Chapter 52 #2
That part knew she had to stay strong. Had to shut Susannah out of her life, once and for all.
Had to forget how good Susannah could make her feel, and remember the feeling of a lip splitting under an open palm.
The bone-deep shock of staring into her fiancée’s eyes and realizing there was nothing there but contempt.
Linn looked at the little Smurf clock by the computer. Susannah had said she’d stop by at 8 PM. The round, bright blue clockface showed that it was three minutes till.
Her stomach clenched.
Linn leaned back in the ergonomic office chair she’d bought herself as a present a few weeks ago and closed her eyes.
After this, it will be over, she told herself.
It should have made her feel better. So why did it make her want to cry?
Susannah had asked for a good ending. She’d said that they had loved each other deeply, and that they owed each other closure.
Susannah loved that word. Closure. During the course of their relationship, Linn had come to learn a lot about what Susannah loved and didn’t love.
She loved what she called good communication, which meant they had to talk for hours about what Linn had done or not done to upset Susannah, which almost always ended in Linn crying and begging for forgiveness.
She loved working on herself, and on her trauma. And on Linn, and what she called Linn’s trauma. She always liked to call back to her own trauma, when Linn tried to push back on something, and she liked to refer back to Linn’s upbringing to explain why Linn was so emotionally stunted.
She loved self-help books, especially those written by psychologists.
More than anyone, she loved Dr. Martina Hastings, who she called her guru.
A few months before Linn had broken off their engagement, she’d even suggested they go to Dr. Hastings’s therapeutic retreat together.
To work on their communication. Or, more accurately, Linn’s communication.
She didn’t love the way Linn wore her hair. Or the way Linn talked to her. Or to other people. Or the fact that Linn preferred to snack during the workday, rather than eat big, sturdy meals, a habit Susannah insisted would disrupt her body’s natural rhythm.
She didn’t love Linn’s collection of Smurf-themed kitsch, which she called childish, or Linn’s job, or the way Linn had decorated her apartment.
A few months in, she had made Linn get rid of the teddy bear she’d had since she was a kid.
She had called it infantile, and said it was a sign of regressive thinking.
Linn missed that teddy bear now. She missed it every night, as she was trying to go to sleep, trying not to mind the emptiness of the bed. Trying not to cry into the pillow. Trying not to miss Susannah.
The doorbell rang. Linn’s eyes flew open.
She felt a surge of excitement. Or maybe fear.
Nausea swirled in her stomach, and for a moment, she was overtaken by an urge to ignore it. To stick her fingers in her ears like a kid and wait until the sound went away.
Knowing Susannah, it might take hours.
The comments were still staring at her from the computer screen.
Surely, she could do this. She had already gathered Susannah’s things in a little box, so it would be easy to take with her.
Maybe, just maybe, it could be okay. Maybe Susannah was right.
Maybe just saying goodbye could finally sate that aching loneliness, that feeling of not being quite whole, not being quite enough, that had been haunting her ever since she gave Susannah the ring back.
Linn stood up from the chair. The doorbell rang again, a short, sharp, insistent sound that made her head hurt. She walked out of the office, into the living room, up to the front door.
It was like she could feel Susannah, on the other side of the thick wooden door. The heat of her. Her scent still seemed to invade every corner of the apartment; Linn didn’t know if it was really there, or if she was imagining it. Olfactory haunting.
“Baby?”
She could hear Susannah pleading.
Last time she had come, she had been banging on the door. Screaming. Angry.
She didn’t sound angry now.
“Please, baby, open the door.”
She sounded like herself again; like the woman Linn had fallen in love with. The woman she had seen less and less of, as time had gone on.
“I just want to talk. I’ll leave if you ask me to leave. I just want to see you, one last time.”
Linn’s eyes were stinging.
She had always been able to rely on her brain. When she had fallen short in other areas, her intelligence had been enough to get her through.
A smart girl. That’s how people thought of her. Never quite funny enough, never quite charming enough, but sharp.
Why was it, then, that Susannah made her feel so unsure?
Linn stared at the lock. It looked a thousand miles away.
“I love you.” Susannah’s voice sounded choked, and the pain in it caused Linn to want to weep.
She saw herself reaching out, like in a dream, as though someone else were controlling her hand. Saw her own fingers close around the lock and turn it.
The clicking seemed to stop the world.
Maybe a second passed. Maybe an hour. Linn felt like she couldn’t move.
Then she saw the door handle twisting down, and the door slowly opening.
Susannah looked beautiful. She always did. The first time Linn saw her, a thought had struck her, as if not her own: She is like the moon.
Pale, and luminous, and perfect.
Susannah’s face broke out in a smile so wide it must hurt.
“Hi, sweetie.”
She stepped in through the door, and for a moment, it was like time travel; like they were in the Before, when none of the bad things had yet happened, when Susannah had never looked at her with anything but what felt like pure adoration. When Linn had never been afraid of her.
Susannah reached for her, but a little voice, far back in Linn’s mind, whispered:
No.
It almost sounded like her mother’s voice, the way she remembered it.
Linn found her voice again.
“I put your things in a box.”
She thought that she sounded small, and weak. Why would anyone ever listen to her?
And, indeed, Susannah didn’t.
Instead, she closed the door behind her, like she had every right to. Like she belonged there.
“I think you should take your things and go.” Linn was whispering, and it hurt to say it, and it frightened her, too. Enough that she looked down on the floor.
“Come on, baby. We’re not in a hurry.” Susannah was using her affectionate voice, the one that seemed to imply that Linn was being silly, that she was causing trouble, but that Susannah was willing to put up with it.
It would have been so easy to give in. Everything in her body was straining toward Susannah.
But that little voice, the same one that had made her post to that forum, the same one that had made her give the ring back, the same one that kept telling Susannah to go even as Linn’s blood was dripping onto the black-and-white tile in the kitchen and Susannah looked as though she might do something far worse than slap her, wouldn’t let her give in.
“No,” Linn said. “You can take your things, and we can say goodbye. But then I want you to leave.”
The silence fell like thunder between them.
“You’re not scared of me,” Susannah said. Like a question. Like a command. “Jesus, Linn. For fuck’s sake.”
Linn flinched.
“Come on,” Susannah said, raising her voice. “What do you think is going to happen? What, you think I’m going to hit you? Is that really the kind of person you think I am?”
“No.” But she couldn’t keep herself from shrinking back, the memory of the pain and the shock still vivid in her mind.
Susannah shifted in an instant. She’d always had that ability.
“You hate me,” Susannah spit out. “Is that it? You hate me now. I thought you loved me, but I guess you think I’m just fucking trash.”
“I don’t.” Linn didn’t want to play this game; didn’t want to reassure Susannah, didn’t want to keep bending until she broke.
“But you have to go. You said you’d leave if I asked you to leave. And I’m … asking you.”
When she looked up, Susannah’s eyes were huge, brimming with tears, making Linn’s whole body ache.
But then her arm shot out, and she pushed Linn in the chest.
It hurt, hurt worse than it should have, and it knocked the air out of her; she almost fell, stumbled backward over the cast-iron shoe stand Susannah had insisted on buying, but managed to catch herself on the door to the closet and stay upright.
She gasped for air as Susannah grabbed her arm and hauled her up. She tried to cry out, but she couldn’t breathe, and all that came out was a pathetic gasp.
Susannah shook her by the arm, making it feel like the arm would tear from its socket, and Linn moaned in pain.
“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me!” Susannah wasn’t yelling; she was talking normally, like they were just having a conversation, but her eyes were blazing black, her pupils fully dilated, and this was worse than last time, so much worse.
“Fine,” Linn managed to gasp out. “I’m sorry.”
She just had to calm her, like she had a thousand times before. All she had to do was buy some time.
This had been a mistake. But this time, she would learn. She wouldn’t make this mistake again. She would protect herself.
Susannah let go of her arm, and Linn pulled it to her, massaging it; Susannah’s lips twitched as she looked at Linn.
Like she was fighting a smile.
And for the first time, Linn felt a spark of anger.
That little voice again.
This is not right.
I should call the police.
Linn was going to lie. Make up some story. But she had never been a very good liar.
She had never had cause to be, before Susannah.
Susannah saw something in her face. Linn didn’t know what. But she saw her own feeling mirrored in Susannah’s eyes, saw the rage returning, so Linn turned and ran.
Ran toward the office. Ran toward the phone.
She only made it a step before a hand got ahold of her hair and tugged, tugged backward, so hard she tasted blood, so hard she felt her scalp lifting from her skull.
And she lost her balance, and she fell.
For a moment, she was flying. Floating in the air. A singular eternity.
The knowledge ringing clearly within, finally.
This is not what love feels like.
And then she was flying no longer.
She heard the crunching of her skull as it struck the cast-iron shoe stand before she felt it.
And then she was on the floor, and she couldn’t move. She knew she had to move, but she couldn’t feel her hands. Or her feet.
Or anything at all.
“Linn? Linn? You’re okay, baby, you’re okay, I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t my fault, you shouldn’t have run like that, I got startled. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. You’re going to be fine, okay? Can you get up? You have to get up, baby. Please. Come on.”
The voice dissolved into a buzzing sound, and then she couldn’t hear anything at all anymore.
For a moment, it was a relief.
And then that, too, was nothing.