Chapter 28 #2
“Right. Finally.” He takes another pull on his cigarette, and I loathe the smell.
“You know, you’ve been so unfair. I can’t believe you’d treat me this way.
Just...just look what you’ve reduced me to.
Having to track you down like a fuckin’ criminal.
You act like I’m some kind of girlfriend beater or some shit.
What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He’s in high dudgeon now.
“Sick, twisted little victim fantasist. I was seriously good to you, Emmy. Let you move into my home, didn’t I?
And before I was ready. But you insisted. Remember that?”
I say nothing. It’s not true. He wanted me to move in so he could add my earnings to his household finances, and hid that hard fact with romantic words and promises.
“And what have you done with your hair?” he asks, like the change is a personal affront.
“I almost didn’t recognise you.” I wish he hadn’t.
He sighs. “Doesn’t suit you.” He takes a strand and tugs on it none too gently.
I pull back, not wanting him to touch me anywhere, now even my hair.
His face hardens as he takes offence, and he tangles his hand in my hair, viciously yanking my head back because he won’t be told no or denied something he wants.
Seriously, I’ve never seen him like this.
He normally uses cutting words, not physical force.
Something is really, really wrong. “What the fuck are you being like this for?” he yells in my face.
“You don’t get to leave me like I’m nothing.
Nobody does that, least of all you. You owe me. ”
I don’t owe you shit, I want to yell at him. Instead, I cringe, hating myself for it. Sadie would never tolerate this. What would Sadie do?
He’s crowding me too much for me to be able to kick him in the nuts, so that’s not an option.
“I’m trying to tell you that…'' He takes a deep breath, as though calming himself down, and leans forward to rest his head against mine. The stale stink of his nicotine breath repulses me, and I wish I had space to back off, even if it does rile him up. I just don’t want him near me. When he next speaks, it’s in a quieter, softer voice.
“I’m trying to tell you that I’ve thought about it long and hard, and.
..yeah. I can forgive you. And I can even deal with your broken plumbing.
I'll sacrifice having kids for you. For you. See? I'm not a monster.” My broken plumbing? Disgusting piece of trash, saying that to me. He brushes my hair away from my face, but it’s nothing like when Eli does it.
There’s no tenderness. There’s just...insistence.
Ownership. “It’s not going to be easy on me, but I can get past everything you’ve done,” he says, wheedling now.
“I know this isn’t like you, so there must be something, you know.
..wrong with you. Other than your messed up…
” He gestures towards my womb. “So after we get your fingers looked at, we’ll see if we can get you looked at, you know, and get you some therapy as well, OK, Emmy?
It’s going to be OK.” I nearly vomit on him when he kisses me wetly on my forehead.
Maybe I should, maybe if I did he’d go away, I think crazily.
“I’ll forgive you,” he continues, his voice cloying.
“I’ll wipe the slate clean, and we’ll start again. It’ll be like nothing ever happened…”
I feel cold. My stomach churns at the thought of leaving Foxton, where I’ve grown, where I’ve been happy.
..only to go back to my old life. The life where I was such a nervous wreck that I could hardly breathe.
Where I cried myself to sleep every night.
Where I shuffled through life, a grey, shapeless thing, staying quiet and trying to fade into the wallpaper to avoid attracting Gav’s anger, always unloved and despised.
Having to drop my knickers to appease him at any given moment, even if I was tired or sick or just didn’t want to.
An emotional punching bag at the mercy of his permanently bitter moods…
And then he lifts his hand to my neck, and strokes down, finishing with his fingertips at my nipple.
“No,” I growl, shoving him away suddenly, not caring that this hurts my injured hand almost past endurance.
If anything, I let the pain spur me on. I glare at him, his shocked face looking so outraged that I would dare push him.
“No, not ever, ever, EVER AGAIN!” I scream in his face, almost squaring up to him, wild rage in my eyes.
He will not drag me back down. I’m not the woman he abused.
I’ve changed. I am stronger. I won’t cower before him for another second.
I am going to do whatever it takes to rid my life of this pathetic bully.
I’m dimly aware of a crashing noise, like a door being kicked in, as Gav grabs my face, his fingers biting hard into my chin.
He stubs his cigarette out on my cheekbone just under my left eye.
I scream like a wounded animal as the pain bursts across my face in a hot spike.
He burned my face. He burned my FACE. What’s he going to do to me. ..
The cigarette is pulled back all of a sudden, thankfully missing my eye, and the air hitting the burning injury stings horribly.
When I look back through streaming eyes, I almost start to sob with relief as I see Eli grappling Gav. He came. I dialled the right buttons on my phone, and he came running.
He’s bristling with fury as he throws Gav onto my kitchen floor like a rag doll and digs his knee into his back.
With one hand he grabs Gav’s hair, much like the dirtbag did to me; with the other he pulls one of Gav’s arms back and up.
Gav yells helplessly and struggles, but he can’t really move in this position.
I look at my boyfriend, the love of my life, and I vaguely wonder if he’s going to snap his neck.
If I thought Gav was angry with me just now, that was barely even a flicker when compared to the white hot rage I see in Eli’s face in this moment.
His eyes are blazing and wild; his teeth are bared like an enraged wolf, and he’s muttering, biting out words I don’t understand in a voice so low and menacing it can barely be heard.
He’s beside himself, like a red mist has descended.
I feel arms holding me upright as my legs start to give out on me.
They belong to Dean. He’s here, too? I grasp onto his arm, and yes, he’s real, looking over me with concerned eyes.
There’s a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead.
They must have run all the way. Are you OK?
He mouths at me. He stares at the burn on my face, gently examining it.
Even though he keeps his fingers far away from the wound, it still stings, and I wince.
“It was his cigarette,” I whisper, feeling lightheaded now, “and...I think my fingers are broken.” I definitely feel odd.
My knees sink again, and I’m fighting not to faint.
Oh god. What if my face scars? Gav will have marked me forever.
Every time I look in the mirror, I will remember…
Dean’s face changes before my dizzy eyes as he helps me to sit on the floor.
All expression drains from his eyes, which is so weird because he’s the most expressive person I know.
It rattles me somewhere deep inside myself, the part of me still watching my surroundings as I fight to regain my composure.
This looks wrong. His blank, vacant look is not right.
As I watch, he turns and walks slowly towards Eli and the still yowling and swearing Gav. The arm that Eli isn’t holding backwards is scrabbling on the floor, looking for purchase on anything so he can fight back. There’s none to be had. Eli has him safely trapped.
“RICH!” Gav screams out. “RIIIIIIICH!” I start to tremble. Rich is here, too? Please, no...he’ll hurt Eli...he’ll hurt Dean...
His screams for his psycho brother are replaced by yells of pain as Dean thoughtfully, coldly stamps on his fingers, grinding them with the heel of his heavy biker boots.
I gasp, but Eli doesn’t even flinch. “Thank you,” he mutters to his cousin.
He looks up at him with a clear, assessing gaze, and then nods once.
“Go back to Emily,” he says calmly. “The police will be here any second.” Dean nods, and walks back over to me, crouching down and checking my fingers as gently as he can as I stare at him.
“Em,” Eli calls in an urgent tone, “talk to me, baby. Are you OK?”
“I…” My head is spinning right now, and it’s hard to form answers.
Eli turns his head to look at me, and I’ve never seen that expression on his face before.
Rage and regret. Desperation flooding his eyes as he searches mine frantically.
Dean signs to him, his movements jerky and fast, but I manage to recognise the signs for ‘broken hand’.
Gav yells as his arm is pulled back harder. Eli is making him pay.
“Police!” I hear someone shout at the door, followed by a more familiar voice yelling, “Em?” in a tone of extreme concern.
Leo. He’s being told to stay back, and Eli yells, “In here!” Some uniformed police come into my home and I suddenly feel terrified that they’re going to arrest the wrong person.
Eli is a huge guy with tattoos holding someone down, and he looks scary when you first meet him and they could easily get the wrong idea, and I can hear Leo yelling, and I’m scared, so I cry out, “The man he’s holding down attacked me!
” But I don’t know how loud I was, and everything seems very far away all of a sudden and all I see are swirling colours surrounding Dean’s face as he grabs me - and then there’s nothing. ..