51. Chapter 51
Chapter 51
When David arrived at Paige’s apartment on Wednesday, he didn’t know which was more distracting—the sight of her in rolled-up boyfriend jeans and a fuzzy white sweater, or the spicy aroma of shrimp tacos.
“That smells fantastic,” he said, deciding it would be more prudent to focus on the food as he followed her into the kitchen. Sputnik was sitting on the island and David went over and rubbed the cat’s head, smiling when he was rewarded with full-throated purring. “That being said, you really didn’t have to cook, you know.”
“I know, but I love to cook,” she reminded him as she took two plates from a cupboard and set them on the counter next to where she had all the ‘fixings’ lined up: tortillas, chopped cilantro, cole slaw, black beans, salsa, guacamole, and blackened shrimp. “I cook whenever I can. And when I have leftovers, I usually share them with my neighbor, Dolly, across the hall.”
“Well, you won’t have any leftovers tonight,” he promised with gusto.
“That’s okay. This is probably too spicy for her, anyway. She’s seventy.”
He almost laughed. “Still befriending old ladies?”
Paige elbowed him in the side. So what if she did? And so what if one of her favorite TV shows was The Golden Girls?
“That’s a yes,” he said.
She ignored him in favor of grabbing a tortilla to start making a taco and he quickly followed, putting two together for himself and then deciding to make a third, because it made more sense than coming back later. And when Paige wasn’t looking he popped a shrimp in his mouth, closing his eyes for a moment because it was that good.
“There’s beer in the fridge, if you want it,” she told him, as she headed in the direction of the living room. Sputnik immediately jumped down off the island and trailed behind her, tail straight up in the air. “And glasses are in the cabinet above the dishwasher,” she added, raising her voice a little.
Because it wasn’t right to have tacos without beer, he decided to grab one and when he saw the beer Paige had on hand, he paused in surprise. Expecting Corona, which she had always preferred, he instead found six individual bottles of craft beer. He perused the choices: Snake Handler IPA, Bitter Monk Belgian IPA, Moose Drool Brown Ale, Black Tuesday Imperial Stout, Cardigans of the Galaxy Double IPA, and Smuttynose Robust Porter.
Unless her taste in beer had changed drastically, she probably hadn’t bought any of this beer for herself, which meant she had gotten it specifically for him. Oddly touched, he grabbed the Moose Drool and a glass, then went to join Paige in the living room, where he found her on the loveseat. She was leaning over the coffee table and already eating, while Sputnik sat and silently watched her from his spot on the floor.
“Sorry for not waiting,” she mumbled, her mouth full. “I’m starving. Lunch didn’t really happen for me today.”
As had been the case on previous visits, there was music playing and as David sat down next to her, “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters faded out and was replaced by Green Day’s “Good Riddance”. He set his plate down and while he poured his beer in the glass, she opened the coffee table’s little drawer and pulled something out.
He looked at it and rolled his eyes—not because it was a coaster, but because it was emblazoned with the New England Patriots logo. “Still with the Patriots?” he asked, setting his glass down on it.
“Let me guess … you’re still blindly following the Saints?”
“You mean the team that has the best QB in the league? Yes.”
“How is Brees the best, with only one ring?”
“Refresh my memory. Didn’t that tool Brady just lose a Super Bowl?”
Paige blinked at him and set down her taco. “That tool has lost more Super Bowls than your ‘best in the league’ QB has even played in,” she pointed out, pretending to dust her hands off. “And, we’re done here.”
Shit, she was right. David stifled a laugh as she picked up her taco and resumed eating.
“So, when did you become a craft beer drinker?” he asked, changing the subject as he picked up his own taco. Without hesitation, he dug in, almost immediately making a manly hum of approval. “God, this is good.”
Instead of verbally answering, she gave him a side-eyed look.
“Oh,” he feigned surprise. “Did you buy those for me?”
“Obviously.”
“Are you expecting me to drink all of them tonight?”
“No. I got six because that’s how the ‘build your own six pack’ thing works at the store. You have to buy six.”
He could see that he’d embarrassed her a little for calling her out on buying special beer for him, so he backed off.
“So let’s hear your weird, awkward recovery story,” he prompted, changing the subject again, followed with another ambitious bite of his taco; the first one was almost history and so were his manners, apparently. “Lay it on me.”
“You really want to hear this?”
“Yes. Now quit stalling.”
“Okay, so … you know I was in therapy for almost two years,” she began. “I spent most of the first year talking with Lauren about everything I never wanted to talk about, then identifying triggers and working to dismantle them. I made a list of things that bothered me and almost every one of them was attributed to Carter.”
“Such as?”
“Such as my needing the lights to be off during sex and being self-conscious about undressing in front of you. Not liking to shower with you, flinching when you came up behind me … stuff like that.”
David barely had time to process any of that before she was speaking again.
“And the fact that I hated having my picture taken is probably because of Carter, too. It’s possible he took pictures of me.”
Seeing his tight expression, Paige quickly told him, “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you haven’t had months of therapy to deal with any of this.”
He decided this was the perfect time to slam back half his beer. When he had accomplished that, he said, “Even if I’d had months of therapy, I still think I’d be this angry. It feels like the kind of anger that’ll never go away.”
She gave him an understanding look. “I know how you feel. In the beginning, I had so much anger and there was nowhere to put it, so it just took up all this space inside of me. But, as time went by and I dealt with things, it diminished. What’s never really diminished for me, though, is the grief.”
“Grief?”
Paige nodded. “People that are abused talk about the two different versions of themselves. There’s the person they would’ve been if the abuse hadn’t happened and the person they became because it did happen,” she explained. “The grief you feel is for the loss of the person you were ‘supposed’ to be, because that person is, in effect, dead. Once you realize you’d have been a completely different person, with a completely different life, you mourn.”
“That makes sense,” David said slowly. “I never thought of that.”
“I spent a lot of time imagining what I’d have been like had everything with Carter not happened and what my life would be like. I pictured a parallel universe, where I was normal, you and I were happily married, and we had children.”
David’s chest tightened as he imagined that universe, too.
“But then it occurred to me that there was no guarantee we’d have been together in that parallel universe—I might’ve gone to a different college and we wouldn’t have met or fallen in love. And I didn’t like that possible version of my life without you in it. At all. So I quit thinking about how things could have been and accepted the way things had been. Because, when it came down to it, I decided I wouldn’t have given you up, even if it meant no Carter.”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“I am. You don’t believe me?”
“I just find it hard to believe that you think I’m worth the trade-off.”
She tilted her head. “Would you give up Jacob if it meant no Ashley?”
“No,” he immediately answered.
“No, you wouldn’t, because your reward—Jacob—is worth any pain you experienced with Ashley. Just like my reward—you—was worth any pain I experienced with Carter.”
“But Ashley is no Carter.”
“No, she isn’t. But she didn’t treat you well. She lied to you, invaded your privacy, betrayed your trust, and she also might have gotten pregnant on purpose. She put her needs and wants above yours, fundamentally changing your life and hurting you in the process.”
“I see the comparison you’re trying to make, but it’s still apples to oranges, in my opinion.”
“More like tangerines to oranges.”
He just looked at her.
She looked right back. “It’s okay to admit I’m right.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re right.”
Settling back on the loveseat, she angled herself so she could look at him as she continued with her story. “So, after about a year of individual therapy, I was introduced to group therapy. At first, I was really reluctant, partly because it doubled my weekly therapy sessions, but mostly because it seemed like a bunch of crap,” she said, making him choke out a laugh.
“The point of group therapy is to share your story of abuse with others in a setting of love and to receive support, empathy, and understanding. And of course, to listen to other women’s stories and give them support, empathy, and understanding in return.
“Some of the stories were brutal, often involving multiple abusers. One woman had actually experienced abuse at the hands of her grandfather, father, and brother—sometimes separately, but sometimes all at once. It sounded like something out of a horror movie and while she was telling us, her voice was flat and emotionless, her eyes dead. When she was finished, the only dry eyes in the room were hers.
“I cried the entire the way home, because I knew her recovery was very questionable. The damage that had been inflicted on her was severe, and likely permanent.”
All three tacos gone, David grabbed his glass of beer and leaned back on the loveseat, angling himself like Paige.
“After hearing a few stories like that one, I actually started to think I had lucked out, because I’d only been abused by one person. Plus, I didn’t remember nearly as much as some of the other women, so I figured it wasn’t ‘that bad’. I never expected I would try to minimize my own abuse and it took me a while to quit doing that, because really, what I wasn’t remembering might have been … ‘that bad’.”
David didn’t like the sound of that.
“At that point, not knowing actually became a big source of anxiety for me. I was worried about what I didn’t know, but more importantly, I was worried about how much I was going to find out. It wasn’t until Lauren assured me I would probably only remember ten percent of what had actually happened to me, that I calmed down. She told me to think of the sum total of my abuse like an iceberg—I’d only ever see the tip and the rest would stay hidden below the surface. She said the subconscious was an amazing thing. It would reveal only enough bread crumbs to let me understand certain aspects of my abuse so I could deal with it, but not be crippled by too much information. Or … repeated information.”
“What do you mean?”
Paige paused for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully. “I wasn’t going to remember multiple instances of the same abuse.”
“Oh,” he said, thinking that had to be a huge blessing. “How many flashbacks have you had?”
“About a dozen. The last one I had was about a year and a half ago and it was actually in a dream, which was weird. It was also full of emotion, unlike the previous ones that had been focused solely on Carter’s actions and not my reactions. In this flashback, I was in the pitch dark and he was behind me, breathing on my neck, with one hand squeezing my breast and the other one shoved between my legs. I wanted to scream, but I had no voice. And I wanted to get away, but I couldn’t.
“When I woke up, I was literally clawing my way out of bed, panting and shaking,” she said quietly and he could tell she was remembering it. “That one was the worst, because it was mental. Full of overwhelming rage, hatred, helplessness, and fear. It was … overwhelming.”
“Will you have flashbacks for the rest of your life?” he asked. He knew they served a purpose and were part of the healing process, but to keep having them make appearances seemed like a whole lot of hell.
“No. I think that last one was my last one. I hope so, anyway.”
“Good.” He took a deep breath and as he released it, murmured, “I’m so fucking glad he’s dead.”
“Me, too. And not just for the obvious reasons.”
“What other reasons are there?”
“Well, a lot of victims of abuse have to deal with their abuser being alive for years and years, but Carter made things easier for me by taking his own life. I’ll never accidentally run into him at the grocery story, or at the movies, or … anywhere … and not having to worry about that ever again is a relief. Not that I worried about it a lot before, but you know, it was something that took up space in my head.”
David hadn’t thought of that. Not ever running into that cocksucker again was the cherry on top of his suicide sundae. “That must be a big relief.”
She looked contemplative for a moment before nodding. “It is. But the biggest relief is that he no longer owns large chunks of my life—chunks I don’t even remember. That was something I really struggled with, having someone out there who had sexually perverted memories of me. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable, especially since I only remembered ten percent of what happened, while he remembered one hundred percent. He had it all and for all I knew, used it to get himself off on a daily basis.”
David hadn’t thought of that, either. Thankfully.
“So, anyway,” Paige continued, adopting a lighter tone, “a few months into my group therapy, there was a bit of a shift in my ongoing individual therapy. Lauren was a little unconventional and she started having me work on taking back ownership of my body from Carter. My main goal was to become a healthy, sexual person, one who truly enjoyed all aspects of sex, without shame, fear, or insecurity.” She paused for a second. “So, my therapy started to include spending time being naked.”