by Toni Aleo
“Are you going to call the cops?”
When I don’t answer, he presses into me again and I cry out, “No, please, that hurts.” Tears are streaming down my face and I can’t breathe as I look up into his face. He’s a monster. He doesn’t care that he is hurting me. He doesn’t care about anything.
“That’s right, now stop this mess. You understand me? The next time you kick me, I’ll make you regret it.”
I nod, choking on my tears as he presses his knee into me again. “Okay. I’m sorry. Please, stop.”
He lets up and I take in a lungful of breath as my tears run into my ears. He then bends down and puts his face beside mine. I cringe away, but he follows and then whispers, “Stop fighting me, Violet.”
Then he slams his knee down onto my stomach, knocking the air out of me. I gasp for breath as he lets me go, standing up over me. I ball up into the fetal position, trying to ease the pain but all I feel is fire. Closing my eyes, I squeeze out my tears, begging God to make the pain stop, to help me as Rob says, “you won’t win. You’ll never win.”
I listen as his footsteps retreat and when I hear the front door slam, I cover my mouth, letting the tears fall as I sob. Slowly I sit up, cringing from the pain but I know if I stay down, I’ll never get up and I have to get up. Just like before. I hate him. With everything inside me but I won’t let him win. I can’t give up. I won’t give up.
Taking in a deep breath, I wail, “Yes, I will!”
A sob escapes from me and I gasp for breath as my heart pounds in my chest. Looking around the room, I blink away my tears as I whisper, “I will.”
Even though no one hears me, I continue to say it as I slowly get up.
I may have not won right now but I will.
I will…
Another week passes and with each day, I slowly begin to hate my life.
I live with a man that I hate. For the last couple days, I sit and think of ways to kill him but I won’t do it because I’m scared of what could happen to me if I did. I have completely shut down when he is around. I don’t talk to him, I don’t look at him and I walk on eggshells around him. I’m biding my time until the moment I can leave, but each time I make a plan and think it’s going to work, I always remember that there is a good chance I won’t get away. I can’t help but think that all this will be a failed attempt. But I refuse to give up, despite working every angle to get away and discovering that each time he finds me. It’s driving me crazy but I have to get out of here, I have to keep trying.
Rob isn’t the only thing that is making me hate my life and myself. It’s my job too. I used to love this place. I used to get so excited about coming here but now I dread it. Now it’s the place I go to make money to leave this state. Tucker is still not talking to me. He didn’t even come to work for the first three days of the week. Dr. McCloud did, claiming that Tucker has to go out of town for something. Tucker hadn’t even told me he was leaving town when usually he tells me everything. He won’t answer my calls or texts and it’s killing me.
I know what you’re thinking. Just tell him. He could help and you would feel better and honestly, I’m starting to feel the same way but each time I look across the hall at his door, I freeze. I can’t do it and I don’t know if I ever will. I’m not sure I can handle what he says and I don’t know if he’ll understand. He’d want to fix it but, like I’ve said before, I don’t know if this is something he can fix and I need to do it myself. I’m stuck between a hard place and a rock and I can’t get out.
Going through my emails, I glance at the clock and even though I’m glad it’s almost time to go home, I have no desire to go there. Rob is on a vacation of some sort and has been home for the last four days. I hate it. Everything I do, he’s there, watching me and yelling that there is something better for me to do than work on the computer. I miss my time to myself and I wish he would go away.
When a knock comes at my door, my pulse speeds up at the possibility of Tucker walking through it but when I look up, it’s Mrs. Yolanda. Trying to mask my dismay, I smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Dr. T has called a meeting.”
My brows come together. “He has?”
“Yup, everyone is gathering in the break room. He asked me to come get you.”
Fantastic.
Still with a bright smile, I say, “wonderful, I’m on my way.”
She sends me a grin before walking out and I crumble onto my desk. I have no clue what this meeting is about and I really don’t want to go. Sitting up, I grab my notebook and pen for notes and slide my feet back in my heels before leaving my office. When I reach the break room, everyone is there, laughing and carrying on with Tucker but when he notices me, he stops laughing and turns to grab his things.
Well then.
“Since everyone is finally here, we can get started,” he deadpans, making it clear that he is talking about me.
Sitting down, I send him a look as I get my notepad ready to be written on. “I didn’t know about the meeting, so sorry I was late.”
I may have said that a little rude, but he was rude first. Yes, that was a tad bit childish. I don’t care though. He’s acting like a jerk.
“I sent you a message,” he says back and I shrug my shoulders.
“Didn’t get a message, must have gotten lost in cyberspace, huh?”
Turning from where he is grabbing things, his eyes narrow as our gazes meet. It’s only for a second but it feels like a life time and that’s all it takes for my breath to hitch and my heart to slow. I want to run to him, beg him to forgive me but before I can, he looks away, picking up the files he had on the counter. Everyone is watching us, I can feel their eyes on us and I want to scream from frustration.
“Okay, so, I have exciting news. After my trip to Atlanta, my father and I have decided, after very careful research, that we want the office to become completely digital!”
His trip? His research? Hm. Okay…
I sit back and watch the faces of my co-workers. Some are excited while others, like Amy and Rita, look nervous. Tucker seems oblivious to it though; he’s talking about how great it will be for the office. How checking in patients would be a breeze and how everyone will benefit from it. While he goes on and on, I get madder and madder. Where is my credit for looking up all these facts? It could still come, so I sit back and watch, giving Tucker the benefit of the doubt but I don’t think it’s coming.
When Rita’s hand goes up, Tucker points to her before asking, “yeah Rita?”
“Um, is this going to affect my and Amy’s jobs?”
Tucker smiles as he shakes his head. “No, I was going to offer you and Amy the opportunity to go to a trade school for Medical Assisting on the company’s account. I would need help getting the office in order too, so no, your job is sound. Everyone’s job is.”
Amy and Rita are glowing with happiness, so is everyone else. Except me. I’m fuming. Really, I’m not sure I have the right to be mad but at the same time, I think I do. I feel like I’m not even a part of this office anymore. No one is talking to me when usually I run these meetings. Tucker hasn’t even looked to me for help; he’s doing it all himself. Does he even need me anymore? Am I going to get fired?
Oh shit.
“Everyone good?”
Everyone nods and Tucker grins as everybody gets up to leave, saying bye to him first but not even sparing me a glance. Maybe I’m imaging this all. I am so hurt and upset with everything that I’m thinking things are happening when they really aren’t, because surely my office wouldn’t do this to me. I’m a great office manager, loving and attentive to everything they need. Everything Tucker needs.
Tucker.
Pinning him with a look, I watch as he laughs with Amy and Rita. I want to go over to him, smack him upside the head and ask why he’s being such a jerk. Why he didn’t credit me for anything or even act like I was in the room except to scold me? Folding my arms, I sit back in my seat and wait for them to get done talking. Whe
n they do, Rita and Amy head for the door, not saying anything to me, while Tucker heads down the hall, without even acknowledging that I’m still there.
Frustrated, I throw down my pen and paper and follow behind him. When I reach his door, it’s shutting and I catch it before it close, swinging it back hard so that it slams into the wall. I didn’t mean to but I’m a little upset.
Whipping around Tucker sets me with disgruntled look. “Excuse me?”
“Excuse you? No, excuse me! How long are you going to treat me like this, Tucker?”
He rolls his eyes, sitting down in his chair before laying his papers down and looking at his computer. “I’m not treating you any way, Violet.”
“Yes, you are. You’re treating me like a villain!”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” he asks, still not looking at me.
“It very may well be, but answer me. How long am I going to have to take this?”
“You don’t have to take anything,” he mutters, hitting the off switch on his monitor and looking up at me with a dismissing look.
“So you want me to quit? You want me gone?” I ask and saying the words is like taking a knife in the throat. My lip wobbles and I know he sees it because he looks away, shaking his head.
“No, Violet, I don’t want you to quit.”
“Then what, Tucker? What do you want from me?”
Slamming his fist down on the desk, he stands up, sending his chair back, hitting the wall and startling the shit out of me. “I want you! All of you and it’s killing me with each passing second that I don’t have you.”
I can’t hold them in, and soon tears are dipping down my face as I stay locked in his gaze. “I can’t give you that. Not now, not yet.”
“I know that,” he says, looking away as he runs his hands through his hair. “That’s why I’m just trying to survive you.”
“Survive me?”
“Yes, because it is so hard to pretend that I don’t love you, that I don’t want you every minute of every day. That I don’t think of you all the time. And yearn to hold your body in my arms. Every time I see you, it’s like ripping the bandage off the wounds I’ve spent all night trying to mend. I’m hurting Violet, and I don’t know how to handle it because I can’t pretend that nothing happened. I just can’t.”
I cover my eyes with my hands, crying into them as I take in a deep breath. My insides are ripping apart with each word. I know how much I need him, but I didn’t know this. I knew he was hurting, but jeez, all that? How can I fix that? How can I make anything better when I can’t give him what he wants? When I feel his arms come around me, I come undone, sobbing in this man’s arms.
“Please don’t cry, I hate when you cry,” he whispers against my hair.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” I cry, hiccupping a sob before looking up at him. His eyes are soft and locked on mine. He reaches up and cups my face as he takes in a deep breath.
“Then be with me.”
“I can’t, Tucker. I’m sorry.”
Shaking his head, he lets me go and turns from me. I want to reach out, hold him but I doubt that would help the situation. I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is.
Before I could make any hasty decisions, he turns, his eyes on me. “Don’t you know we belong together? I would love you until my dying day, Violet. We could be the forever kind of couple. I believe that, because my love is soul deep for you.”
“Tucker-”
He shakes his head, stopping anything else from coming out of my mouth before taking my hands in his. “Let it be me, Violet. Let me be the one to love you forever. To kiss your sweet mouth every day and to make love to your beautiful body. I would treat you like a woman deserves and I would never make you cry, except tears of happiness. Don’t waste your life on him. Spend it with me.”
I’m shattered. My face is flooding with tears as he leans his head against mine, moving his nose along mine. “Just please, let it be me. Pick me. Love me.” I want to say yes and wrap my arms around him and never let go. To feel his heart beat next to mine. To secure my place at his side and fall asleep beside him like two spoons. I want this. I want all of him. Every bit, but I’m not the woman he deserves at this moment. As much as I want to give in, I can’t. Not yet.
Cupping my face in his hands, he places his lips on mine but I can’t do it. I can’t allow this to happen. Pulling away, I shake my head as I walk across the room and when I turn to look at him, he looks as if I’ve beaten him with a bat. He looks so broken, so hurt and as much as I want to comfort him, I can’t. I scared out of my mind but I have to tell him. I have to tell him the truth because I love him too and I need him in my life.
I’m not sure how it will go and I’m scared to find out what he will think of me, but I’ve been doing this by myself and it isn’t working. I need someone to give me advice and since I don’t want to worry or scare my mother, who better than the man I’ve fallen for?
But before I could even get a word out, Tucker ask, “why, Violet? And don’t tell me you fucking love him because I know you don’t.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
His brows squish together as he cups the back of his neck, looking at me in the most flustered way. He spreads his arms out in front of him in confusion. “Then why? Don’t you feel the same about me?”
I look up at him and wipe my face with the back of my hands before slowly nodding my head. “That’s the thing, Tucker, I do. So much. But, I can’t leave him for you. I can’t seem to leave him period. I’m trying, I’m trying so hard, but-”
I pause to take in a deep breath and I can’t believe I’m going to tell him this but I am. I’m going to do it. I’m going to let him fully in.
“But why?” he asks, taking my hands in his.
Looking up at him, I take in a shaky breath as the tears rush down my face, down my lips unto my shirt.
“Because he’ll kill me.”
I did it.
And oh my God, I feel like the world has been lifted off my shoulders. I told him everything and it was so easy. So freaking easy that I am mad at myself for waiting. Like the good man he is, Tucker listened, not saying a word as I told him about the last three years. About how we met and how we were so in love. I told him about the abuse, the rape and how I’ve hid it for years. I told him about how Rob stole all my money, how he noticed that my check isn’t going into his bank and that I’m worried he’ll retaliate. I told him about Rob attacking the doctor in Colorado and how that’s the reason I haven’t told him or let him in. All he did was support me and encourage me to go on when I wanted to break down.
He is amazing.
“Okay, so beating the ever loving fuck out of this dude is off the table, right?”
I nod. “I know you’re doing this whole alpha male thing and believe me I completely believe in your strength and know you’d give it to him, but Tucker, I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t live with myself if he hurt you.”
“Wouldn’t happen, but okay, I understand.”
“I have to do this myself. I have to get out. I just need to figure out how. I feel so alone and I don’t know what to do.”
He nods, reaching for my hands and running his thumb along the back of them. The whole time I talk, he held me in some way, whether his thumb was rubbing easy circles into my palm or he was touching my shoulder, but gave me space at the same time. “Okay, we’ll disappear.”
I shake my head, my shoulders falling. “You have this practice, Tucker. I can’t ask you to leave it for me and plus, he’ll find us. I promise you. He would.”
“Hit man?”
I laugh as I shake my head. “No, it has to be legal.”
We sit for a minute, and I can tell he is racking his brain for anything that might help but I’ve been doing it for weeks and I can’t seem to think of anything.
Looking over at me, he says, “I have the best lawyer ever and if you don’t like mine, Blaine’s is spectacul
ar. I’ll get him to draw up a restraining order to hold you over until the divorce.”
“He’ll go right through it or fight it, plus I don’t have the money for your kind of lawyer.”
“But I do and I’ll say it’s a business expense.”
“Tucker, I told you, I have to do this. You can’t have anything to do with it. He’ll find out, he’ll come after you and I won’t let that happen.”
“Okay, I won’t point out that I work out almost every day. Instead I’ll say we can do strictly cash, so no one will know anything about my involvement.”
I look down at my hands, tears welling up in my eyes. “It won’t work.”
“I don’t accept that and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow this to happen any more than it already has. We will figure out something. I’ll contact my lawyer, see what he says.”
“But I have no evidence. I have nothing proving what he’s been doing to me. It would be my word against his.”
He shrugs his shoulders as he gets up, walking towards his desk. “So? People divorce every day without even putting anything down. We’ll figure it out. Give me a day or two. I promise, you’ll get away from him.”
He looks back at the computer and I watch as he types and clicks his mouse, not knowing what to say. I want to tell him again that he can’t do this for me, but I knew this would happen when I told him. The damn fixer in him is shining right now and I don’t know how to dim it. I know he wants to take over, and fix it all, but, damn it, it’s so frustrating. I wish Rob would just go away, leave me alone but that won’t happen so I’m left figuring out a way to get out while Tucker puts his cape on and to save me. I can’t let him though. I have to reiterate that.
“Tucker, you can’t do this for me.”
His fingers stop typing and he looks over at me. “I know, but I can help. I can be there and I can be the person in your corner since you won’t let me hire to have him killed or beat the living shit out of him.”
“But you have to let me do this. You can’t send your lawyers off on him, you can’t confront him or even act like you know. It has to stay between us. Ugh, damn it. You can’t do it for me. Thank you and I wish I could give it all to you and let you do it, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I want to be the woman you deserve, one that is strong and worth being with so I need you to promise me that. Promise you won’t do it, for me. You’ll let me, because if I don’t get away, successfully, it’s my own damn fault.”