The Open Road

by Quinn Loftis

  Samantha nodded.

  “Told you he was an ass,” Charity muttered though her words were more sympathetic than harsh.

  “That was the first night he threatened me,” Samantha said.

  “Look at me.” Derek snarled as they walked back into their apartment. Samantha had been at the office for four hours. It was after midnight and she felt like she was going to drop where she stood.

  She turned to look at him and wasn’t surprised to see he was still enraged.

  “I saw all of those men watching you when we walked into that office. I could see them undressing you with their damn eyes. You better listen and listen good. If you ever cheat on me, I will not only kill the son of a bitch, I will kill you too. But it won’t be quick. I will make you suffer. You will feel all of the pain I feel and I’d bury you where no one would ever find you. No one would be able to come to your grave and visit you or put flowers there. But I would know and I could come walk all over your grave as often as I wanted. You get me?”

  Samantha retched as she looked at him and saw no remorse in his eyes. He was supposed to love her, wasn’t he? She began to tremble.

  “Do. You. Get. Me?” He asked again and took a menacing step toward her.

  She held up a hand, as if she’d be able to stop him if he decided to hit her. “Ye-y-y-yes,” she stuttered. “I understand.” Samantha took a deep breath and forced herself to keep calm. Then she did something she didn’t think she’d be able to do that night, not after everything he’d said to her. She placed her hand on his chest and stroked him gently. Samantha looked up into his eyes and pictured the man she fell in love with, the charming, funny man instead of the monster that stood before her. “Derek, I love you. I choose you. I don’t want anyone else and I would never hurt you that way because I love you.”

  He gripped the back of her hair and jerked her head back roughly. She didn’t fight him, she just waited. “You better, because you are mine. You will always be mine. And I will kill anyone who tries to take you from me. That means even you.” He practically lunged at her mouth. The kiss was violent and dominating. It wasn’t a kiss to show her how much he cared for her. It was a kiss to show Samantha how much stronger he was than her. Derek wanted her to feel how powerful he was and how helpless she was in comparison.

  Samantha blinked several times as she realized there were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away hastily as she looked from Charity to Jessica. “Sorry. Remembering is hard. I had no doubt that he wasn’t bluffing. He later said if I ever even looked at another man, he would kill us both. The rest of the night I spent trying to talk him down because I was seriously scared. A part of me said I should just leave and never come back, but I knew he wouldn’t let me go. He would track me down and keep harassing and threatening me until I came back home. Things escalated pretty quickly after that night. The physical stuff started a couple months after the night of the text incident. He was always careful not to leave any marks on my face or arms.”

  Samantha closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Maybe if she rubbed hard enough, she could erase the memories she had of Derek.

  “You do know you aren’t the only woman to fall into the trap of an abusive relationship, right?” Jessica asked.

  Samantha nodded. “It’s just that I look back and I think I should have been smarter. I should have been braver.”

  “And where has that gotten you?” Charity asked. “You any closer to dragging yourself out of your pity party and realizing you’re too damn young to be acting like your life is over?”

  “It hasn’t gotten me anywhere and I’m beginning to see that. Maybe getting the whole story out will be a good starting place,” Samantha said.

  Jessica nodded. “I think it’s a perfect starting place. Say what you need to say. Acknowledge that, maybe, you could have done things differently but it’s the past and wishing you could change it doesn’t do anything but waste wishes. We are not in the business of wasting wishes.”

  Charity pointed at Jessica. “Girl has a point.”

  Samantha smiled. “No more wasting wishes. Agreed.” She took a deep breath and prepared herself to get the rest out. She needed Jessica and Charity to know all of it and she hadn’t realized it until that moment.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have put up with it. I knew I should have just left for good, go to the police, do something, anything. But part of me, a big part of me, still loved him. And every time it happened, he would apologize and always try to make me forget what he’d done by performing some grand romantic gesture, which, unfortunately, usually worked. The most I would ever do would be to leave and go back home and stay with my mom for a few days. Then he’d show up with a damn wedding magazine, or a card from a wedding photographer, claiming he’d changed and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He’d always say I was his queen, and a king was nothing without his queen, and he was nothing without me. Like a fool, I would always come crawling back.

  “This went on for several more months. I think, at this point, we’d been together on and off for over two years, actually longer, because I turned twenty-one during this period, so it must have been two and a half. I remember because he took me out and got me hammered. I didn’t even want to drink but he insisted. It was just an excuse to sexually assault me. He wanted to do things to me without me being able to resist him.” Samantha didn’t want to remember the things Derek had done to her. Bile rose in her throat and she pushed the images away.

  “You can stop if you need to,” Jessica said.

  Samantha shook her head. “I need to do this.” She blew out a breath, causing her cheeks to puff out and then she forged ahead.

  “During this stage of the relationship, I was just numb, going through the motions. I felt trapped and helpless. At some point, though, something awoke within me. I began to start thinking and feeling for myself again. I hid it from him, acting every bit the cowed and submissive girlfriend. He called me his fiancée, even though I didn’t have an actual ring on my finger. Slowly, I started hatching a plan to get out of the relationship. With Jerry’s help, I began exploring the possibility of reapplying to community college and eventually getting a paralegal certificate. They make good money and doing that would give me the power to get away, something else to focus on than Derek.” Samantha closed her eyes as she spoke about one of the scariest times of her life.

  “Where’ve you been?” Derek asked as Samantha entered their apartment. She noticed immediately there were already four empty beer cans sitting on the coffee table.

  “I had some errands to run and thought I’d let you sleep in,” she said, smiling and trying to portray a sense of calm she didn’t feel. For the past few weeks, she’d been working on getting accepted into the community college program for paralegals and her boss had been helping her. Everything had to be done in secret because if Derek found out, she couldn’t imagine what he would do. Samantha just knew it would be bad.

  “You know I don’t like you to leave without you telling me where you’re going,” he rumbled as he sat down on the couch and popped open another beer can.

  “I left you a note,” Samantha motioned toward the counter in the kitchen. “It told you exactly what I was doing. I ran to Walmart to get some feminine products.” That was one of Samantha’s go to errands when she needed to get away because Derek refused to go into the store with her when she had to purchase them. “And you needed deodorant. Then I went to the bank and deposited my check.” She’d shown him the check the night before because he insisted on seeing a physical paycheck before she deposited it. He wouldn’t allow her boss to do automatic deposit. Samantha knew it was just one more way he asserted his control over her. Derek would check the bank account and make sure she deposited the full amount without holding back any cash.

  What she didn’t mention about her morning errands was that she’d met up with Jerry, her boss, to discuss options for school. Scholarships were mostly out of the question because she’d been do
ing virtually nothing for two years since she’d graduated. And even if Samantha could get them, she had no way to apply. Derek got to the mailbox every day before she did—he was home during the day, of course—and if he’d have seen a bunch of mail coming from the college, he would have flipped out. So, she started saving the only cash she had access to that he didn’t know about—her Roanoke’s Roasters’ tips.

  Jerry had offered to pay her some under the table but Samantha didn’t feel right about it. Her boss had been so understanding of her situation and genuinely wanted to see her succeed, not only in school, but also in getting out from under Derek’s control.

  “Next time, wake me up before you leave,” Derek finally said after staring at her for several minutes. It was an intimidation tactic he used when he thought she was hiding something from him. Once upon a time, it had worked, but not anymore. Not since he’d so eloquently described how he would murder her and hide her body.

  “So that explains why you still work at Roasters,” Jessica interrupted.

  Samantha pushed away the memories and re-focused on her friends. “No, no,” said Sam. “There’s another reason I haven’t gotten to yet. Right now, I can’t even get by with only one job. I need the extra money because, not only did we have a joint checking account, we also had a credit card together. Derek was nice enough to run up an eight-thousand-dollar balance before he disappeared. Since both of our names are on it, guess who got stuck footing the bill? There was also rent-to-own furniture we bought together, all in my name, of course.”

  “Ouch,” said Jessica, her eyes wide. “Dude is a class A dickhead.”

  “And douche bag,” Charity added. “Someone needs to beat him with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Go all Walking Dead on his ass.”

  “Brutal,” Jessica chuckled. “But not un-true.”

  “Not un-true in the least,” Samantha said. “I had no idea he was even using the credit card. It was supposed to be only for emergencies.”

  “Bastard,” breathed Jessica.

  “Anyway, back to my escape plan. I began saving my tips and scraping together every bit of cash I could get my hands on. Eventually, I had almost two thousand dollars saved up. I put the money in a baggie and hid it in a canister of flour. Lord knows he never cooked, so he wasn’t going to find it there.

  “At the same time, I opened up a post office box where I had my college application materials sent. I would go by on the way home from work and check it every day. It only took a few minutes so I was never late, and he never suspected anything.”

  “I really didn’t know how bad it was, did I?” Charity asked softly. “You were a prisoner in your own relationship.”

  “I didn’t want you to know,” Samantha said. “Most days, I worked at the coffee shop so I would get home, have just enough time to fix him dinner and change, then I’d be off to Roasters. This went on for months like clockwork. But I guess one day his paranoia got the better of him. Even though I was never late coming home, not once, he decided to come up to my work and spy on me one day. At quitting time, I left work as always and went to the post office. I had no idea he was following me. He confronted me as I was coming out of the building. By some terrible cosmic coincidence, this just happened to be the day I received my college acceptance letter.”

  “What the hell is this?” He snapped as he ripped the envelope open and pulled out the piece of paper that had been Samantha’s hopes and dreams. Derek began reading it out loud and, by the time he was done, he was shaking.

  “Derek,” Samantha said calmly, “You need to calm down, please.”

  He looked up from the letter and his eyes danced with rage. “You don’t tell me to calm down, you lying bitch. You don’t tell me to do anything. I wear the pants in this relationship. I will not be told how to act by some weak woman. And this,” he crushed the letter in his hand, “is not happening! What else have you been keeping from me, huh? What the hell else, Samantha? Do you have some pimp on the side who’s footing the bill for all of this? Maybe that hotshot lawyer boss? Did you let him screw you so he’d pay for you to go to college?”

  Samantha gasped and took a step back. “How dare you!” She raised her voice, which was something she tried very hard never to do around Derek. “I am not a whore! I have been nothing but faithful to you.”

  “No, you haven’t. This isn’t being faithful. Applying to college behind my back, that’s just another form of cheating. I told you if you ever cheated on me that I’d kill him and you. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you yet, but I am killing this little plan right now.”

  Samantha watched in horror as he tore the letter into tiny little pieces and threw them up into the air. “You are never going to college. You are never leaving me. Now get in your car and get your ass home. We can finish this there.”

  Samantha wiped more tears from her eyes as she relived those painful moments. Charity was cursing under her breath and Jessica looked ready to kill Derek. “I freaked out,” she continued, “when I saw him tear up my college admissions letter. I started screaming at him and I didn’t stop. I guess all the things he’d done to me had been building up inside, and the dam finally broke. He did not take it well. He started screaming back, and I think he would have beaten me to death right there in the parking lot if we’d have been alone. But we were drawing attention, and a lady came out of the post office and said she was calling the police. I jumped in my car and took off. I didn’t know where to go. I was in hysterics, screaming and crying. I could hardly see to drive.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Charity asked, practically pleading with her as if she could change the past. “I would have helped you.”

  “I know and that’s the problem. Derek would have hurt you if you helped me and I wasn’t about to let him touch you.”

  “But you thought it was okay for him to touch you?” Charity asked as she shook her head. “Your life is not worth less than mine or anyone else’s, Sam. You are worthy of help. Please, please know that.”

  “I’m getting there,” she smiled. “On this particular night, I happened to have the night off from the coffee shop, but I didn’t know where else to go so I went there anyway. I guess the place had become a safe haven for me, the one constant in my terribly screwed up life. When I got there, Tran calmed me down. He knew Derek, of course, and hated him. Tran had banned him from the shop a long time ago. Tran is nothing if not a good judge of character.” She paused for a moment as she gave that realization consideration. She’d blown off Tran’s evaluation of Jason O’Neal, but maybe she’d been too hasty. Maybe the guy really was genuine. It was something she’d have to think more about. Samantha didn’t want to have jaded feelings about men. She didn’t want to think the worst of people. Maybe Jason O’Neal wasn’t as bad as she thought.

  Setting that aside, she said, “Tran saw straight through Derek’s bullshit the moment he met him. Tran kicked him out and told Derek if he ever came back, he would shove bamboo shoots under his fingernails like his uncle used to do the American scum that invaded his home country of Vietnam. I don’t think he was joking in the slightest.”

  “Tran made me call this girl,” said Sam, indicating Charity, “to come and pick me up.”

  “Why didn’t you call her to begin with?” asked Jessica, frowning. Though the question had already been asked by Charity, Samantha could tell Jessica thought there was more to it than what she’d answered and maybe there was.

  “I don’t know,” answered Sam. “Her relationship with Brent was getting hot and heavy at this point. I didn’t want to bother her. And I didn’t want her to get hurt. We’d grown apart, to be honest.” She winced under the reality of those words.

  “And whose fault was that?” said Charity, crossing her arms, sniffing, and tilting her head so that her chin pointed toward the ceiling.

  “I know, I know,” conceded Sam. “You tried to pull me outta that mess, but I wouldn’t listen. He had me brainwashed. I stayed at Charity’s apartme
nt that night and slept on her couch. I was terrified Derek was going to show up there and cause trouble. He knew where she lived and, as you might expect, he HATED Charity.”

  “I wish he would have shown up. I’ve got a 9mm in my bedside table. Every bullet in the gun has the name Derek written all over it. Plus, Brent was there too. He would have kicked the shit out of Derek’s skinny ass if he tried anything.” Charity wasn’t exaggerating. Sam knew her friend well enough to know that she would have used that gun if she truly thought it was necessary.

  “Luckily, Derek stayed away. We didn’t hear anything out of him. He didn’t even text me, which I couldn’t believe. I thought for sure he was going to be blowing up my phone. The next day I borrowed some of Charity’s clothes and went to work. I could have gone home in the morning and taken a shower and gotten my own clothes, but I was scared he’d be there and that he’d still be mad. All day at work I was a nervous wreck. I was terrified he would show up, cause a scene, and get me fired, but he never did. When 5:00 came around, I practically ran to my car, jumped in, and locked the door, thinking he would jump out from behind a bush and grab me at any second. Still, though, he was nowhere in sight.”

  “That’s almost scarier than having him screaming in your face,” said Jessica. “The not knowing when or how. The unknown is often more terrifying than what’s right in front of our faces.”

  “Exactly,” Samantha agreed. “By the time I was supposed to go into work I was a nervous mess and freaking out because I needed to go home and get my Roanoke’s Roasters uniform, but I was scared he might be there waiting for me. Looking back, it was dumb. I could have gone in to work without the uniform. Tran wouldn’t have cared if I’d explained what was going on. I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “Because you totally should have been,” Charity rolled her eyes. “Cut yourself some slack, chick. You were expecting psycho dickwad to ambush you, no one would be thinking clearly under those stressful circumstances.”