Chapter 65
Chapter Sixty-Five
Stop holding onto that shit. Forgive yourself and move on.
—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations
Remy
“My birth name was Arabella Torres.” Remy filled her lungs with much-needed air and released it, that first salvo like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“Arabella, please, don’t do this right now. It can wait.” Sebastian pleaded, lifting the hand wearing his engagement ring and kissing her fingertips. “You’ve had a long day and a big scare.”
Remy steeled her spine. “I want to, Sebastian. I need to—to just get this out.”
Sebastian’s eyes darted between hers, worry creasing his forehead. Eventually he nodded, but kept a hold on her hand.
The rest of the room’s occupants remained silent. Even Grayton appeared to have ended his call.
“My mother and my father never married, but I carried his last name. My father was an abusive addict. My mother, an alcoholic. We moved around a lot and my mother and I had many short stays in shelters, where she recovered from his particularly brutal assaults. When I was in high school, I essentially moved in with my best friend, Etta Remington”—Remy stifled a sob—“and her mother, Tasha.”
“It’s ok, Remy. We’re here. Take your time.” Nell’s voice soothed, the mother of four clearly practiced in calming the agitated.
Remy nodded. “The summer before my senior year of high school, I emancipated myself, officially moving in with the Remingtons. Tasha worked as a paralegal at a law firm. They took my case pro bono. My father was dead by then. Overdose. And my mother decompensated. Badly. Late fall of my senior year, my mother killed herself.”
A tiny whimper, either from Honor or Lila. Remy kept going, needing to shed the weight of the past.
“I started college. A full-ride to study biology at Hopkins. Pre-med. I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon.” A wan smile ghosted across her face at the memory of that accomplishment.
“Etta was at a university down the street in Baltimore studying art and psychology. She wanted to be an art therapist for abused kids.” Remy grabbed the abandoned, soggy tissue on the couch and blew her nose.
“That winter, I was dropping off my late mother’s clothes at a shelter in downtown Baltimore.
When I was there—oh fuck.” She put a hand over her mouth, struggling to face that pivotal memory.
If only I’d picked a different shelter. If only I’d seen him then for who he truly was.
“Angel,” Sebastian began. “Please don’t do this to yourself.” His tone was as raw and ragged as her heart.
Remy swallowed back more tears, straightening her shoulders.
“I’m doing this, Sebastian.” Her voice was even, but her racing heart belied the surprising calmness in her firm delivery.
“While I was there, I recognized one of the police officers who’d come to my high school the morning my mother died.
His name was Doug Greene. He was a Baltimore City cop and was bringing in a woman who’d been badly beaten. He was so tender with her.”
Remy laughed without humor, a familiar wave of anger at Doug boiling up.
It was so much easier to handle than all the sorrow, regret, and fear.
“Such a phony. He was handsome. Charismatic.
Accomplished. Well on his way to being named a detective.
He seemed so…grown up. I was eighteen. He was twenty-seven.
Long story short, we began dating. He pursued me pretty relentlessly, but rather than be wary—the signs were all there—I soaked up his attention and what I perceived to be devotion to me.
“Etta, sh—she saw him for who he was. Kept telling me he was a classic narcissist. Highlighted pages from her psychology textbooks.” Remy shook her head. How different things would have been had she heeded those signs.
“It wasn’t long before Doug began doing what abusers often do.
He slowly isolated me from others, especially Etta and Tasha.
Anytime he was off work, he was hanging around the campus or my dorm.
Even when I had class, he’d be waiting for me.
And if I made plans with Etta or anyone else, he’d complain we didn’t spend enough time together.
“And I was so damn starved for love, I ate it up like a feast. I began canceling plans and spending all my free time with him. He loved it, telling me how he wanted me all to himself. Acting hurt and even getting angry when I saw the Remingtons. He made it known he didn’t ‘approve’ of my relationship with them.
“I didn’t want to let him down, so I started making excuses not to see them.
And when I did, I’d try to time those visits for when Doug was on shift.
But he’d gotten me a cellphone, and he’d call me constantly, even while on duty.
It became impossible to do anything without him becoming my sole focus. ”
Remy swallowed convulsively, licking her dry lips.
Always attuned to her, Sebastian handed her the fizzy cherry-lime seltzer water that was her favorite.
Parched throat and lips quenched, she prepared herself to continue.
Remy had studied depersonalization disorder in med school—short experiences of detachment from your body, where the world feels unreal or distorted.
She knew she’d experienced it. Especially those early days, after…
But it had been a long time since the feeling hit her this hard.
Falling back on therapy skills, she took a moment to focus on the calm assurance of Sebastian’s fingers laced with hers. The comforting weight of Chicane. The hum of the refrigerator. The scent of red wine wafting into the room.
Remy breathed deeply and continued. “By the beginning of my sophomore year at Hopkins, Doug had convinced me to move in with him. Tasha and Etta begged me to end things. To see him for who he was. But I was blind to it all. He’d succeeded in moving me away from my only support system.
“It wasn’t long before he started exerting control in other ways. He’d tell me, ‘Wear this, not that, Arabella.’ He hated if I wore anything he perceived as too revealing. He’d get so angry, filled with rage, telling me I was dressing like a slut to sleep with other guys.”
Next to her, Sebastian growled low in his chest, his fingers flexing against hers as his thumb traced small circles on the back of her hand. Remy focused on the soothing, repetitive movement.
“This pattern continued throughout our relationship. We got married during winter break of my junior year—against Etta and Tasha’s wishes. We just went to the courthouse. I informed them after the fact, and I’ll never forget the look they gave each other.”
She took a small sip of water, determined to push through and get everything else out in the open as quickly and succinctly as possible.
“He wanted to get me pregnant, but I’d secretly done Depo shots after I moved in with him, lying to him that I’d always had irregular periods.
And when they largely disappeared, he thought we’d been successful.
He was so happy. And then I bled again.” She huffed a laugh.
“I had to tell the truth. He flew into a rage, demanding to come with me to my gyn. I refused and he trashed the house.”
She lifted a shaking hand to her throat, Chicane picking up on her anxiety and chirruping.
Remy wanted to soothe him, but she had to keep going.
“That kind of outburst was becoming more and more frequent, but he’d never laid a hand on me at that point.
I kept telling myself he was just under pressure at work.
That it would get better. He’d get so angry—calling me a slut and a whore.
Cunt was his favorite.” The image of the words slashed in red paint on her home flashed through her mind, and she cringed before steadying herself to continue.
“But then he’d love-bomb me, begging for forgiveness and telling me I was his everything.
I kept thinking that if I just loved him enough, he’d stop.
We’d have stretches of good weeks—peaceful weeks.
I’d convince myself that it was all better.
That he loved me enough to change. He’d be solicitous.
Even offering to pay for dinner with the Remingtons—always with him present, though.
The cycle persisted, and then things got worse. ”
Remy turned to face Sebastian. It was as if no one else were in the room. “You sure you’re ready to hear the rest of this?”
“I’m not sure anyone can ever be ready to hear about the person they love being abused. But you were—are strong enough to have lived it and survived it, and brave enough to share it with us, so I’ll be strong enough to hear it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t hate that man to the marrow of my bones.”
Remy smiled sadly and continued. “The day my medical school acceptances came in—Georgetown, Hopkins, and Stanford—he completely lost it. He didn’t want me to go to med school at all, and the envelopes triggered him.
He knew what they were. After he punched holes in the wall and threw furniture, he turned toward me.
I’d—I’d seen that face many times before.
On my father, just before he beat my mother up. ”
Remy dropped her head, weeping, one hand over her mouth to contain the sobs.
Lila jumped up and sat on her other side, rubbing her back in soothing motions as she whispered words of empathy and understanding.
Sebastian now clasped her hand between both of his as her staunchest allies surrounded her with the support she needed to continue.
And thank God, because the worst was yet to be shared.
“He came at me, eyes wild. Doug wrapped his hands around my neck. He—he choked me. Hard. My vision blackened in the corners and I was pretty sure that was it for me. All I could think was that I’d let Tasha and Etta down. And that I was just like my mother.”
“No, not at all,” Lila condoled. “You couldn’t know how he’d be.”