Chapter One #2
“Come on,” Dominic says softly, waving me down the hall.
I nod and sniff back tears before following him to his office.
I go and sit on the couch as he shuts the door, preparing for him to make me talk.
Instead, he grabs a box of tissues from his desk and sits next to me.
He never sits close to me unless he thinks I’m about to have a meltdown.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper.
“For what?” he asks, turning on the couch to face me. I do the same and take a tissue from the box to wipe away the snot and tears.
“I don’t know,” I say through broken cries. I am slowly losing myself to these emotions, which makes me start to panic. The moment it begins to surface, he takes my hand and squeezes.
“Three things, Myra. What are they?” he asks. When he senses a meltdown, he distracts me by having me name three sounds, three sights, and take three deep breaths.
“Uhm… The clock… your breathing, and… shit, I don’t know. Me?” I say, almost like a question.
“Good, Myra. Breathe with me, okay?” he encourages. I nod and close my eyes. We’ve done this countless times, and it’s still as helpful now as it was the first time. We take three long, deep breaths in and slowly exhale. On the third, I open my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, only calmer.
“For what?” he asks again.
“For almost spiraling for no reason.”
“Ah, I doubt it was for no reason,” he says. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to make you?”
“You can certainly try to make me,” I laugh and wipe my eyes. When I put my arm down, he immediately sighs and closes his eyes.
“Myra,” Dominic says gently, opening his eyes to look at me.
“What? What did I do?” I ask as I start to panic again. Instead of talking, he grabs my wrist. “No. Wait. Dominic. Hold on.”
He gives me a look that makes me stop resisting him as he gently pushes the sleeve of my arm up.
The blood soaked through the gauze and reached my white shirt.
Maybe it was worse than I thought. He takes off the bandage and sighs again when he pulls off the bloody gauze to reveal the cut I made less than an hour ago. “Don’t move,” he says as he stands.
“I’m sorry,” I say as tears roll down my face.
I drop my head in shame, and he walks out of the office.
I have no idea what he is doing. Maybe he is about to tranquilize me with a shot in the butt so I can be hauled off to a psych ward.
Maybe I could find peace there, or maybe it will give me the push I need to finally jump off a bridge.
When Dominic returns, he has a duffel bag. When he sets it on the table in front of the couch and opens it, I realize it’s a first aid kit. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to be honest with me, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Are you having thoughts of suicide?” he asks as he pulls items out of the bag.
“Not… active thoughts,” I say.
“Explain.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t jump out of the way of a car that runs a red light, but I’m not going to throw myself into traffic,” I explain.
“Okay. Any thoughts of harming anyone else?” he asks.
“No.”
“Any voices, sounds, or visuals that aren’t real or you might suspect aren’t real?”
“You ask me that a lot. No,” I say, and he smiles as he turns his attention to my arm. I love his smile way more than I should. His entire presence brings me peace, really. “Is this the moment where you finally lock me away for being crazy?”
“No, Myra,” he says. “If you were trying to kill yourself, you wouldn’t have come here. I think something set you off, and this is how you chose to cope. I have known for six years that you self-harm, but I don’t think you are a danger to yourself right now.”
“Right now?” I ask.
“Why don’t we start with the reason you were crying?” he asks.
“See… There is a problem with that,” I say.
“Oh?” he asks, glancing up at me. He is cleaning my arm, and I suspect he is about to put butterfly sutures on the cut to close it.
“If I tell you, it’s going to lead to me having to say a lot more, because I know you’ll ask,” I say.
“I think that isn’t the worst idea, considering I am currently tending to a self-inflicted cut on your arm,” he says as he works on my arm.
“Fuck,” I sigh. “Okay… I had a nightmare last night. It was a bad one… Leon woke me up by screaming at me because I woke him with my crying. He told me everyone would be better off if I killed myself like Mom did.”
Dominic stops and looks up at me with an eyebrow raised. “How often does he say that?”
“Every time we fight… Well, he fights. I just cry,” I admit.
“How bad are the fights?” he asks.
“Define bad…” I say slowly. He looks up and narrows his eyes at me, understanding I’m being evasive. “It’s… I feel like you’re going to judge me.”
“Now, I know you know better than that, Myra,” he says with a frown.
“He… It’s bad,” I say. “He reminds me of Dad, which is funny considering I ran to him to get away from Dad in the first place.”
“One, that’s not funny. Two, how does he remind you of your father?”
“He’s a drunk. He forces me to have sex with him when he’s drunk. When he gets upset at me, he screams in my face. He calls me names and tells me he wishes I would kill myself,” I say.
“Does he hit you?”
“Uh, he slaps me sometimes, but it’s nothing like what Dad would do,” I say.
“Myra, honey,” he sighs and looks up at me. “How long has it been like this?”
“Since I moved in with him,” I say carefully.
“Jesus fu…” he starts to say, but stops himself and takes a deep breath. “Why haven’t you told me any of this before? I know he was the source of a lot of your stress, and I suspected he was emotionally abusive, but this? Why did you hide all of this?”
“Because I was afraid of you telling me I traded in my dad for another version of him,” I admit. “It’s gotten worse lately, and I find myself in those dark places more often… I knew I needed to talk to you about it, but then…”
“But then what?”
“Then I walked into his office to tell him I was leaving and found his client getting herself off while sucking his dick,” I say bluntly.
“I know he cheats because he tells me all the time that I can’t satisfy him, and he needs someone who he can get hard for…
Which is a crock of shit considering how violent he is when he forces me to fuck him. ”
“How is he forcing you?” he asks.
“Well… More like forcing himself on me. I’m never the one doing anything. I just keep my mouth shut and let him take what he wants because if I don’t, it leads to him screaming at me, guilt-tripping me, and then still violently fucking me,” I say.
“Myra, that’s rape,” he says. “You know I have to report this, right?”
“What? Why?” I frown.
“Well, he was getting sucked off by a client in his office, for one,” he says as he finishes bandaging my arm. “Also, I am a mandated reporter.”
“Not for this, you’re not. There is no law saying you have to report,” I argue.
“Myra, it might not be the law, but it’s ethical,” he says. “You just sat here and told me that you are being raped on a regular basis and hit by someone who is emotionally abusive. What do you expect me to do?”
“Keep your fucking mouth shut so you don’t get me killed,” I snap and stand up.
“Myra, stop,” he says as he stands with me.
“No, Dominic. Leon is fucking friends with Dad. Do you get that?” I say, raising my voice. “If you report this, they will fucking kill me. If they even knew you were a man, I’d get killed.”
“Myra,” he says gently.
“No. I’m done. This is why I didn’t say anything,” I say as I pick up my bag.
“Myra, hold on a second,” he says.
“No,” I say angrily. “Just cancel my appointments. I’m done risking my life just to have someone to talk to, but not being able to tell the truth in fear of him running his goddamn mouth.”
I turn to the door, and right as I pull it open, he steps behind me and pushes it shut. “What is my number?”
“What? Can you move your hand so I can leave?” I snap.
“What is my number, Myra? You have my personal number. What is it?” he asks again.
“555-786-6601,” I sigh.
“Good. Use it,” he says. “Please. Day or night, remember?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. He moves his hand, and I pull the door open and slip out before I change my mind.
Walking away from him feels like a breakup. He was the only person I knew who cared about me. I lost all of my friends a long time ago, and now I don’t even have him.