she said. "He took my work, my voice, my dignity."
"Show the messages," a reporter called.
My brother handed a stack of printed messages to a camera. They were dark and small, but they were proof. Videos were played; Gerard's pleas, his promises, his appointments. He had used his white coat as a mask of morality.
Then came the worst part for him—the live unveiling of his lies.
We had arranged for one of the victims, a nurse named Juliana Cardoso, to speak. She had saved up the strength. She told the room how Gerard had preyed on her for years, how he had destroyed her job by lying, how he had eroded her confidence until she quit to avoid him. She had a file of evidence and a trembling voice that turned into a roar.
People cried. People shouted. Phones streamed. Social feeds lit up with the hashtag #ExposeWolf. The first videos went viral. The clinic in which Gerard had practiced saw patients cancel appointments. The board began to panic.
"You're making a mistake," Gerard had sobbed when arrests were being planned, his earlier charm replaced with the awful scrape of a man losing his mask. He kept insisting, "I didn't mean—"
At the hearing, Garth let me read a message aloud that Gerard had sent to a different woman: "If you tell anyone, your career will be over." My voice didn't break when I said it. The room listened. The judge listened.
What followed was a sequence of collapse that I had insisted on and feared. Gerard's clinic was raided. The hospital that had shielded him sent a press release that he had been suspended pending investigation—and then, as more allegations arrived, a second release that condemned him "for gross misconduct."
"You're fired," the hospital CEO said on camera, his face flat as newsprint.
Gerard's phone was full of the names of women he thought had no power. He drove to a nearby practice he thought was safe. He found that every receptionist had already seen the feeds. Business partners called to excuse themselves. A lawyer withdrew from his case.
On social media, videos of his older, calmer self—for the first time, the world could compare face to action—were shared with captions. "He smiled in the waiting room. He smiled before he used his hand."
The wife of the hospital board member who had once endorsed Gerard came to our conference and cried that she'd been betrayed. Newspapers printed op-eds. Men who had once shrugged at his jokes now looked like they had swallowed sand.
Outside the clinic on the day Gerard was led out in handcuffs, a crowd had gathered. People filmed. Someone shouted, "Shame!" Another shouted, "Good riddance!" Phones shook in hands. "We saw him. We believe you," one woman said to me.
Gerard's face went through the stages: arrogance, confusion, anger, denial. He stuck out his jaw. He shook his head. He shouted, "This is defamation!" He accused us. As cameras flashed, he tried to lurch for a microphone, but a young reporter stepped between us and captured his flailing on video.
"You're monsters!" he screamed into the lens once cameras were on him. "You ruined me!"
But the camera didn't stop. The world did not stop for his plea. People streamed the footage for hours. His practice's phone number was shared with complaints. Partners claimed they had been misled. The clinic's reputation dropped; patients demanded refunds, investors withdrew. The board resigned en masse and issued formal apologies. His name trended as a hashtag of condemnation.
He collapsed at the public hearing like a man who had been asked to bend and couldn't. He sobbed, then screamed, then begged for cameras to stop. It did not stop. He pleaded, "I didn't mean—" but laughter and calls for accountability drowned him out.
"Were you sleeping when she told you no?" one reporter asked. "Were you sleeping when you thought you owned bodies?"
He had planned to sue. He had planned to pay the right people and have everything vanish. He had not planned for dozens of women to stand up and release the tapes his arrogance never made him delete. He had not planned for a husband who would not be quiet and a wife who would not hide anymore.
When the verdict came, it was a cascade. The court called it a systematic abuse of trust. He was stripped of his license, fined heavily, and given a prison sentence that included mandatory counseling and strict community notification. The hospital's board formal apology was on every webpage. Videos of his former life—speeches, conferences—were captioned with the news, and those old smiling faces became images of disgrace.
He lost a lot. He lost his license. He lost clients. He lost friends who had once laughed. He lost the law professor posts he taught. He lost the membership to charity events. A woman recorded herself confronting him outside his building—she slapped him hard enough for the sound to puncture the live stream.
He came to court in a suit that looked like he had just been dragged from an old life and thrown down. He tried to retain a lawyer, but too many witnesses had been found. Sponsors canceled donations. The company that had backed his clinic publicly denounced his actions and announced a fund for survivors.
At the final hearing, he stood before dozens of cameras. He looked smaller than I had ever seen. He said, "I am sorry," but he said it like a man who believed apologizing might erase all the damage. He knelt on camera like an actor pleading to an audience. Tears streamed down his face as the judge talked of restitution, mandatory therapy, and community duty. He fell to his knees and beat the floor with his fists while the courtroom cheered on the women who had stepped up. Some in the gallery stood, some wept.
He lost everything that day. His family cut off contact. Former colleagues de-platformed his name. He had no hospital anymore. The city's most powerful wealthy families issued statements of condemnation. The stories piled up. The internet, which had once cheered him on as a local hero, now collected all his ugly acts and made them public.
Outside the court, people recorded him. He tried to speak but got swallowed by a roar of voices. Someone streamed the moment he was led away, and I watched him crumble into a man who had been built from power now turned to dust.
"Do you want to press alone?" my brother asked later. "Do you want to testify?"
"No," I said, the first time I could speak without shaking. "I don't want to relive it. I want him to be stopped."
He was stopped. That night the news kept playing his name, and I could breathe. The storm eventually settled into the steady work of court papers and counseling. The hospital dedicated a fund for survivors. The city created a committee to review clinic oversight. Gerard's name was a lesson.
I healed. Slowly. People came to our home. We painted the guest room a softer blue. Garth set a schedule where I slept early and woke up with him for runs—short ones—then practiced breathing and yoga. I started posting again, but carefully. I documented kitten photos and the occasional fashion shoot with a photographer named Blaise Dean who didn't care if I had more curves than a runway sample. I started to believe my body again.
Garth's love wasn't explosive. It was a hammer. He was steady and loud and stubborn. He watched me like a shepherd watches a lamb. When I had a nightmare he'd carry me to the floor and ground me. He made sure I always had someone with me at night.
"You don't have to say you love me," I told him one night, our fingers entwined.
He looked at me, tired and raw. "But I do," he said. "I love you."
"Why?" I asked, because asking felt like opening a window.
"Because," he said, "you laugh at things that aren't funny. Because you cried for a cat that didn't belong to you. Because you told me to stop when you meant stop. Because when you love, you love in a way that makes me want to be better."
"That makes you sound like a teacher," I said.
He laughed. "I teach you. You teach me what's important."
"And I teach you how to eat cake at midnight," I added.
We learned to be a team. He took me skydiving the next month—not to prove anything, but because I wanted to see the world from up high and make a noise that wasn't pain. I screamed and then laughed and then wanted to do it again. We went to a private island with turquoise water where his boyhood friends pretended to be pirates. I bought a swimsuit and worried about how the string would sit. He made me try three different ones until I felt like mine.
We kept our married certificate framed on a wall, a small piece of paper that had become a shield. We finally had a real wedding after the legal storm, an honest one with sugar-tiered cakes and a line of people who had helped us. My brother Gilbert walked me down the aisle like he would never let anyone near me without his permission. Garth's mother cried into my hand.
We said vows. Not the ones the families told us to say, but the ones that came from midnight conversations and hospital corridors and the quiet mornings: "I will not let anyone hurt you," he said. "I will stand beside you," I said. We kissed in front of them and laughed and had a small, private dance to a song no one knew.
After the trial, Gerard's life was a sequence of public punishments. He lost his license. He was prosecuted. He tried to rebuild in private, but the message was clear—there was no space for him in the profession he'd used as a shield. People who had once smiled at his name avoided him. He posted videos apologizing that were taken down. His home was picketed. He stalked for sympathy and found only a closed door.
I did not work at his hands. I worked on me. I set rules. I laughed. I ran. I collected recipes for strawberry desserts—my lips had been compared to "strawberry jelly" once, by a drunk friend, and I chose to keep that as a soft image. Garth teased me about that, and I punched his arm and called him the worst man alive.
Months later, on a quiet afternoon, we sat together in our small garden. Midsummer the cat twined between our legs and demanded treats. I reached out and plucked up a small, perfect strawberry from a plant Garth had insisted on growing.
"You like this one," I said.
He took it and held it near his lips, then looked at me, very close.
"Don't," I warned, but my voice was soft.
His mouth brushed mine, once, and the strawberry's scent mixed with him.
"Marry me again," he whispered.
"I already did," I said, and kissed him back properly.
We had been through bright public ruin and quiet private healing. Justice had come, messy and loud. The man who had hurt me had been stripped of his tools. The man I loved had been patient and cruel—cruel only to those dangers that would hurt me. I had been afraid of many shadows; in the end, I learned to trust the one person who refused to let darkness touch me twice.
"Don't leave," I said to him, because he had once left a room of danger and came back for me, and the words felt right again.
He smiled and pinched my nose. "Never," he promised.
We ate strawberry cake in the kitchen while Midsummer sat on my lap. The sun hit Garth's face and made him look like someone who had earned softness.
"Promise me one thing," I said.
"Anything," he said.
"Promise you'll always be ridiculous for me."
He kissed the tip of my nose.
"I already am," he said.
And we stayed—sticking the ring back on like a small sacrament—safe, loud, and very much in love. The city moved on from the scandal. I walked into clinics now without fear. I taught women how to say no. I learned the sound of my own voice again.
Last thing before I go to sleep tonight, I press my lips to his cheek, taste strawberry jam on my teeth, and think: I survived because someone decided to be a bad man only when the world needed him to be good. I survived because on the day he chose to act, he acted like someone who would hold me and then make the world face its guilt.
"Don't leave," I say once more. He squeezes my hand.
"I won't."
We go to bed, safe and stubborn, like a small family built of wild things who will not be broken again.
The End
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