Chapter Fifty #2
I was an eighteen-year-old housewife—without the ring—crying on the bathroom floor every single night, pressing my face into a towel to muffle the sounds of my sobs because Joss hated crying.
It’s emotional manipulation, Amy Jane.
So, I cried alone, wiped up the evidence, went to bed, got up, and tried harder.
He’d whittled away at me in other ways, of course. My weight was a never-ending bone of contention, despite him supposedly ‘falling in love’ with me ‘at first sight’ back when I’d been at my heaviest.
“What is this?” he’d asked, grabbing a bit of flesh over my hip, jiggling it. Or he’d demanded I’d spin for him when I was naked and then grimace and tell me that my ass was too big, or the cellulite on the backs of my thighs was revolting.
“I’d always seen myself with a woman whose thighs didn’t touch,” he’d say when looking at a woman on the TV who fit his beauty standards.
My boobs, which never went anywhere no matter how much weight I lost for him, went from being something he used to praise me for, to something that made his lip curl, claiming I looked like a ‘slut’ in everything I wore because of them.
Eventually, he was so paranoid about anyone looking at me, that I was no longer allowed to wear dresses, tank tops, or sundresses.
I’d questioned him about that last one, getting an eye roll, like I was the dumbest person he’d ever met.
“Because every man will think about hiking it up and fucking you.”
That one hadn’t made sense to me since he was always insisting that I was lucky I found him, that no one else would want to put up with my bad housekeeping, inedible cooking, my ‘weight problems,’ and the fact that I was a ‘cold fish’ in bed.
“It’s like fucking a blow-up doll,” he’d once said as he’d rolled off of me, his sweat still all over me. Then he’d let out a little snort and declared, “But at least the doll wouldn’t wince and whimper when I want to fuck harder.”
“AJ…” Atlas said, eyes sad.
“I never denied him sex,” I was quick to tell Atlas.
“Sweetheart, just because you didn’t say no, doesn’t mean you wanted it, either,” Atlas said.
And, of course, I didn’t want it. Why would I? When I was never turned on? When it went from simply not being enjoyable, to being uncomfortable or sometimes painful?
The thing was, the more I endured from him, the less it seemed possible to ever… stop enduring.
I wasn’t happy.
But it was all I knew at that point.
“What are you moping for?” he’d snap when I couldn’t hide that something he said hurt me. “Other men would beat the shit out of you for this kind of shit. Have I ever put a hand on you?”
He hadn’t.
It seemed as though mentioning it, though, put the idea in his head.
It didn’t happen right away.
It was like he needed to work his courage up to do it.
So he’d thrown things at me.
He’d slammed into me, knocking me out of his way.
He’d punch the wall beside me.
First, they hit things around you.
Then they hit you.
Sure enough, one night after he’d had his one and only friend over for dinner and to play video games, he’d started screaming at me. Telling me what an embarrassment I was, how gross the food was, how stupid my comments were to his friend.
Was I trying to make a fool of him?
“Well, were you?” he’d screamed. “Fucking answer me!”
He hadn’t given me the chance, though.
The words were out of his mouth.
And then his hand was slapping hard over my cheek, the stinging pain making me cry out, causing tears to fill my eyes.
I’d never been hit before.
My father had claimed his parents had beaten him for everything and nothing, using their hands, fists, belts, handles of brooms, anything that was close by when they were mad at him. And that he never wanted to do that to me.
The only discipline I’d gotten were lectures and time to ‘think about what I’d done.’
I’d been unprepared for how much it would hurt. Physically, yes. But more so, emotionally.
He’d immediately regretted it. He pulled me against him, pressing kisses all over my face, promising he would never do it again.
You just make me so angry sometimes.
But once someone starts hitting you, they don’t stop.
Somehow—and looking back, I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to make me think this way—I’d started to believe it was just punishment for never being good enough.
He always ‘made it up’ to me. With affection, which he often withheld from me, or praise. Sometimes, even with gifts.
“That was how I got Samson,” I told Atlas, looking over at him as he sat at Atlas’s feet, silently begging for a bite of food. Because he knew Atlas was a sucker, and would give it to him.
It had been the week of Christmas.
And I’d made the mistake of spending Joss’s ‘hard-earned money’ on ‘gaudy’ Christmas decorations. And ‘didn’t I know better?’
Then he’d decided to ‘teach me a lesson’ about it.
And beat me so badly that I’d blacked out, waking up confused, in pain, bloody, finding Joss kneeling next to me, eyes wide.
At the time, I tried to convince myself it was because he was sorry, because he couldn’t believe what he’d done.
Of course, though, it was because he was worried he’d pushed it too far, and I was going to need medical attention. I might tell on him. He might get in trouble.
He’d actually been sweet to me that night, taking me into the bathroom to clean my wounds, then drawing me a bath, and snuggling me to sleep.
When he came home the next day from work, he wasn’t alone.
In his arms was a fluffy little Lab/Golden Retriever mix who’d made my heart swell, even though the immediate thought that followed was how I was going to need to work even harder to keep the apartment clean because of the hair and toys, the accidents as he house trained.
Regardless of the extra work, though, Samson was the bright spot in my dark life. He also provided an outlet that I didn’t realize I’d been missing out on for a long time.
Because by that point, I wasn’t really leaving the apartment anymore.
Joss did the shopping because I bought ‘all the wrong things’ and he didn’t want me ‘buying junk’ that I would ‘sneak’ when he wasn’t around.
He didn’t take me anywhere either.
And because of his jealousy, he didn’t want me going out without him.
So my whole life was confined within the four walls of that apartment.
But because of Samson, I had a valid reason for leaving the apartment. Training Samson. And then, getting his energy out, so he didn’t chew things up.
I inched toward the idea of freedom, just taking him right outside of the building to do his business, but taking longer and longer walks as he got bigger, and I got more comfortable.
Until, eventually, I found myself out of the neighborhood and into town.
And there was where memories came back to me. Of being young and free, so full of hope and eager to experience life. Working hard to save for a car that would lend me even more freedom.
Until Joss slowly but surely stripped it all from me.
Except, of course, he hadn’t taken everything.
It may have been sitting untouched in a bank account for years, but I did still have a small savings.
My mind ran wild with ideas then.
Of getting away.
Of starting over.
Just me and Samson.
But I couldn’t seem to force myself to take steps toward that fantasy.
Not until one fateful night.
When Joss finally did something completely unforgivable.
I’d been preparing dinner, but had to stop to see why the washing machine tucked in our bedroom closet was knocking.
I was gone for all of two minutes.
But in that time, it seemed that Samson had smelled the meat on the counter, and had jumped up to steal it.
Pissed, Joss had charged off the couch that was starting to have a permanent ass print from him always parking there, had grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him up off of the floor by it.
He still had him strung up, dangling, choking, when I came back out.
He could hurt me. Tear me down. Beat me.
But he couldn’t put his hands on Samson.
I flew at him, slamming my hands into his chest, shocked by my strength when he flew backward, the counter cracking across his back.
I saw the rage chase the pain out of his eyes.
It didn’t matter, though, so long as Samson was free, scampering off to whimper under the dining room table.
That beating was almost as bad as the one that had me blacking out. But the thing was, Joss had gotten better about beating me, knowing just how far to push it without causing permanent damage, without it getting bad enough for me to need to go to the hospital.
He’d stormed out afterward, muttering about getting something decent to eat.
I stayed there on the floor, crying in pain, until Samson came over to start licking my face.
My eyes slid open, I looked at him, and I knew it down to my bones.
It was time to go.
Not knowing how long I had, I rushed around the apartment, shoving some clothes, bath products, and a blanket into one of Joss’s backpacks and a big purse.
Then I grabbed as many of Samson’s toys and treats and a big plastic bag of his food as I could, hooked on his leash, and walked out of that apartment.
I had no real plan, not in an emergency situation. But I’d cleared out my bank account, then walked to a used car lot, and bought the only car I could afford. One with wonky air and heat, nearly bald tires, and almost two-hundred-thousand miles on it. From the looks of things, hard miles.
It didn’t matter.
It was a way out of town.
It was somewhere safe to sleep.
“How long did you live in your car?” Atlas asked, eyes sad.
“Eleven weeks.”
“You didn’t go to your mom?”
“She’d passed that spring.” It was the only outing I’d had, aside from taking out Samson.
The last of my family was in that coffin. And any safe space I may have been able to run to if or when I got away.
So I was completely on my own.
Well, aside from Samson.
And thank God for him.
He made the cold weather sleeping in the car tolerable. We curled up under the comforter and chased off the chill as I tried to figure out what the hell I could do, how I could get a job without a home.