Chapter 6
SIX
Sophia
I’m tempted to text Berlin and pick her brain, see if she knows what Bryson has been up to since school. He’s a different sort of guy, so it’s next to impossible to get a read on him, but I think something was up with him today. Could just be old feelings resurfacing, or the shock of seeing him, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about him .
I’ve been replaying the interaction over and over in my mind all day.
Josh came home in a terrible mood, muttering something about a deal going wrong and how he’s going to have to work this weekend to clean up a mess, or something like that.
I didn’t ask for the details. He usually tells me not to worry about it, or that there’s too much back story for any of it to make sense, but today, given his mood, I just really didn’t want to know.
He’s been parked on the couch, beer in hand since he got home.
Maybe a trip down memory lane will cheer him up. God knows I’m dying to talk to someone who might know something about Bryson and what he’s been doing for the past year or so.
I decide it’s worth a shot.
“Guess who I ran into today? A friend of yours,” I call out from the kitchen.
I hear him pop the top off another bottle of beer. I really wish he wouldn’t drink in front of the baby. I know she’s only seven months old, but she won’t be that little forever. At least she’s asleep in her cot in the far corner of the room already, totally unaware of her father’s casual drinking habits – for now at least.
He doesn’t answer me.
“Josh?” I call out. “Can you hear me?”
I can hear the TV playing loudly in the background. Sounds like he’s watching sport.
“Yeah, yeah… what?” he yells back.
“I said… guess who I ran into today down at the supermarket.”
“I’m not going to sit here guessing, just tell me who it was.”
I roll my eyes .
“Bryson Decker. Have you seen him since school?”
It feels weird saying his name again after all this time. Until today, I hadn’t even thought of, let alone seen him since we all graduated almost a year and a half ago.
I know it wasn’t all that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime for me. Every single aspect of my life is different from our final year of high school.
I don’t even know that girl anymore, but seeing Bryson today stirred something up inside of me. It’s taken all day for my heart rate to feel settled again.
I don’t know what it was all about, but I’m interested to know if Josh knew he was still so close by. I’m dying to talk about him, as silly as that might be. It makes me feel young again somehow. It takes me back to a time before I was just the girl with the baby.
I hear Josh’s empties clang together and then movement in the doorway behind me.
I glance over my shoulder at him, expecting him to have some gossip or story for me, but my blood turns cold when I take in the disgusted expression on his face.
I look down at the bottles in his hands. He’s had far more than I thought he had.
Warning bells are going off in my head. I don’t know what it is, but that look in his eyes scares me.
When I realise what it is, it only makes me more terrified.
It’s the same look as last time.
Breathe, I remind myself. You’re fine .
There’s nothing to be worried about.
It’s not the same as last time.
“ Bryson Decker .” He draws out the name, and his voice sends chills racing up and down my spine.
Oh no.
I’ve said the wrong thing. I don’t know why he’s acting like this about his old teammate. I must have missed something, some rivalry or fight. I rack my brain trying to think if they played the same position or something. My mind hunts for something to hang onto, that I can use to salvage this conversation.
Maybe it’s really about work, and he’s just stressed.
Maybe I can calm him down.
My thoughts are scattered by him pushing off the wall to move closer to me.
Instinctively I take half a step back, pretending I’m checking on something in the pot farthest from me.
It doesn’t work. He just takes another step closer.
I can feel him glaring at me as I pretend that cooking dinner suddenly requires my full attention.
I hate the way I feel scared. I feel weak and pathetic.
This has come out of nowhere and I’m not prepared. I haven’t even done anything wrong .
“Yeah. He didn’t go far from home it turns out, something about staying close to his sister. He told me to say hi to you,” I ramble nervously.
He didn’t tell me to say hi. I’m not in control of what I’m saying, but it’s come out of my mouth now, so it’s too late to take back.
I can feel Josh breathing down on me. His breath smells like alcohol.
Tears pool in my eyes. It smells like last time too.
“I bet you enjoyed that conversation.” He spits the words.
“Hmmm?” I feign innocence, still not looking up at him. Maybe if I act oblivious to the situation, it’ll go away.
“Huh?” I can’t even make proper words come out, I’m freaking out, my pulse skyrocketing.
“Don’t act like I don’t know about you whoring around with him.”
My jaw falls slack.
What?
It’s obvious he’s angry about something, but that’s the last thing I expected him to say. I’m the furthest thing from a whore. I’ve only ever slept with Joshua, and other than him, I’ve only kissed one other guy.
One other guy.
Oh no.
It all clicks into place in my head .
Bryson . He’s the other guy I’ve kissed. The only other guy.
It doesn’t matter that it was just one kiss at a high school party, and that I was literally so wasted I went home virtually comatose, Josh is jealous. He’s also drunk, and those two things are proving to be a dangerous combination.
Oh no.
I’m in so much more danger than I could have imagined.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He drops the bottles in his hands to the floor, the clatter of glass onto the ground is so harsh it makes me wince. One of them smashes into a million pieces. Some of the shards hit my feet and legs, but I don’t look down.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Josh, I –”
I don’t get a chance to finish my sentence before the back of his hand lands heavily across my face.
The sting in my cheek bone sends me spinning before I fall to the ground.
I can feel the broken glass cutting my palms and knees.
“Didn’t you learn anything from last time?” he growls.
“What?” I whisper, trying and failing to hide the tears .
“Last time!” he roars. “I thought you’d have figured out that acting like a whore means bad things happen.”
He’s so loud he’s woken up Aria, I can hear her crying from the living room.
I don’t even glance in that direction, I don’t want to draw attention to her. The last thing I need is him going in there, in this state. I don’t want him anywhere near her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I plead. “We talked for two minutes. It was nothing. We were just getting groceries.”
He’s standing over me, his breathing so heavy it’s like I can feel it coming down on me.
“You stay away from that son of a bitch. Keep my daughter away from him too.”
“O-okay,” I stutter, nodding furiously.
“How fucking long is dinner going to be? I’m starved.”
“F-f-f-five minutes,” I choke out.
He grunts, and I watch his boots crunch over the smashed glass on his way back to the living room.
I don’t dare move.
I wait for him to stop by the fridge, get another beer, and take it into the living room, before I find the strength to try and stand.
Tears pour silently down my face, stinging on the right side where he hit me, and my hands and knees are cut and bloody .
I’m pretty sure I’ve got some glass stuck in there, but I don’t have time to worry about that right now.
I don’t know what will happen if I don’t get this food ready in time.
Aria has stopped crying, and a quick check of the baby camera tells me she’s fallen back to sleep. Thank god for that. I don’t know what I’d do if he tried to go near her in the state he’s in. I might not be strong enough to stand up for myself, but I’d kill for that baby girl if I had to.
My hands are shaking so badly that it takes me at least fifteen minutes to get the dinner finished and served, but other than a couple of yells at the TV about ten minutes ago, all I can hear is the sounds of whatever game is on.
I carry the plate of food into the living room, almost dropping it twice as I try to get my trembling under control.
I find him passed out on the couch, an open beer in his hand and his mouth wide open.
I breathe a little easier, knowing for now at least, he’s not going to touch me. I do my best to quietly place the plate on the small coffee table in front of him, and with only a brief glance in the direction of Aria’s cot, I leave the room as quickly as I can.
Maybe, if I’m quiet enough, he won’t wake up tonight .
Maybe, if I go to bed, and wake up in the morning, this will all have been a bad dream.
I do my best to clean up in the kitchen, while trying to be virtually silent. I even pack up the food I’m not going to eat, and put it in the fridge for tomorrow.
I almost laugh at myself. I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat this meal ever again, let alone as soon as tomorrow.
Once the kitchen is clean and the floor is free from shards of glass, I start to take stock of my injuries. I manage to pluck three bits of glass from my hands, and one from each knee. It takes forever to get them out with the tweezers shaking violently between my fingers.
I watch the blood wash down the drain along with the last bit of self-worth I possess.
Where did it all go wrong?
I cover the worst of it with plasters. Little bits of plastic that might solve the problem for now.
I haven’t even looked at my face yet, I’m not sure I want to see it. I can feel my eye swelling up, not enough to shut it completely, but enough that I can’t see as well out of it. Enough that I know it’s going to look like shit.
It’s going to leave a bruise. There’s no doubt about it.
I should be taking photos, documenting everything so I can get out of this mess… so he can be held responsible for what he’s done .
I promised myself.
The tears start again. I don’t know how to be a survivor. I’m in too deep being a victim right now.
I know I should collect the proof, but I’m so tired. So worn down.
I’ve almost talked myself out of it when I hear Berlin’s voice in my head, telling me to take the fucking photos or she’s going to lose her mind.
Berlin would never let something like this happen. If she were here right now, Aria and me, we’d be out the door and never coming back. Josh probably would have been skinned alive with his testicles removed for no other reason than to be purely theatrical.
I wish I was like her.
I wish I was strong.
I wish I knew what to do.
I grab my phone from the table and take a photo of the broken glass in the bin. I wish I’d taken a picture when it was all over the floor and mixed with blood, but it’s too late for that. I snap a few pics of the empty beer bottles, my hands and knees, and of Josh passed out on the couch.
I still can’t bring myself to see the state of my face yet.
Josh is snoring now, so I know he’s really out to it. I sneak past him to where my baby is sleeping sweetly.
I scoop Aria up and take her into bed with me. I can’t leave her out here with that man. I don’t know what he’s capable of anymore.
I hope she doesn’t wake up – she’d probably be scared of the way I’m bound to look.
I get her settled in the middle of our bed and brace myself to look in the mirror.
It’s better and worse than I was expecting. Better, because there’s no blood on my face. And worse because he did this to me .
My eye is already bruising, and puffy. My cheekbone is red and swollen. Even my lip is fat – something I hadn’t even registered hurt, until I saw it. I look like a total mess.
I glance at my phone, warring with myself about whether or not I should document it.
I can’t call the police and tell them my boyfriend hit me. I can’t do it… and the pictures are pointless if I’m never going to do anything with them.
I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to handle looking at these one day.
I glance over at Aria and know I have to at least take them. If I’m not strong enough to do anything about this today, or tomorrow, or even this month – maybe one day I will be. Future me needs present me to be brave. Aria needs me to be brave.
I snap the pictures and save them all to the hidden folder in my phone without looking at them.
That’s all I can bring myself to do for now .
It’s so ironic that when I found out I was pregnant, I was worried that Josh would leave me and I’d have to be a tragic teenage single mother, and now, I’d love for that to happen. Being a lonely, barely coping single parent, at my age, would be a dream come true compared to my reality.
It’s not until later, when I’m in bed, still shaking, that I remember. Maybe getting hit again has knocked some memories back into me, or maybe my brain only just made the connection right this very second, but last time – when he hit me for the first time – it was when he found me looking through a bunch of photos and letters from high school.
There was a year book there, and Berlin, thinking she was funny, had drawn a heart around Bryson on my copy.
Josh saw it. The next thing I remember I was sprawled across the floor.
It all makes sense now. It’s about Bryson. It’s always been about Bryson.
Bringing him up to Josh tonight was like waving a red flag in front of a raging bull.
I did nothing more than mention his name, and that was too much. What if Josh had seen me talking to Bryson? Would I have broken bones? Would I be bleeding? Would I be dead?
This is a small town; Bryson is bound to pop up again. It’s a miracle it’s taken this long to see him. If it’s happened once, it can happen again.
I always said – I promised myself that if Josh touched me again, I’d leave him. That I’d take Aria and get far, far away from him.
I promised myself.
But now that it’s reality, I have no idea where to start.