CHAPTER FOUR LILLAH #2
I sat in my car in the parking lot for five minutes, hands on the steering wheel, staring ahead at the dashboard.
My chest was tight and my throat felt thick, but I refused to let the tears come.
I was furious. Not at Mr. Andersen, not even at the man who'd spilled coffee on me, but at myself.
I'd let an accident with a stranger throw me off my game so badly that I'd blown a meeting I'd spent weeks preparing for.
This was the one thing I couldn't afford, and it had nothing to do with the blouse or the lost client.
It was the pattern. Letting other people's behavior rattle me so deeply that I lost my footing.
The same way a loud voice could still send me sideways.
The way a man's frustration, even a stranger's, could reach inside my chest and squeeze.
I'd spent close to three years with a man who'd trained me to be rattled.
Who'd perfected the art of throwing me off balance right before something important: a client dinner, a phone call with my parents, a job interview.
He did it so I'd stumble and then he'd point at the stumble as proof that I needed him.
"See? You can't handle these things on your own, Lillah. That's why you need me."
The memory ran through my mind so fast I couldn't stop it.
Brett. Six foot one, broad shoulders, sandy hair he kept short because the league had forced him to, with a smile that made you trust him and eyes that made you sorry you had.
He was a reliever for a minor league team affiliated with the Rangers.
He wasn't a star player but was good enough to have a contract and a salary, with an ego that took up so much space there was barely any room for anyone else.
He lived as if he were already in the majors and talked as if he were already famous, and he treated me as if I were lucky to be standing next to him.
We'd met at a charity event in Dallas when I was twenty-five.
He'd been charming. Funny. Attentive in a way that felt real until it wasn't. The kind of attention that makes you feel seen.
The first six months together were wonderful, so good that you stop looking for cracks because the surface is so smooth you can't imagine there's anything underneath.
But there were, and when those cracks appeared, I should have walked away.
It started with comments. Small comments, slipping into conversations as if they were inconsequential, as though he were being helpful.
'Are you sure you want to wear that?' said while looking at a dress I loved.
'Interior design is cute, but it's not really a career, is it?
' said at a dinner with his teammates, while all of them laughed.
'You'd be prettier if you smiled more.' He said it while I was reading and focused on something other than him.
Each one landed like a paper cut. Barely noticeable in the moment.
Easy to dismiss and easy to explain away.
But after hearing them often enough, every one of them stung.
Each conversation we had became a minefield of comments, and that was when I started being mindful of the things I said before he could correct me.
I'd choose outfits he wouldn't critique, stayed quiet at team dinners, and smiled more.
Eventually his comments became instructions.
He'd tell me what to wear to his games, who I could talk to at team events, and who I should avoid.
Before long he told me how to behave when his teammates' wives were around, saying I should be friendly but not too friendly, present but not the center of attention.
He wanted me to be visible, but silent. An accessory in the room of his life, something he could point to and say, that's mine without ever asking.
Months passed, things continued, and I convinced myself that things weren't that bad. I made the excuse that he was under pressure from his career; in fact, I made excuses for everything, until the night he put his hand around my throat. That was the night I stopped making excuses for him.
We didn't have a fight, that was the part that still sat in the center of my chest. We were standing in the kitchen, and I had mentioned that I wanted to visit my parents the upcoming weekend.
His hand was on my throat before I'd finished the sentence.
He didn't squeeze; he didn't grab me hard enough to leave a mark or cut off my air; but it was hard enough to make me stop talking.
He let go of me five seconds later and glanced at his hand, appearing surprised that he had grabbed me. Then he took off into the living room and turned on the TV as if nothing had happened.
I stood in the kitchen for a while, not moving, my insides shaking. A while later he left to go to the store, I'd called Mila. We devised a plan, and then I packed my things, and once he'd gone to bed, I left.
I hadn't been back to Dallas since.
I pulled myself out of the memory and loosened my grip on the steering wheel. My knuckles were white and my stomach was rolling.