42 All It Takes Is One Second
FORTY-TWO
All It Takes Is One Second
“But it’s not, Jansen,” I told him. “We’re great ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s just the other one percent that’s messed up. Besides, I’m a grown-up. I can make my own decisions.”
I didn’t add that he could take his free advice and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. No one in the history of siblings has enjoyed getting schooled by their little brother.
Early on in the trip Brian and I decided to go to a nearby steakhouse, where we’d have dinner and a few drinks.
Midway through our first course, we were talking and laughing about everything from our hopes and dreams to what movie we wanted to watch that night.
After dinner, we spilled out to a bar, and I told Brian I hoped to hell there was dancing.
“This is my vacation!” I yelled. “And on vacation I dance!”
God only knows how much we drank at the bar, but when we got back to the house around 2:00 a.m., we were both piss drunk.
I don’t remember what either of us said.
All I know was that at some point our playful banter turned hateful and our happy couple routine went to hell.
There was teasing, harsh words, resentments, defensiveness, and all those things that make a drunken fight the most dangerous kind of fight to have.
I know I let Brian have it; that’s what I do after I bottle up everything inside.
And when I peeled back all those layers of denial and let my drunken self think about and feel everything Brian had done in the time we’d been together, there was only rage underneath.
It was a dangerous, uncontrollable kind of rage.
“Come at me. Give me all you got. You can’t win,” I said, taunting Brian while we were in the midst of arguing.
I always refused to play the victim, and my toughness revealed the fact that my fight or flight reaction fell firmly in the fight category.
I wanted to attack because I was sure Brian was about to attack me.
“What did you fucking say?” Brian snarled as he pushed me up against the wall. “What did you say to me?”
I felt my head snap back and smash into the wall, and a sharp pain shot down into my back. I braced my body to absorb the shock, then I closed my eyes. Clap. Brian slapped me hard, and a familiar sting radiated out from my cheek and across my entire body.
“Okay, motherfucker, I am out of here,” I said as I broke free and ran upstairs, my head throbbing and my cheek burning. I quickly considered running into a room and locking the door, and then I heard the front door slam. Apparently, Brian had decided to walk outside into the dark and cold.
That’s it. It’s over, I thought as I sat down on the top step of the stairs.
I can’t do this again. I can’t. Tears started falling, and I sat frozen with my butt on the stairs, trying to decide if I should lock Brian out.
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I was terrified.
A good ten minutes later, I was still unsure of what I wanted to do, so I walked down the steps toward the front door. Then I heard a knock.
“Brian?” I asked.
“No ma’am,” a voice on the other side said. “This is the Teton County Police Department. Can you open the door?”
I took a deep breath and reached for the door handle, then turned it.
“Good evening. We’ve had a report of a disturbance here,” one of the officers said when I’d fully opened the door. “Our colleague is speaking to the gentleman outside right now, but we’d like to talk to you here. May we come in?”
I ushered the officers inside. As my hands started shaking and my chest tightened, I sat down on the nearest chair, and I opened my mouth.
I didn’t freeze, and my tongue didn’t thicken up.
I stopped worrying who would judge me, and I didn’t think I was disappointing anyone, least of all myself.
I reassured myself that I’d been here before, and I could do it again.
Then I fessed up, telling the Teton County Police Department everything that had happened since dinner.
A few minutes later, I looked out the window toward the driveway, and I saw officers cuffing Brian and taking him away.
Brian was booked in the local jail early that morning, and at his arraignment the judge charged him with domestic battery and interfering with a police officer, which was tacked on because Brian had refused to identify himself when the cops arrived. The next day, he was released on $5,000 bond.
We both went back to LA, but we didn’t return together.
As I sat on the stairs in Wyoming, I’d decided, once and for all, that I was done with Brian and the toxic waste dump we’d found ourselves swimming in for the past year and a half.
For the first time, I really meant it. I couldn’t take him, I couldn’t stand the pain, and I couldn’t face the knowledge that had become so abundantly clear since Brian had been arrested in LA.
In the boxing ring, all it takes is one second to turn a fight around, I thought. You can get the shit beaten out of yourself for nine rounds, but if you catch someone off guard in the tenth, it’s all over.
I knew that if Brian laid his hands on me one more time, and I caught him off guard, I might kill him in self-defense.
If I was in danger in the heat of the moment, with the choice to either freeze, flee, or fight, my base instincts would kick in, and I’d end his life. That was a chance I just couldn’t take.
It was March 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic shut the country down and after I’d returned from Wyoming.
I’d decided to tell the police every detail of the hell I’d endured with Brian.
Now investigators were digging into every violent incident between us in the almost two years we’d been together.
Brian had pleaded no contest, but I knew that with what I was telling the police, he was sure to be found guilty.
It ate at me, but I had to do what was right in the eyes of the law.
Tell that to my heart, though. Despite all he’d done to me, I still loved Brian for who I believed he was.
In my mind, the Brian who hurt me wasn’t the real Brian.
My Brian loved dogs and motorcycles and telling me he loved me.
My Brian had the same three star signs as me, a sure signal that we were cut from the same cloth.
My Brian made me feel alive. My Brian had been there for me when I was at my lowest, and while we faced the same pitfalls, I’d been sure we could avoid them together.
I didn’t know the person Brian turned into when he started raging.
This other Brian seemed to be dissociating, like the rational Dr. Jekyll part of his brain shut off while the violent Mr. Hyde took over.
I was sure he must have a serious mental illness, like bipolar or borderline personality disorder, that could make him change so quickly.
If we can treat that, we’ll get the real Brian back, I thought.
Maybe he won’t be with me, but at least he’ll be himself again.
On July 16, 2020, authorities in LA arrested Brian again, charging him with four domestic assault felonies, one misdemeanor count of battery; two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon (in particular, our garage floor and the stairs, both of which he’d once smashed my body into); and one felony count of dissuading a witness from prosecuting a crime.
That witness was me. After we’d come back from Wyoming, Brian had called and tried to talk me out of pressing charges against him.
As my heart broke into a million pieces, I told him it was too late, and then I told the police.
Brian’s bail was set at $320,000, which is higher than some rapists. I knew, without a doubt, that Brian was fucked.
I wasn’t there to read any of the press that surrounded Brian’s case.
If anyone called my publicist, I didn’t know.
The reason was that I’d checked myself into treatment and planned to stay as long as I needed.
If it was the last thing I did, I was determined to turn my life around, and that started with my sobriety and mental health.