80. Pete Davidsoning The Fence
CHAPTER 80
PETE DAVIDSONING THE FENCE
MARGAUX
I wake up disoriented, my vision blurry and my head throbbing. The first thing I notice is the sensation of being moved—gently but firmly—onto a stretcher.
An ambulance. I’m being removed from the truck and placed in an ambulance.
There are flashing lights, a woman with short hair rushing around, and voices overlapping in a chaotic symphony of concern and urgency. A paramedic leans over me, adjusting a neck brace around my throat. It’s suffocating but necessary.
The truck— my truck —is pushed up against what looks like a fence. Splinters of wood and metal gleam in the daylight, and I can just make out a smashed headlight. My mind struggles to piece together how I ended up here, but everything feels scrambled.
The sirens sound hollow from inside the vehicle, an eerie wee-woo wee-woo as we make our way to hospital.
“I’m going to throw up,” I mumble, my voice dry and cracked.
A paramedic hands me a sick bag just in time, and I hurl into it, my body shaking as nausea overtakes me. Needles poke at my arm as they hook me up to fluids. My head feels heavy, detached from my body.
When we reach the hospital, I’m wheeled into the ER. Everything is a blur of white coats, blue scrubs, and fluorescent lights. Scanners beep, questions are asked, and hands move quickly to stabilize me.
I catch snippets of conversation: “Vitals are stable… possible mild concussion…”
They wheel me to a curtained-off bed. A cop is stationed right outside—not for me, but I notice he’s there.
I lie here, staring up at the ceiling. The world feels far away, yet the shame of everything that’s happened presses down on me like a lead blanket.
Oh my god. I Pete Davidson’d the fence.
But how? I feel… fine. Physically, anyway. Mentally, I’m unraveling.
I text a few friends to let them know what happened, though I don’t even know how to explain it myself.
“Can I go now?” I ask a nurse after what feels like hours.
She shakes her head. “We need to observe you a little longer. I’ll check when the doctor will clear you.”
Frustrated and exhausted, I pull out my phone and message Alice:
Alice:
Babe.
You’re going to end up dead.
Me:
He ran off.
Alice:
Who cares? He’s a grown man.
Me:
I care.
Alice:
I know. But he can go cool off and come back.
Me:
I care a lot about everything and everyone and look what happens.
He went for hours.
Alice:
He’s done it before and will do it again.
Me:
And put Taco Bell on my ceiling.
He did, somehow, smear the contents of a bean burrito and Taco Supreme high up on the walls.
Alice:
Okay, that’s new.
A social worker visits my bed, her face kind but concerned.
“I’m here because you mentioned being in an abusive relationship,” she says gently.
“Oh yeah, I am,” I reply matter-of-factly.
Because at this point, what’s the point in pretending otherwise? I’m a battered woman. Although, according to Timmy, it’s always been my fault and the injuries he inflicted weren’t ‘real’ ones.
Her face grows more serious as I recount some of the incidents—the threats, the attacks, the bizarre behaviors like the chainsaws and antlers. She listens carefully, handing me a card with local resources.
She leaves, and I become agitated as Timmy sends me a barrage of texts:
Timmy:
You’re so irresponsible.
This is all your fault.
You’re so embarrassing.
I rip the IV from my arm, desperate to leave, but the blood gushes everywhere. I do my best to tighten the bandage like a tourniquet, but blood still cascades across my forearm like arterial routes on a map.
I wander out into the main area, trying to find the exit.
The cop stares at me, blood cascading from my arm, and moves to stand. “Ma’am,” he says, as a nurse also notices me.
She hurries over and guides me back to my bed.
“Let me fix that,” she says, tidying up the bloody mess I’ve created.
When I’m finally released, the hospital insists on getting me a taxi. Liability , they say.
Back at the apartment, Timmy is waiting for me, his arms crossed and his expression equal parts smug and angry. “You let some random shady guy into the truck? I wasn’t even at the tents,” he says. “I was here the whole time. You walked right past me with your bottle of whiskey, saying you were going to find me.”
His version of events feels like gaslit fiction, but I’m too drained to argue.
Who knows what’s true anymore?
“You’re such an idiot and a slut,” he adds.
“Whatever,” I mutter, heading to the bathroom to wash the hospital smell off me.
I can already tell that Timmy is going to hold this over me forever. He’s a proverbial machine gun, and I’ve just provided the ammo.
A week later, the consequences of my crash begin to ripple through my life.
We’re coming back from Costco, carrying our groceries to the apartment, when a random woman walks past.
I flash her a neighborly smile, but instead of returning the same, she gives me a weird look, her lips curling into a smirk. “Will you be driving into any more fences?” she says, her tone mocking.
My cheeks flush. Stunned, I continue walking.
Timmy, oblivious to her sarcasm and not properly hearing what she said, smiles and cheerfully replies, “Yep!”
When we get inside, I say, “You did hear what she said, right?”
He looks confused. “She said hi, didn’t she?”
I shake my head. “No, she asked if I was going to drive into any more fences.”
He frowns. “Oh my gosh, that’s really horrible. What a fucked up thing to say. I’m so sorry, Margaux,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “What a dumb bitch. Ignore her.”
I fill Alice in.
Alice:
Did you say ‘It depends. Will you be walking near one any time soon?”
Me:
Hahaha, I love you.
Alice:
Imagine someone asking you in public about an embarrassing moment, Susan.
Me:
I was tempted to say, ‘Will you still be ugly when you wake up in the morning?’ but it felt like the moment had passed.
Later, as we unpack the groceries, he pops outside to grab something from the truck. When he returns, his tone has shifted to something cruel and calculated.
“Everyone in this building hates you now for what you did,” he says, his eyes gleaming with malice. “Some aunty just asked me for money to fix the fence you damaged. She showed me pictures of it all. Nobody likes you here.”
The shame comes rushing back, magnified by his words.
I didn’t think I could possibly feel any more embarrassed, mortified, confused and utterly upset about the whole situation than I already did, but yet again, Timmy has found a way.
A few days later, Timmy comes home early from his part-time job, his expression grim.
I’m used to him popping home during his shift, as if he’s performing little spot checks to make sure I haven’t invited any men home while he’s at work.
But this feels different.
“I got fired,” he says flatly.
“What?” I set down my laptop, already bracing myself for the inevitable blame game.
“I got into it with Robert,” he explains. “He criticized the way I was painting something, and it just kind of escalated from there,” he explains.
“That’s awful,” I say, though a pit forms in my stomach.
I shiver as I have a flashback to what happened when he got criticized for the way he painted the barn at Steve’s place.
Where he was so offended by someone’s offhand comment that he threatened to kill everyone.
Where Steve had to come and collect his hunting rifle so it was out of Timmy’s way—just in case.
“Yeah,” he nods. “It wasn’t good. And then Robert randomly said he has a business to run, and that the public areas of this apartment complex aren’t our personal living room.”
“Huh?” I ask, no clearer than before.
“It’s because you drove the truck into the fence,” he says. “That’s why he fired me.”
I’m still failing to see the link between the two.
I mean, I guess there could be? But in my more than twenty years of HR work, I’ve never seen someone fired for something that happened to their partner outside of work.
And even if the employee did something themselves, it would only matter if it resulted in criminal charges, which this did not.
He rambles on, his narrative about why he got fired shifting as the hours pass.
In one version, Robert unfairly criticized him, and Timmy calmly defended himself.
In another, Timmy raised his voice, and Robert overreacted and fired him in response.
In yet another, it’s my fault entirely. “That’s why he fired me,” he says, his smirk widening. “You embarrassed me so much, and nobody here likes us anymore. This is on you . You’re the reason I can’t contribute to rent. You’re the problem.”
I blink, too stunned to reply.
It doesn’t matter that his story makes no sense.
To Timmy, truth is just a tool he wields to suit his mood.
And once again, I’m left carrying the burden of his chaos.