I grabbed him a beer from the fridge and started to dish up his plate, avoiding his eyes as much as I could.

  “This is what I will miss the most when I am gone. You are a great cook, Cherry, and I do notice that. I was worried you would suck like your mother did, but you don’t. At least you got that part right. And you picked me.”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  “Sit. Let’s try to have a good dinner.”

  He was cool to the point he was almost cold and that scared me more than if he would have come down screaming. At least when he did that, I knew what I was getting. This was new and I wasn’t comfortable with it.

  If that was a new game to mess with my head, it was working. I couldn’t read him and that never happened. I could always see it in his eyes. The anger or the happy: either way I could at least anticipate.

  I brought the glass of milk to my lips and looked at him over the rim of the glass. He was looking down cutting his meat and smiling. A chill ran down my spine and turned my legs to ice.

  “I brought you something to celebrate our good news. Did you make dessert?”

  “No. I ran out of time to. I will make one tonight for tomorrow though,” I added quickly.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t. Go look in the entryway on the table.”

  I slowly got up and moved to the other room. There laying in the center of the table was a box of chocolate covered cherries. A small smile crept across my face as I remembered the first time I met him. I would give anything to go back to those days.

  “Find them?” he asked from the dining room.

  “Yes,” I said walking back in with the box in my hands. “Thank you.”

  “Nothing is too good for you. I know I don’t show it all the time, but I do love you.”

  I heard his words and saw the sly smile on his face, and I wondered why he said it like that. I hated not knowing what it was he was truly after. It was a game of cat and mouse, but in our game, the cat always won. I carefully set the box on the table as I sat back down and tried to say the lie to him he wanted to hear.

  “Aren’t you going to say it back?” he screamed and slammed his fists down on either side of his plate making it jump. The fork flew off and landed on the floor. I knew that would be my fault and I would be punished for it.

  “I do love you,” I said without any conviction.

  “Then why is it so hard for you to say or show me that you do? I am always the one putting in effort here. A little meet in the middle would be helpful. It would make things easier on you.”

  “I’m sorry. I will try harder.”

  “Whatever. Enjoy those. I’m going to see what is on TV. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Please stay,” I begged. If I could get him to sit back down, I might have been able to calm him enough to salvage the night I ruined.

  He stood up and slowly made his way to where I was still seated, shaking. He cupped his large hand on my chin, his fingers digging into the sides of my face and his palm pushing my chin up. Leaning down so our faces were only inches apart, he smiled.

  “I love it when you beg. Beg for me, Cherry. Tell me how much you want me and need me. Tell me I am the only thing in the world you want.”

  I tried to open my mouth to talk and he pressed in harder. The pain shot up both sides of my face. Wincing in pain, I blinked hoping to get the tears to not fall.

  “Well,” he growled. “I’m not going to wait forever.”

  “Please stay with me. I love you,” I managed to get out. The words were jumbled as my teeth cut into the sides of my cheeks.

  “More.”

  “You are my everything, Jeremy, and I adore you.” I waited to see what he would do. He grunted and shoved me to the floor before turning away.

  “Better. Now sit and have one with me,” he said and shoved the box of candies in my face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  One week later

  “Did you pack my good shoes?” he asked hauling his suitcase down the small flight of stairs.

  “Yes. I went over your list of things twice to make sure I had it all.”

  “You better. I am not wasting money on shit I already own because you didn’t pack it.”

  “Jeremy, you are leaving for a week. Please, can we not fight?”

  “Whatever. Look, all I know is you have been a mess for the last few days. I don’t know what is going on with you, but you have been sloppy, and I don’t appreciate your lack of effort on us. I do so much for you, and you do nothing back.”

  Like little stabs to my heart, he fired off his insults in batches. I wish he saw all I did for him daily, but he never did. He only saw the mistakes.

  “I’m sorry. I will try harder.”

  “Good.” He leaned over his bag and kissed the top of my head. I was glad he hadn’t seen me flinch because it would have started another fight.

  “What time do you have to go?”

  “Soon. I want to make sure I have enough time for a drink before I get on the plane.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you? It would save on parking.”

  “I’m sure. If the car is there, I will know where you are.”

  I was still in shock he would leave and let me stay at the house. He had to know where I was at all times and with him being in another state, he would have no control over me. I wondered if he hooked up surveillance to keep tabs, but I would have seen him do that. I was never allowed to leave the house without him.

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “Don’t.”

  His mood switched fast and I knew I pushed my luck with the car. It didn’t seem to matter what I did. One way or another, I managed to piss him off all the time.

  “I have something for you,” I said hoping to deflect the situation.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Here.”

  I pulled out the little bag of snacks he liked. There were candy bars and fruit for him to pick from. His flight wasn’t long, only a few hours, but I hoped that small gesture would calm him down.

  “Wow. See, you do shit like this and it makes me realize why I picked you.”

  I hated when he said ‘picked.’ I wasn’t something that could be picked. I wished he said ‘loved,’ but that word was reserved for when he was done tormenting me most of the time. It got to the point I began to hate the word love. I knew he didn’t know what it meant, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance in teaching him. His heart was a block of ice and the biggest chisel wouldn’t help free it.

  “I have time if you want to go upstairs,” he said. I knew it wasn’t a question but a demand.

  “Okay.”

  I started to head up the stairs we had just come down when he grabbed my hair from the back and froze me in place.

  “I think here would be fun.”

  He spun me around and plopped me firmly on the hard wood stairs. My spine hit the edge and my breath left me. He forced my head back and after moving his hand, it bounced off the step.

  “Jeremy, you’re hurting me,” I pleaded.

  “Shh. I will be done soon.”

  This was extreme even for him and I didn’t know how I would get out of it. I closed my eyes and prayed for him to be done fast.

  I heard the zip of his pants and felt him spread my legs with his body. When he was inside of me, he thrust so hard and fast, I was rubbed against the wood until all I felt was pain. His moan was music to me, as I knew he was done and would climb off.

  Without a word, he put his pants back on, grabbed his bag, and slammed the door behind him. I slinked down the few steps to the floor, curled into a ball, and cried.

  I wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t even a person in his eyes. I was something to be used and discarded when he didn’t need me anymore. I was the old recliner that everyone said to get rid of, but he refused because he was comfortable with it. He knew how if felt, the problems with it, and the good spot. I was nothing but something he could take his anger out on and the thing that made his house his castle.

  He had it easy and couldn’t see it. I did everything for him and all he had to do was go to work, be with friends, and enjoy life. He didn’t have to worry about making me mad and being used as a punching bag whenever I felt like it. He was treated like a king even if he didn’t deserve it.

  When the tears stopped coming, I got up off the floor slowly. Everything hurt after his forceful sex. I saw the clump of hair where my head had been and reached up to feel the bald patch he left behind.

  Feeling like a shower might help, I climbed up the steps I would never be able to look at the same again and took off my clothes. I let them fall to the floor and didn’t bother to pick them up. He wasn’t here to yell at me about it or shove me down into the small pile of dirty clothes until I picked them up.

  I turned the water on hot and let the steam fill the bathroom. When I turned to look in the mirror, I could see the bruises already forming on my back, butt, legs, neck, and face. He had done a number on me and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave the house at all while he was gone without people seeing the marks. There wasn’t enough make-up in the town to cover the bruises he left me with.

  That was his goal; he wanted to make sure I stayed home the whole week he was gone. I should have seen that for what it was. If I was all bruised up, he knew I would stay inside. For as much as I thought about leaving him sometimes, the truth was, I had no place to go and I was terrified of life without him.

  I needed him to keep me in line and to tell me what to do. I was a nobody and he made me a somebody. For all the pain he brought me, he also brought me a sense of security. I would stay with him because that was what I knew. He was my old recliner the same way I was his.

  I got into the water and let it work on the muscles I knew would be stiff in the morning. I washed him off of me and tried to wash away the memory of what happened twenty minutes ago.

  It didn’t work.

  I could still feel him on and in me. I heard the words he spat at me and the way he tossed me aside when he was done like I was nothing. The hurt was replaced with anger when every place the washcloth touched hurt.

  “AHHH…”

  I screamed until my voice left me. I was done. I was sick of being a nobody and I was sick of living life in pain. An animal rose up in me and I began to pound the tile in the shower. I hit it as hard as I could until blood flowed freely from my hands. I watched as the crimson met the water and the pink swirled around and down the drain to escape the hell I couldn’t. I envied the water. It tried to make everything better, but whether it could or not, it was able to get out.

  I turned the shower off and climbed out. Grabbing bandages, I wrapped both my hands up to stop them from bleeding. I threw on my robe and went to my room, the room we shared.

  Sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, I looked over at my nightstand. Reaching for the picture in the wooden frame, I brought it closer and looked at the two strangers I no longer knew. She was in a white dress fitted to her small frame with her hair up in a bun, curls cascading down to land on her shoulder.

  He was in a tux and everything was perfect. Not even a hair was out of place. They were both bent forward, laughing. I saw love in their eyes and hope for the future.

  I saw all the things I missed and wondered when they turned into us.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep for, but it was dark when I opened my eyes. I was on the bed with the picture frame still in my hands. My robe had come open and I lay there exposed and cold.

  I rubbed my eyes and quickly regretted it. My hands were killing me, but so was most of my body. I wrapped the robe back around my naked body and squinted trying to see the time. 7:18pm flashed back at me and I jumped up.

  “Oh no.”

  Racing to get dressed, I stumbled putting on my underwear and fell hard to the floor. I stayed there and got my pants on too. I skipped the bra because of how much pain I had in my back and put a loose T-shirt on.

  I ran down the stairs skipping a few and almost falling on my face. I looked around the dark room terrified he was sitting there waiting for me.

  I found the light by the couch and flicked it on. Relief filled me for a moment when I found the couch and chair empty. I made it to the kitchen and turned on that light too. He was still nowhere in sight.

  He had gotten on the plane and really left for a week. I was here alone for the first time since we married, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  I looked around the kitchen and started to grab out the meat and veggies for dinner. I set them on the kitchen counter and stared at them. I didn’t feel like eating that and I didn’t feel like cooking. It was only me there and I wanted something simple. Something I wasn’t allowed to make anymore because ‘it isn’t enough for a man who works hard all day.’ I grabbed two slices of bread, the butter, cheese, and milk. In the pantry, I dug around toward the back until I found what I was looking for. The last can of tomato soup I had. Making the grilled cheese sandwich, I poured the soup into a pot and let it start warming up.

  When it was done, I got a small bowl of soup, a glass of milk, and my sandwich before moving to the living room to eat. It was something he never allowed, and I felt awkward doing it, but I was determined to prove to myself that I could do something without his permission.

  I set the food and drink on the end table, grabbed the remote, and turned it to the murder channel I had found a few weeks back. The same program wasn’t on and I was disappointed. I still thought about that woman and her husband and wondered how it ended. I wished I had internet here; I would have looked it up. Since I didn’t, I made up my own ending.

  She killed him and got away with it. She was free from her abuser and he was where he belonged: in the ground. Thinking about her that way gave me hope that maybe, someday, I could free myself too.

  I saw lights coming up the driveway and froze. My heart jumped up to my throat and I fought back the vomit that was threatening to come out. I grabbed any trace of food I saw and ran with it to the kitchen. Racing back, I flicked off the TV and ran back to the mess I had made. I tossed the rest of the sandwich in the trash and threw the soup down the sink. I tried to hurry to scrub the now sticky pot and clean up the stove before he came into the house. He was taking longer than usual, and I would have looked at why, but I used it as my chance to clean up the evidence of what I had done.

  When he still wasn’t inside when I had the last dish in the rack to dry, I wiped my hands and carefully made my way to the living room window. Peeking out, I was shocked when I didn’t see anyone in the driveway.

  I did see lights, right? I wasn’t making that up. Did he come home and sneak in somehow? What if he saw me sitting on the couch eating and was so mad, he left to figure out my punishment?

  I would have been punished for more than that though. I didn’t have dinner done on time and I was not dressed right or had the kitchen cleaned up. I hadn’t done any of the chores I should have all day. He would have my ass for that, and I knew it.

  Panic gripped me harder than he had that afternoon and wave after wave of dread filled me. I bent over the trash can and watched as my stomach rejected the food I had just given it.

  My hands shook and my head pounded. If he came home and saw any of that, nothing I said or did would make it better. He would kill me, and I was sure of that.

  Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I willed my body to calm down. Knowing Jeremy the way I did, there wasn’t any way he was there or he would have broken through the door to hang me. To be safe, I left the kitchen to start my chores in the living room.

  It was after midnight before I was done vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the glass, and mopping the kitchen. Even though I slept most of the day, I was still exhausted. All I wanted to do was go up to my room and hide under the covers. Every part of me hurt and nothing I had done in the last three hours made it any better. I thought about taking another shower, but he monitored how much water we used, I would already be in enough trouble for the long shower after he left. If I could do things right the rest of the time he was gone, maybe he would skip that one screw up.

  With everything done for the day, I went back to the living room and turned the TV back on. I flipped through the channels and landed on an older show. I didn’t really watch it but zoned out and worried about what would happen when he came home at the end of the week. I was so sick of living like that. Always afraid of what he would do to me next.

  I began to think of ways to get out of it like that woman had. She was braver than I was, but she gave me hope. A small little glimpse of what I could do if Jeremy wasn’t always riding me about everything.

  If I could be me again and start over, life could be so different. I knew I wouldn’t fall for a man like him again because I knew what to look for with that. I knew the signs I missed the first time when he swept me off my feet in our whirlwind dance. I knew me better too and what I would and wouldn’t take from a man. With him, I was so worried about making him happy all the time that I lost me. He had to be in control of it all and I willingly gave him that power. I was as much to blame in this mess as he was.

  But I would be the one to fix it. It would be up to me only. He would see firsthand what happened when you pushed a person too far.

  I was a big talker when it was only me listening. I knew I would never go through with anything because that wasn’t how I was raised. I think that had a lot to do with why my parents didn’t push harder for me to get out of this nightmare. In some ways, my dad was Jeremy and in a lot of ways, I was my mother.

  I needed to break that pattern before we had children because I refused to let my kids grow up thinking what happened in that house was right.

  Having them to fight for might have made that easier. In a way, it was a blessing I hadn’t been able to get pregnant yet.

  Or so I thought.

  CHAPTER SIX

 

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