by Maisey Yates
She had been walking on her own two feet, letting Peyton move ahead of her. Peyton had been skipping, her ponytail bouncing as she had approached the uniformed officers and asked for their support in helping her earn an owl keychain, for which she had to sell one hundred and fifty boxes.
She had walked out with a full order form and Avery had listened to her chatter the whole way home, her excited voice filling the car.
It had felt perfect.
Not now. It was dark now, and Hannah and Lark were on either side of her, their arms linked through hers, bracing her. It was only their strength that held her up, that propelled her forward. Without them, she didn’t know if she would be able to stay standing.
For two years she’d taken it. More than taken it, she’d hid it for him. And for more years than that she’d pretended their relationship wasn’t corroding.
One day she’d been cleaning the silver glasses they’d used at their wedding and had noticed a black blotch at the center and for some reason, she’d quit polishing it. She’d watched it grow. For years she’d watched the tarnish on that silver spread, grow, and there had been something satisfying in it.
It was them, she realized now.
That silver had been her private homage to their degradation.
So she was here now, making public what had been a shameful secret.
On some level she had known. She had known that it was getting to this point. She had hoped—no, she had prayed. She had prayed that it would be an anomaly. That it would stay that way. That it would happen once. Twice. But it was escalating.
He had cared, at least for a while, about making sure that none of his fits of rage were visible anywhere on her body. That nobody would know that he had vented his frustration, her body a journal of his professional disappointments, his personal inconveniences. Sore muscles and bruises on her arms, impressions of his fingers dug deep into the upper part of her arm. She had learned to carry that over the last couple of years. Had learned to push it down and just not think about it.
She had compartmentalized. Turned him into good David and bad David and made sure they were never the same man in her mind. But now, everything had collided. And as she’d been looking at herself in the mirror and laying on as much concealer as she possibly could, she had to actually look herself in the eyes while she contended with a mark left behind by her husband. And that was so much harder. So much harder than putting on a sweatshirt and covering it up.
And it was a testament to her denial, and perhaps to the kinds of friendship she had or didn’t that she had been convinced all she needed was some makeup and a backup story and nobody would ask questions. And no one had. Not at school. Not in the drop-off or pickup line. Not at coffee, where she had continued to have discussions with a whole group of women about trivia night.
What Hannah had said about her being head cheerleader of town had been echoing in her head. Was that was she was? Just...this sad woman clinging to being popular like she’d been in high school?
And all the good it had done her. She couldn’t talk to any of the people who were part of that piece of her life.
It was her mother, her sisters who had seen. Who had pressed.
She should have known she couldn’t hide it from them.
The next steps of the process went by in a blur. Hannah did most of the talking as she made arrangements for Avery to speak to a police officer. She was taken into a room, and given paperwork. She was questioned, and she was given a form that said Victim Statement on it.
Victim.
It was so difficult to see that word and know that she needed to write below it. Know that she was a victim, and this was a form for her.
“Do you need any help?”
The female police officer with a sympathetic expression and a name tag that read L. Dempsey was staring at her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and staring at the blank page, doing her best to try to fill out the specifics of everything that had happened. She focused on the other night. Not on the escalation, or on any of the other days.
“We need to take pictures,” the woman said softly. “Of where he left marks.”
She closed her eyes. “Everywhere?”
“Yes.”
Officer Dempsey was gone for a moment, and when she returned she had a mirror, and some facial wipes. Which was when Avery realized, she needed the bruise to show. It certainly didn’t need to be partly covered up. There was a small mirror next to the chair she’d been sitting in, and she looked into it, as she slowly dragged the cloth over her face. As she removed the layers of makeup, the bruise bloomed darker, like a perverse rose.
She looked at the officer, nearly defiant. But the other woman’s expression was a study in neutrality. There was no pity there, no sympathy. But no judgment, either. And Avery found she was thankful for that. She photographed her face quickly.
“Anywhere else?”
Avery nodded slowly. And with glacial movements, took hold of the hem of her sweater, pulling it up over her head. She had a tank top on underneath that, but she pulled it up over her head as well. The room they were in was completely closed off from the outside. She was almost certain there were bruises down her back, from where she had been thrown up against the wall the other night.
Tears pooled in her eyes as she pushed her leggings down her hips, exposing the bruises on her hips, her thighs. She held her arms out, extended slightly from her sides. She closed her eyes as the police officer circled her, taking pictures. She listened to her own breath, echoing in her ears, and her heartbeat, moving quickly, terror making her limbs weak.
Her heart beat, and the camera clicked.
Victim.
It was documented, all those bruises.
Avery had gotten really good at living for the moment she wasn’t in. At just moving herself outside of her body. Which was what she did now. She felt like she was standing with her sisters, staring at this thin, bedraggled woman in her underwear. Having pictures taken of her body. Exposing herself, but not just her skin. The way she’d been living for quite some time. The things she’d been hiding, desperately.
Here it was all out in the open.
She was caught somewhere between power and devastation.
“We have enough to make an arrest,” the officer said. “We’re able to hold him for about twenty hours. And in that time, we will submit all of this to the district attorney. That will decide if the case proceeds.”
Avery nodded, as if that made sense to her. None of it really did. That she was standing here didn’t make a whole lot of sense. That her life had brought her to a police station.
That her marriage vows had become... Nothing. They weren’t anything.
It wasn’t a marriage. Not anymore.
She went to bed every night with the man that hit her. She let him kiss her.
After those hands hit her, she let him put them on her body.
And it wasn’t good David and bad David, it was all just David.
“I’ll let you get dressed.”
Avery dressed, her fingers cold as she pulled her shirt back on, tugged her pants back over her hips. Then she just stood there in that room, the fluorescent lights buzzing as she tried to orient herself.
She breathed in deep. Felt her feet connected firmly with the floor. Felt the air fill her lungs.
She was still here.
She hadn’t fallen apart.
She swallowed hard, then turned and walked out of the room. Lark and Hannah were standing outside, both standing, holding the straps of their purses, their right legs bent, left legs straight. And it was so absurd, the two of them standing just the same with concerned looks on their faces.
She wanted to laugh, because it would horrify them to know they looked so alike.
But she didn’t have it in her.
“
What do you want to do?” Lark asked. “Do you want to go buy cake?”
“No,” she said. “I think I just want to go home. To The Dowell House.”
“Then let’s go home.”
As they walked out of the police station, and out onto the darkened street, she felt like she’d left her pride on the floor in there. That when she’d picked her clothing back up and put it on her body, she hadn’t been able to reclaim that. And she wondered how long it would be before she felt... Good. Certain that she’d done the right thing. Proud. Like a survivor. Like something other than a woman staring at a life that was shattered beyond recognition.
You weren’t the one who shattered it.
She clung to that. Like a diamond in the middle of lumps of coal. She hadn’t done this. She wasn’t perfect. But she had never abused his trust. And he had done it to her now, countless times. Over and over again. He demanded better of her constantly while giving nothing more of himself. He had pushed it here. He had done this.
She tried to feel angry, and didn’t have the energy for it.
But someday she would.
Someday, she would think about that, and she would feel... She would feel angry. Angry like Hannah. At him, and maybe at herself. And she would cry. She would cry just like Lark was. But for now, she found she couldn’t do either. So she let her sisters take her by the arms again, and let them feel all the things she couldn’t quite yet.
17
The best part about being in the studios is we get invited to the parties after. Champagne and brilliant food. Everyone is so beautiful. Sam says he’s going to help me audition for a role that’s more than just background and I can’t wait.
Ava Moore’s diary, 1923
Hannah
Hannah felt completely drained by the time they brought Avery back home. They poured glasses of wine, but then Avery had suddenly been overcome by exhaustion, and she and Lark had helped her up to bed. She wanted to be unconscious when the police went and handcuffed her husband.
Hannah couldn’t blame her for being tired. It echoed inside of her. It was just such a helpless feeling, and Hannah didn’t like helpless. Selfishly, she had it up to the very top of her being with helplessness. Because even though she knew it wasn’t the dissolution of the marriage, or abuse or anything like that, she was still so... She was so angry about the principal chair position, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing at all. She also had to put it on hold while they dealt with Avery, which was fine.
Except it was eating at her.
Her own secret that would never be as important as the one Avery was dealing with.
One that still had the power to cut and wound.
She had others. But they were like scars. Hardened and raised and like armor, not wounds.
And it was just... She wasn’t used to this. She wanted to fix it. She wanted to make things change with the force of her... Her feelings. Her deep conviction that it shouldn’t be like this. She wanted to knock David sideways, and she wanted to tell Avery to quit being sad about him. That was it. She just didn’t want her to be sad. Because he wasn’t worth it.
But she had a mortgage and kids and all kinds of things that made it complicated. And even if Hannah didn’t fully understand it, she could sort of get how... How it was complicated for Avery to lose that marriage even though it clearly wasn’t a great one.
But Hannah just wanted it to be fixed for her. And she couldn’t do it. Any more than she could fix the situation with her career. Well, at least that was... No. There was no at least. She had been working for years for that. And it was just... It was just a no. And there was no way of knowing when another seat would open up. Yes, she could start applying to other symphonies. But there weren’t very many that paid as well. Maybe she could go take Ilina’s spot in LA. But it still wasn’t a principal spot. And it wasn’t what she had set her mind on.
She took her violin off of the mantel.
She went downstairs, and saw Lark lying on the couch, holding her knitting above her head, making slow stitches.
“I’m going out,” Hannah said.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Lark said.
“Which would be?”
Lark shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.”
“It will be too late by then.”
Hannah stepped outside and looked down the street. She could drive. But then, she wouldn’t be able to drink. She started walking toward the Gold Pan. She had avoided that place. She had avoided... Honestly, anything that made her feel like she was back in town. Really back.
But her future was... She didn’t even know what it was now. Her plan was upended. And she was here. She wasn’t in Boston. She couldn’t fight her way into the position she wanted, apparently. Any more than she could dedicate herself to the symphony for years and earn it. So maybe for now she would just... Live in the present. It was a strange thought, one that honestly wouldn’t have occurred to her just a couple of days ago. Because the future was what everything was about for her. Planning. Making sure that she got where she wanted to go. That she hit the target she’d been aiming at for all these years.
But she missed it. Somehow. She’d done something wrong, but she didn’t know when or where. She’d had a sense of destiny. Like it was...meant to be.
And that made her feel stupid. Because if she had ever talked to anybody about how she’d gotten where she was, she wouldn’t have said destiny. She would have said that it was hard work. That it was all the lessons that she’d taken, that it was getting that scholarship and going to that college. Making the connections that she had. She would have said that she was the master of her fate, the captain of her ship. And that anyone who wanted to get where she was had to be too. But underneath all of that she had a sense that she was destined for it. And never had that been more clear than in those moments of futile outrage after she found out that she hadn’t gotten the principal position.
So here she was storming down the street in her hometown, headed to the bar holding her violin, which seemed to represent everything that was broken in her life at the moment.
You still have your first chair position.
But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t.
And she had been so close to having her goal. And close to feeling like...enough.
Like she had done it. The reward for all the work she had put in.
She shook her head, looked both ways, and crossed quickly at the crosswalk, and then again, making her way down the street, across four blocks to the Gold Pan.
She stopped in front of it, looking through the windows, at least, as well as she could. There were stickers on them. Mostly for energy drinks, ATV companies and truck logos. There was a guy with a guitar sitting on the stage, singing. Avery pushed the door open, and walked in, just as he finished his song. He set his guitar down, and walked off the stage. She did her best to close the distance between them. “Are you jamming?”
“It’s just open mic,” he said.
“Well. Perfect.”
There were a couple names on the sheet at the end of the bar ahead of her. And she ordered a shot, taking it in one gulp as she took her sweater off, and hung it on the back of the chair. And as she did, she looked up, and locked eyes with Josh.
Because of course Josh was here.
She couldn’t really lie to herself and say that he was the last person she wanted to see. Because she... She wasn’t really unhappy to see him. He was handsome, and familiar, and right at the moment that was a lot more desirable than she would like to admit.
Familiar. This place was familiar. Not because she had spent a lot of time here. She had vacated town before she was of legal drinking age. Not that they hadn’t tried to sneak in. But the real problem with small towns wasn’t so much the difficulty of landing fake IDs, as it was the probability of running into somebody who
knew full well that you weren’t old enough to be in the bar. A teacher from the school, or one of your parents’ friends. Yeah, that was likely. She had walked by the Gold Pan often enough, and looked inside.
But she had never planned on becoming a regular. Not at all. She’d been too busy planning to escape. So it was weird to be here now. At the same time as Josh.
He said something to the guys that he was with, then stood and started walking in her direction. She vaguely recognized at least one of the people he was sitting with. Caleb or something. She had... Maybe science with him or something. But she was too distracted by Josh to think too hard about Caleb. Really the only thing Caleb’s presence accomplished was proving that Josh had aged very well. Because while he had grown into a broader, more masculine body, Caleb had gotten wider at the gut, and his hairline had migrated backward. Not that some people couldn’t work that look. It was just that Josh was one of those guys who would work for anyone.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You look tired.”
“That is literally the worst thing you could say to a woman. Okay, not the worst thing, but it’s a pretty terrible thing to say.”
“Okay, let me try again. Is everything okay?”
She sighed heavily. She didn’t actually want to talk about anything meaningful. “Yes. It’s just been a day.” She didn’t want to get into everything with Avery. Eventually, it was going to be common knowledge. Eventually, it was going to sweep through town.
But it wasn’t right now.
And here she was with her own crap, and no one knew about any of it. There was something freeing in that. Here and now she could give all the space she wanted to her own disappointment.
Maybe it was the chance to take a wound and make it a scar.
She was good at that.
She could do it on her own, no confessional required.
“Great. I heard it was open mic night.” That was a lie. But really, there was no way to explain why she was here with her violin otherwise. Not without letting him into her head. Which she wasn’t going to do. He didn’t belong in her head, in her life.