Chapter 2
SIENNA
Today is the day Kurt comes back from his trip to Malaysia. Or Indonesia. Or Taiwan. I don’t even know.
I’ve been up since three AM, sitting on the porch, watching the waves froth as they break over the black rocks on our private piece of beach.
While it was still dark, the rocks looked like a menacing creature covered in sharp, jagged edges climbing out of the water to get me.
In the daylight they don’t look much better. Or safer.
If I’m lucky, Kurt will be too jet-lagged to do anything more than sleep for the next couple of days. If I’m not that lucky, he’ll pick a fight before he goes to sleep.
Pick a fight.
Why do I insist on sugarcoating everything, even in my own head?
If I’m not that lucky, he’ll not just pick a fight over some trivial thing but also smack me around some before going to sleep for a couple of days.
I’m not usually lucky. Haven’t been for a long time. Maybe never.
The untouched coffee I made when I woke up is icy cold. I’m icy cold too and the cool wind coming from the ocean isn’t helping at all. But the sun is starting to rise. It’ll warm me. Maybe even make it possible for me to stand up and get dressed.
Put on my happy face, the one that goes with sugarcoating everything. The one I show all my friends and acquaintances, the one the sales ladies see when I shop obsessively to drown out the voices in my head telling me I should leave, that I deserve a better life. Those voices have no point.
I have nowhere to go.
I made my bed and now I lie in it.
I don’t even hope things could still be different, or better. I don’t even wish for it. I just cover the bruises the best I can, smile through the pain, cower and run when I need to, stand my ground never. Forget as quickly as I can. That’s the only recipe that works to keep me sane.
I would go to a therapist. My friends are always raving about how good and how beneficial talk therapy can be. But I don’t need to talk about any of it. I don’t need to figure anything out. I know how things are. The medications help, but I can get those from my regular doctor.
My life was messed up a long time ago. Some of it not my fault. Some of it only my fault.
Nothing to be done to change that. Nothing to be gained by trying.
I belong to Kurt. He as good as bought me. Even if I got out, where would I go?
A particularly vicious gust of cold wind, accompanied by ocean spray is followed by Kurt appearing by my side on the porch.
“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.” The actual words could be taken as concern for my well-being, since it is a very cold and windy morning. But the tone suggests something entirely different. It suggests this is one of those times when I am unlucky. Or even less than unlucky.
I smile at him, an automatic response, left over from the long gone days when I used to believe smiles would make him less cruel. They never did. Just another little sugarcoated fiction I’d tell myself.
“You know how I like the wind,” I say. “It’s so fresh and cleansing.”
He scoffs. “Don’t know about that, but I know how feeble-minded you are. Fresh and cleansing? You’ve now completely lost your mind, that’s what I know.”
There, that’s what his tone suggested before. Insults and worse. Heard them all. Used to them all.
He grabs my arm and pulls me up from the lounge chair. My hip collides with the table, spilling the icy cold coffee all over the table. It quickly starts oozing onto the floor too. I can practically feel the anger rising in him. It’s like standing too close to fire.
“You insane bitch, see what you did now,” he says, glaring at the dark brown liquid seeping into the wooden planks of our patio and flowing into the cracks. “Now we’ll get ants and whatnot. And the stain will never come out. I told you never to bring coffee out here.”
He rips off my robe and tosses it on the stain on the ground.
The stupid, useless smile is still on my face. Because that’s how little I care about all these insults, all his anger. I’m so dead inside by now I hardly even notice any of it anymore.
“You think this is funny?” he growls at me, the rage making his eyes shine brighter than the sun.
I don’t even have the time to stop smiling, or tell him that no, I don’t find any of this funny, before he punches me in the stomach.
The blow is so hard it takes my air and wipes that smile right off my face.
He slaps me across the face as I straighten up from doubling over.
I should probably just go down, then maybe he’d stop hitting me.
Or he’d kick me to death. I never know which of those will happen these days. And I care less and less.
I didn’t even drink the damn coffee that’s causing all this now. And I didn’t even mean to smile. It was just a reflex. But it’s not either of those things that caused this rage now. It was whatever bad mood he brought with him when he returned.
“I swear, you’re stupid enough to be committed,” he says, when I just stand there, anticipating more slaps and punches, but not really caring if they do.
Only one man in my life never hit me. Only one man ever stood up for me. Only one man ever truly loved me. Zane O’Connor.
And he’d probably be the one to kill me if we ever met again.
Because I betrayed him. Because my lies destroyed his life. And mine.
I still think of him often. Especially when I’m getting smacked around. And sometimes when I still dream of what might have been. Because thinking of him is the only thing that still gives me strength, still lets me believe it could all be different, better, good.
Even though he hates me worse than anyone has ever hated me before.
Funny how that works.
The glowing rage in Kurt’s eyes is turning dimmer.
Probably because he’s starting to think I really am as certifiably insane as he keeps accusing me of being.
“Clean this up and then go inside,” he barks at me. “We’re having dinner with the partners tonight, so you better pull yourself together by then. Or else.”
Or else what?
You’ll kill me?
I don’t ask that, but it’s on the tip of my tongue.
Because I’m kind of hoping that one of these days he will.
Then this sad, painful, pointless life of mine could finally be over. But then again, I’m definitely going to hell after this world. I am partly responsible for the death of a priest, after all.
Though sometimes I think I might already be in hell and I just don’t know it. And it’s no less than I deserve.