Chapter 9 #2
He couldn’t guess my relationship with pain. I don’t wear it like a badge; I’m quite practiced hiding it. Enduring it. Stewie’s needle strikes were nothing more than a tickle in comparison. A controlled pain is welcome, compared to the unexpected type I’ve been living with.
Now, we sit at Miss B’s, the same pregnant server from my first visit here waiting to take our order.
“The chocolate cake,” I say. “And the strawberry milkshake.”
“I like the way you live,” she says with a wide smile.
“You know what? Fuck it,” Juliet says. “I’ll have the carrot cake with a butterscotch milkshake.”
“You got it, ladies,” the server says before retreating behind the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“Can we share?”
“I was hoping you’d ask that,” Juliet says.
She checks a few notifications on her phone while I stare out the window at the people walking by.
The weather is changing, the late spring rain taking a backseat to midday sunshine.
A strong ray shines through, casting a flower shadow on the table from the vase that holds a single white Gerber daisy.
Single. Alone, but with a sturdy stem that allows her to hold her head high.
The simple beauty makes me smile sadly. I want to be that flower.
Some days, I feel like I am…today, for instance.
Then, there’s a trigger, an intrusive thought, something to drag me back into the shadows I’m trying so hard to escape.
Memories can be the death of hope. Each time you think you have the strength to step into the light, one comes along to remind you how often you failed at that in the past.
And I have. Many times.
Once you open the door to one, the other memories that were waiting in the wings come rushing through with it. A montage. Like a movie showing rapid flashbacks, they bombard.
Every slap, each punch. The foot at my throat when he finally knocked me down. All the foul names. The angry sex that teetered the line of descriptions I’m not yet ready to face.
The things I hated. The ones I thought I deserved. The few I enjoyed.
The daisy petal shivers under my trembling fingertips. We’re more alike than I thought. Fragile, pretty things. Look, but don’t touch, for we break too easily and take so long to grow back.
I pull back.
I don’t want her to break. She’s not mine. I’m not him. There’s nothing in me that craves another’s harm.
“Where does it come from?”
“What?” Juliet says, looking up from her phone.
“Where do you think it comes from? Their need to hurt.”
“Oh, Louisa,” she says, reaching out to twine her fingers with my own. My fingernails are chipped and worn. They look awful next to her perfectly manicured set. “It’s nothing you did. You know that, right?”
“No, Jules. It’s quite literally everything I did.”
“Nothing you did, or ever could have done, deserved the treatment you got,” she says, sternly.
Near anger, now. “I don’t know why so many men are like that, why they need to assert control, or dominance.
I suspect there are a lot of reasons. Mommy issues, daddy issues, past abuse of their own, general sociopathy. Whatever his reason, it wasn’t you.”
“When you say it, it sounds true.”
“Because it is.” The server comes back to drop off our food. “Thank you.”
“Anything else, for now?”
“No, I think this gets us started,” I tell her, watching as she lowers the tray to her side and rubs her swollen belly. “What’s your name?”
“Miley.”
“Thanks so much, Miley.”
“You’re welcome.” She saunters off with a smile.
“That’s what I thought my life would be like, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
I take a bite of the chocolate cake, and I moan in pleasure.
Juliet laughs. “Right? This is the best carrot cake I’ve ever had.”
“I mean, I didn’t have career aspirations as a kid,” I tell her, moving my fork to her plate and picking up a piece covered in cream cheese frosting. “Working a good, honest, blue-collar job is all I ever thought I’d do. When did you know what you wanted to do?”
“All I knew was that I wanted out of Stowaway. When the initial offer from the University of Portland came through, I remember staring at their list of academics and feeling so overwhelmed that I almost closed my eyes and pointed to a program. I had no clue what I wanted to do,” she says, copying me and stealing a piece of my cake.
“Communications sounded like the best bet, because it gave me several options that were appealing. Mostly ones that let me be in some kind of spotlight, which I adore.”
“That’s where we were complete opposites then, because I never wanted that. I was the consummate wallflower growing up.”
“And then you became a supermodel.”
“Stop calling me that,” I say, laughing and reaching for a sip of her shake. “Holy shit, that’s good. I can’t remember the last time I had butterscotch anything.”
“Me either, but it was my favorite flavor as a kid.”
“Mine was strawberry. I’m such a basic bitch at heart.”
“Girl, what? You are anything but basic.”
“That’s the thing, though. I am. Everything anyone knows about me is a show. My whole life is a fraud.” I’m the fakest person I know. My own thoughts are lies. “The act is more me than my own self is.”
“I’m sure it feels like that,” she says. “Have you thought about therapy?”
“I have,” I tell her. “Stowaway isn’t teeming with them, so I’ve been trying to set up a virtual session.”
“That’s good. I’m proud of you, Louisa,” she says.
An uncontrollable sob erupts out of me, and I bury my face in my palms.
“Shit, what did I say?”
“Nobody’s ever said that to me,” I cry.
“Ever?” She sounds aghast. As if it’s such a common thing to hear. At twenty-eight, this is my first time.
“Ever,” I confirm. “Not even Carolyn has said it, and she’s made millions off me over my career.”
“That’s because she’s a cunt,” she says, making me laugh. “You’ve been proud of yourself, though, yeah?”
Her question surprises me, because I’ve never put much thought into it. I’ve been excited about jobs I’ve landed, coveted covers I’ve graced, and world-class designers I’ve worked with. But I always chalked it up more to luck than anything.
“Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“You’re a hard worker who has accomplished what so many only dream of. That’s something to be proud of. But what you should be most proud of is that you left. You took the leap,” she says, pointing to the spot under my T-shirt that now carries that one word.
I did do those things. Before Pierre, maybe I was proud of the direction my career was taking. Then, he wormed into my brain and made me second-guess and doubt.
“I leaped,” I confirm with soft confidence.
Walking away from Pierre was the hardest, most profound thing I’ve ever done. Staying away is even harder.