Chapter 6 #3
“But you don’t even know everything. How it started. How I stayed.”
“I don’t need the whole backstory to know you didn’t deserve anything you’ve gone through,” Luke said. “Seriously, there isn’t a single universe where the treatment you got is justified.”
“But I kept choosing him, even after things turned, even when it got bad, I stayed.” I’d been na?ve for being with him in the first place, weak for staying. I’d allowed fear to win. There was nothing strong about that.
“For people on the outside it seems cut and dry, like it’s just good guy, bad guy, roll credits.
It’s not. It’s this messed-up blend of love and hope tangled with fear and hurt, of memories that comfort and behaviors that harm.
Staying doesn’t mean you failed, it means he knew exactly how to mess with your head and put a hundred invisible roadblocks in front of your leaving. ”
I had convinced myself no one would understand. I had braced myself for judgment, ridicule, disgust, the thinly veiled accusatory questions. “Why didn’t you leave? Why did you stay?” But Luke didn’t reach for them, didn’t make me defend myself.
Warm relief spread through my chest, loosening something tight and long-held, but it was chased by a sudden, bone-deep exhaustion, as if the moment I’d been granted a sliver of understanding, my body lost the ability to stand under its own weight.
Luke steadied me. “Alright, that’s enough standing for you. Back to the couch before you face-plant. Trust me, that is not the home initiation ritual we’re going for,” he said, guiding me down into the cushions.
When he went to pull away, my hand reached for his, tugging him down beside me before I could second guess the impulse. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been so bold, so assertive—more things I’d thought I’d lost but somehow found in Luke’s presence.
Settling in beside me, Luke said, “I’m not saying you have to, but if you ever want to share anything, I got two ears you’re welcome to.”
Anyone else, and I would’ve barricaded myself in silence, the way I always had. But Luke had placed pieces of his heart in my hands, and something in me felt compelled and safe enough to offer mine in return. “I want to. I’m just not sure where to begin.”
“Wherever makes the most sense for you.”
“Then I guess that’s with the fact that Vincent wasn’t the first person to abuse me. Ironically, my relationship with him began so I could escape from an abusive home.”
I paused, my eyes flicking to Luke’s. He squeezed my hand.
“Growing up, my home life wasn’t great,” I continued.
“My mother verbally abused and neglected me and my father was a drunk, a violent one. He hurt me. Often. I got good at hiding it. Long sleeves, makeup when needed. I made myself invisible in all the right ways. No one ever asked. Maybe no one wanted to. It’s easier to be oblivious to the things we’d rather not see.
Either way, I was primed for someone like Vincent. ”
“How did you two meet?” Luke asked, his voice soft, with a hint of sadness but otherwise no judgment.
“My dad got arrested, his second DUI. Vincent was the prosecutor assigned to the case. During the hearing, he’d seen what no one else had, and figured out my parents hurt me.
Afterward, he told me I deserved better and should come live with him.
I’d just graduated college, living at home, saving for a place of my own, and I was desperate. So when he offered I said yes.”
If I’d known then what I know now, I would’ve run. But I’d only seen safety, an escape from the constant fists thrown at me and the screaming. I was a walking example of the truth in the saying “better the devil you know.” I’d chosen a new devil thinking he’d be my savior.
Luke didn’t move closer, but somehow the space between us shrank with the way his soulful eyes, bleeding with compassion, bore into me.
“I get being desperate and wanting out of a shitty situation,” he said. “When someone finally sees you after years of being invisible? That’s like someone throwing you a rope when you’re hangin’ off a cliff by your fingernails. Of course you grab on.”
A weak laugh escaped me. “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly trade up.
After I moved in, we started dating. At first he gave me everything I’d never had—attention, care, affection.
Six months in, the cracks started. Not big ones at first. A snappy word on a bad day.
A ‘joke’ that wasn’t really a joke. Tiny things that were easy to ignore, and easier to forgive.
Until they weren’t. It escalated one small concession at a time.
By the time I realized how bad it was, I was already tangled up in him. ”
I stopped, choking on the truth I should have known to avoid. Luke’s thumb stroked mine, calming me enough to continue.
“I think that’s part of what made it so hard to leave.
It wasn’t only him I had to walk away from but also the life I’d built around surviving him.
All the ways I’d shaped myself to exist alongside him, turning myself into version after version of what I thought he wanted.
If I left, I’d be abandoning who I’d become, and I didn’t know how to be anyone other than who Vincent, and before him my parents had made me. ”
Luke nodded. “That’s totally a thing. You spend so long adjusting yourself to someone else’s moods that it just becomes who you are.
Doesn’t mean you wanted it, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean you deserved it.
It just means you did what you had to do to get through the days.
Walking out isn’t as easy as stepping through a door and into a brand new life.
It’s confusing and scary as hell. You gotta start over, and that, after everything, can be paralyzing. ”
As he spoke, tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Luke had just named everything that made the whole situation so complicated. I didn’t know what to do with that understanding other than cry, apparently. Just great. Two breakdowns in less than twenty-four hours.
So weak. So sensitive. Are you a man or a pussy, Oliver?
With hasty hands I swiped at my cheeks, but the effort proved useless. I’d wipe them away and more would fall.
Luke’s arms rose, causing me to tense, but rather than the violent collision with my face or some other body part I’d been expecting, he extended them outward in the nonverbal invitation for a hug.
Not counting last night, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been comforted when upset.
While I should have been more hesitant and wary, the promise of what Luke offered was too tempting to resist and I moved into his arms. They secured themselves around my back.
Alarmingly, I started to cry harder. I’d create a small pond at this rate. Pathetic.
“That’s it, let it out. Don’t bottle it up. It’ll eat you alive if you do. It’s okay to cry, Ollie,” Luke soothed.
Sinking deeper into the embrace, I pressed my face into his chest. The cotton of his shirt carried the faint scent of laundry detergent.
Everything about this felt good, too good.
I hadn’t realized how starved for affection I’d been.
The scraps Vincent had tossed me in rare moments of nicety didn’t compare to this.
Not when some part of me always waited for the turn, for Vincent’s kindness to twist into viciousness.
“You know what the cruelest thing is? Crueler than the bruises, crueler than the emotional whiplash, the isolation, the fear?” I asked when the tears subsided.
“What?”
“In spite of it all, I still love him. Or maybe I love who he was, who I thought he was anyway, who he’d been in the beginning.
The abuse erased many things, but not that, and I don’t know how to let go of that version of him.
I don’t know how to stop loving someone who doesn’t exist anymore.
I can’t reconcile the man who once saved me with the one who makes me afraid to breathe. ”
“That makes sense. Your heart loves the version he showed you first. The one who pulled you out of hell. That doesn’t go away because he turned into an abusive jerk. If you can still love him after all you’ve been through, that tells me all I need to know about you.”
“And what does it tell you? That not only am I a pathetic fool but also an idiot?”
Careful not to push into the bruises, Luke brushed a tear from my cheek. “No, Ollie, it tells me you always try to see the good in people. After the life you’ve lived, you still give people a chance instead of turning bitter. That’s not pathetic or stupid. It’s beautiful.”
No one could be this kind. If not for the tears still drying on my face, I might have thought I’d finally snapped and started hallucinating. But if I were hallucinating, I wouldn’t be sitting here a wreck, stripped of even the pretense of dignity.
“I don’t want to live like this anymore. I can’t keep living like this. Loving someone who keeps hurting me and never knowing when it’s coming,” I said.
“Whatever you need to do next, I can help. You don’t have to decide right away, we can take some time to think about what you want while you heal. You’re welcome here as long as you need, but you have options. When you’re ready, I can walk you through them. You’re not alone anymore.”
My stomach chose that precise instant to gurgle, voicing its hunger. My face burned from embarrassment. Yep, further confirmation I was not hallucinating.
“That’s my cue to start breakfast for real,” Luke said with a light chuckle, but I didn’t think he was poking fun at me the way Vincent would have, berating me for having basic needs.