Chapter 7
SEVEN
Sophia
Seeing him again today is no coincidence. Nineteen-year-old, single, childfree guys don’t have a grocery day schedule. Mums do, and that’s why I find myself here every Tuesday at ten, like clockwork.
I duck back down the same aisle I just came out of, trying to avoid him. I don’t need him seeing the deep black eye and large bruise on my cheekbone. I wish I could have stayed home another week, but we needed food, and the last thing I’m looking to do is piss off Josh.
His mood has been getting worse and worse by the day. He hasn’t been coming to bed at night, and I can tell he’s stressed .
Things feel like they’re building up to… something … and not in a good way. In a way that makes me very, very nervous.
Something is going wrong at work, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it could possibly be that has him so shaken up in the auto sales department. He won’t talk to me. He barely even looks at me anymore. It’s like I hardly exist – maybe I’m safer that way.
I don’t think he’s looked me in the eye since he begged me for forgiveness the morning after he left these marks on my skin.
I told him I forgave him, that it was okay… that we could move on, but truthfully, he makes my skin crawl, and I don’t forgive him at all – I don’t think I ever will, but that doesn’t mean I can just leave right away.
Leaving has consequences, ones I’m scared to face.
My life is such a mess.
At least he hasn’t hit me again.
Maybe he knows better than to have two injuries going at once. I’m sure it’s not because he’s a changed man. I’m no longer naive enough to hold onto any hope that it’ll never happen again. That’s a lie I let myself believe before, but now I’m just the pathetic excuse for a woman who knows exactly what’ll happen if she stays but is still there regardless.
I’m weak. I’m pitiful. I’m helpless .
I let my hair fall further over my banged-up eye, trying to hide as much of it as possible. I’ve never been particularly good at make-up, but I think I did an okay job at covering it up before I left the house today.
It’s not a skill set I ever imagined myself needing – I still don’t want to need it, but today it would have been helpful to be one of those girls who knows how to make themselves look like a completely different person with a handful of products.
I keep my head down and rush through my shop, tossing things into the trolley without making eye contact with anyone, or lingering anywhere long enough for Aria to capture the attention of any other shoppers.
It’s a struggle today – I’ve barely had an appetite this past week, and the sight of all this food is making my stomach turn. I can’t imagine the menu is going to be anything exciting or creative for a while.
I turn down the next aisle, glancing up as I round the corner, and instantly regret it.
He’s right there in front of me, almost like he was waiting for me to come around the corner.
I hope like hell that my hair is covering anything the makeup isn’t.
“Bryson,” I say, feigning surprise, as though I didn’t spot him three aisles ago.
“Hey,” he says softly .
“Twice in two weeks… are you trying to run into me or something?” I attempt to joke as I shift my weight nervously from foot to foot.
He doesn’t reply right away, but I can’t risk looking at him. He’ll see. I pretend I’m super interested in the wheel on the back of my trolley all of a sudden.
“Maybe I am,” he finally answers. I forget to avoid letting him see my face when he says that. He’s caught me off guard.
He looks into my eyes for a few beats, and I see the second his gaze fixes on my black eye, and then travels down my damaged face.
I can tell from the hardening of his expression that he’s noticed. He’s observant. He might not say much, but he misses even less. My makeup skills clearly haven’t worked their magic on him.
“What happened to your face?” he asks quietly, calmly, but with absolutely no doubt that answering the question will not be avoided.
“Huh?”
“Your face , Sophia. The black eye and bruised cheek you’ve tried and failed to cover up.”
Shit . I’ve never known him to be so direct.
“Oh. Right .” My hand flits up to my face. “It’s nothing really, just a little bruise. I opened a door into myself. Stupid, but I was sleep deprived.”
“You opened a door into your face,” he repeats, deadpan .
Fuck. It doesn’t even sound the littlest bit convincing.
I know he doesn’t believe me. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe me. It’s not a good lie.
“Yeah.” I try to manage a light laugh, but it doesn’t land. “Aria was crying, I was rushing. No biggie.”
He narrows his eyes at me.
“That’s what… five or six days old? Seven max . And given the fact that it still looks like that, makes me think it was a biggie.”
I shrug dismissively.
I don’t know how he knows how old my bruises are, or if he suspects they were made at the hands of the man who’s meant to love me, but I do know if I keep talking, I’m only going to make my shitty story even less believable. I’ve never been able to lie successfully. My poker face is lousy.
He shocks me to my core by stepping forward and brushing the hair away from my face, letting him see it clearly. He traces his thumb lightly over the corner of my eye, down to my cheek bone before letting his hand fall.
He sighs heavily like the sight haunts him to his very core.
“You look me in the eye and tell me that he didn’t put his hands on you, Sophia.”
I open my mouth to deny it, but I can’t find the right words.
His expression hardens. “ Go ahead. Lie to me.”
Jesus Christ. I’m not prepared for this. The intensity radiating off him is giving me goosebumps.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper.
Aria has started babbling and when I glance at her, I see she’s managed to swipe a box of cookies off the shelf.
“I can help you,” he pleads.
If only. If only anyone could help me.
It makes me angry that he thinks he can just swoop in and be the hero. It’s so easy on the outside. He hasn’t thought about how I’ll live, how I’ll survive… he hasn’t thought about Aria and how I’ll have to let her have time alone with Josh, if I leave him. He hasn’t thought about any of that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap.
He gives me that look. The one that says, ‘I know you’re trying to cover something up, and I feel sorry for you’.
“We need to go, she’s due a nap,” I say in a rush, the trolley already in motion.
He doesn’t move, so I swerve around him, almost taking out a display of crackers in my haste.
Aria squeals gleefully at the fast, windy ride and tosses the box of cookies to the ground. I guess they’re staying there, I’m not wasting time picking those up.
“Sophia!” he calls after me .
I don’t look back at him. I can’t look at him. I don’t think I have the strength to lie to him again.
The rest of the shop passes in a blur of me throwing random crap into my trolley, avoiding people’s eye and looking over my shoulder to make sure Bryson isn’t following me around.
I manage to make it to the checkout without seeing him again, but the car park is a different story.
I don’t know how he knows what I drive, but he’s there, leaning against the side of my car, waiting for me to come out of the supermarket.
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it won’t go down. My heart is racing so fast. I want to run, but I’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t walk all the way home, even if I abandoned my food – which I can’t afford to do – I still have Aria with me, and it’s cold out today.
I’ve got no choice but to go to my car, let him say whatever it is he thinks he needs to say to me, and then leave and deal with the emotional turmoil after. Maybe if I don’t say anything at all, he’ll give up.
I approach him with a stone-cold expression on my face.
He holds up his hands in front of him – like he’s trying to tell me he comes in peace. He looks kind of scared, which is ridiculous. He’s close to twice my size. He’s much bigger than Josh, and Josh is a big guy. Bryson could knock me down with a flick of his wrist. He’s got nothing to fear.
He’s lucky.
I wish I got some of Berlin’s height in the family gene pool, but unfortunately, I take after my mother.
“Just hear me out, Sophia, please.”
I unlock the car and open the boot so I can load the groceries in.
I reach for a bag, but he’s there already, lifting four at once into my car.
Aria grins gleefully and claps. She seems to really like him. It makes me feel bad for some reason. I think I feel guilty.
He gives her tummy a tickle before reaching for the last of my groceries and sitting them in my boot.
“Uh, thanks,” I mumble as I stand there, feeling useless.
He straightens up, towering over me, yet managing to look straight into my eyes.
“I need to know if he did that to you.” He sounds broken – like this is hurting him as much as Josh hurt me.
I want to tell him the truth. I want him to be the hero he thinks he can be. But life isn’t like the fairytales. There’s no white horse. There’s no knight in shining armour. At least not in my story.
“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.
He exhales heavily. “It’s a yes or no question. ”
I can’t look at him anymore. I get Aria out of the trolley and sit her on my hip while I open the car door and sort out her car seat.
“Why are you here interrogating me, Bryson? What exactly do you want from me?”
I do up her harness and pass her a toy so she’ll hopefully stay chill while I wrap this conversation up.
“I just want to help.”
I turn to face him.
“Maybe you can’t help.”
I hear a car horn and I jump, before quickly looking around the carpark. I need to get out of here.
I’m terrified that Josh might see us talking somehow, or that someone he knows might, and mention it to him, or that something, anything , might come back to blow up in my face because of this conversation. I haven’t forgotten what Josh’s trigger is.
Bryson looks like he wants to say so much, but much like it always has been with him, he says nothing. We stand there in silence for what has to be at least a full minute.
Each second ticking by is more dangerous than the last. It’s ironic that all he wants to do is help, but his presence is directly putting me in the path of danger.
It makes me want to cry. I can’t even figure out what it is about this interaction, but it’s breaking my heart. It’s full of what could have been.
“I would never have laid a hand on you,” he says quietly.
Fuck, I feel those words like a punch to the gut. He’s got no idea how well I know that – how much I wish I could have gotten in deep with someone more like him. How I’ve laid in bed at night this past week and wondered what my life would have been like if it were him I’d fallen pregnant to.
But it wasn’t .
He didn’t want me. He doesn’t get to come along now and throw what could have been in my face. It’s too late.
His comment breaks me, and I lose my composure.
“I don’t know what the fuck you expected from me, Bryson! I waited for you. I’ve practically been in love with you since I was thirteen years old, and you hardly said three words to me. You kissed me at a party and then never spoke to me again. I waited. I wished. I fucking wanted … and you didn’t come.”
His face morphs into a grimace when he sees how much he’s hurt me.
“You. Didn’t. Come,” I repeat.
“I didn’t know how.”
“Well then you of all people should understand why I haven’t left him.” I’m still practically yelling. So much for not making a scene.
“What? Why ?” he demands .
“Because I don’t know how .” My voice cracks, and he staggers back like he feels it in his chest.
“Oh, Sophia .” He takes a step towards me, but I hold up my hand to stop him. He can’t come any closer. We can’t do this here. If I got caught hugging him, I don’t know what would happen. Maybe I wouldn’t be alive to find out.
“No. I can’t do this, especially not here,” I manage to get out.
He nods his head in understanding, but his eyes are filled with pain as he moves even farther away from me. He doesn’t know what to do, or what to say.
I can feel him hugging me, from two metres away. It’s like every part of me is aching to be wrapped in his arms.
He runs his hand through his hair, frustration oozing from him. I can tell he hates this – this feeling of helplessness. He might have to get in line on that one, because I hate it too.
“I want you to take my phone number.”
I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”
He hears the words I really mean; the ones I won’t say, hidden behind the ones I am brave enough to say.
He understands what I’m implying. He gets it. It won’t go well for me if Josh sees another man’s name in my phone. I’d probably wind up in the morgue .
“Jesus Christ, Sophia, let me help you. Let me get you out of there,” he begs, pleading with me. This is killing him, maybe more than it’s killing me.
“I can’t. We can’t. It’s too late, just go back to wherever you came from and forget about me.”
I can feel the tears pooling in my eyes.
I don’t know what to do. I know I should leave, that I need to leave, that I should let him help me, but I’m terrified. I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know how to accept the help I so desperately need.
“Pass me your phone.”
I do as he asks and watch as he saves his number as ‘Bella’ in my contact list. “She’s a mum you met at play group, or music class, or swimming, or in the fucking supermarket, do you understand me? If you need to, you make something up and you stick to it.”
I nod quickly, taking it back from him. “Okay.”
“If you need me, call. Any time of day, any day of the week, got it?”
I can only nod again and shove my phone in my pocket.
Aria is babbling and cooing from her seat in the car, totally oblivious to what’s going on around her. I’m thankful for that, if nothing else. I can’t imagine what would happen if she were old enough to mention any of this to her dad.
“I need you to promise me that you’ll do everything you can to keep yourself safe. ”
I almost laugh at that. Clearly, I can’t promise that at this point in time. Keeping myself safe would be getting out.
“I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
I just shrug helplessly. I don’t know what there is to say.
He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t have a child. He doesn’t have a tiny little life that he’s responsible for.
If I leave Josh, then the time will come when I have to leave Aria with him. Alone . He’s her father, and I know he loves her, but he’s unpredictable.
I don’t know how I’m meant to put my baby, my poor, helpless little baby, in that position. At least if I stay with him, If I can survive being with him, I can make sure she never has to do that alone.
“You have to put on your own oxygen mask first.”
“What?” I whisper, shifting my gaze from her to him.
“The plane is going down fast, Soph, and you can’t look after anyone else, Aria included, until you realise that you have to be alive to do that. You can’t save her if you’re dead.”
I need to breathe, but I can’t get enough air.
“She’s not always going to be little and unaware. She’s going to wake up one day and ask why daddy hits mummy. She’s going to want to know why mummy is crying and bruised. ”
His words take all the air out of my lungs, like I’ve been whacked in the stomach.
“Put on your oxygen mask first, Sophia.”
He doesn’t say another word, just gives me one long, last look, and leaves me gasping for air in the car park.