by Sonya Jesus
Addie comes back in. “Doll, are you still beating those eggs? I think they’ve had enough.”
“Oh!” I shut off the mixer quickly and remove the metal pieces to rinse. “I’m sorry. I got distracted counting the number of girls for breakfast.”
“We have a full house,” she answers. “I gave this new one your old spot, but let’s hope men start learning to treat women better, or I’ll have to start putting people in the hallway.”
Guilt knocks on my heart’s door again. “They can share with me,” I offer. “It’s not fair for me to have all that room to myself. The other girls might—”
Addie places her hands on her hips and waves her finger in the air, shutting me up. “You’re renting that place! You’re working for me, and I’m deducting rent. No one has any right to say anything, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” It’s hard to contain my smile. “But I don’t mind sharing if you need space.”
“I knew I was right about you. Sweet heart to match that sweet face.”
With all the shit I’ve done in the past. More like dark heart to compliment my dark soul.
“All right now, enough smiling and sugar talk. Get back to work. We have to have breakfast ready in twenty minutes.” She swivels on her heel to exit, but then changes her mind. “Just place the eggs in that large skillet on the stove, mix them around, and break them up the spatula. It’s pretty easy. Just don’t take your eyes off of them.”
I nod. “I won’t let them burn this time.”
She throws her head back and cackles. “First person I’ve ever met who burned hard-boiled eggs.”
“I’ve never had to cook before.” My eyes drop, and I shrug one shoulder nonchalantly. “Microwaves,” I answer, and cast away the memories of my adolescence before they surface and I say too much.
“I hate those damn contraptions.”
I chuckle as she disappears back to the dining room. She doesn’t have a microwave in the kitchen, but there is one in the living room, next to a free vending machine that allows you to plug in your number once a day and get something.
A luxury, considering I’ve eaten from the dumpster, stolen food, begged for money to buy food, and starved. On good days, in certain places, I had a job with a microwave or a fridge. I ate what I could, whenever I could.
“Morning,” a soft voice rattles me, and I drop the spatula in my hand. Shit.
“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay.” I bend down to pick it up and get another one from the utensil drawer. “I was just lost in my own head.” The eggs have started to stick together. “Guess we’re having an omelet for breakfast instead of scrambled eggs.”
“Do you need help?” The new girl wears a long-sleeved sweater and tights. Addie makes sure to keep different sizes for the women who need clothes, like I did.
“Maybe you can salvage these? Apparently, eggs aren’t my thing.”
She reaches out and takes the spatula from me, her fingers shaking slightly. With her other hand, she tucks a strand of her hair back, revealing a big cut and discolored skin, the bruises covering most of her left side.
I know better than to ask, so I hand her the spatula. “You know how to make eggs?”
She smirks. “Not really. I don’t cook much, but I think these are done. Did you need help with anything else?”
“Addie pretty much has everything all set, but if you want to grab the chopped fruit from the fridge, I’ll put it in a bowl.”
She nods and retrieves the fruit before placing it on the island. “Adelaide seems nice.”
“She is,” I respond, both of us avoiding eye contact. I don’t do well with people. I never have.
“Have you been here at this institution long?” she asks first, breaking the ice.
“Depends on what you consider long, but it’s been my home most of this year.”
“Yeah, I get the idea of being institutionalized.” She takes a piece of orange and slips it into her mouth, wincing at the acid she dabs at her lips. “Shit, I forgot.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, as I head to the freezer to get her some ice.
“My boyfriend…” She trails off as her eyes water. “He sucks.”
After wrapping the ice in some paper towels, I hand it to her. “Yeah, a lot of guys suck around here.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Her big green eyes remind of the girl from The Farm, 324, and the image of her face getting bashed flashes before my eyes. I shut them for a moment as I lower my head.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her perfectly painted fingers curl around my arm in a reassuring gesture. “I didn’t mean to dredge up the past.”
“It’s still my present,” I confess softly, as I place the chunks of pineapple, oranges, and kiwi in a glass bowl. “We can escape the guys who hurt us, but not the fact they did. It sticks with you for a while.” With a quick glance in her direction, I fixate on her swollen lip, and the small gash splitting it open. There’s another small gash on her forehead, right at the hairline.
She gets self-conscious about her injuries and smiles softly.
“I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I’ve been stared at all my life.”
She isn’t beautiful, but she does have striking features, and despite her hair being up in a ponytail, it is gorgeous and shiny—obviously well treated. There’s a subtle ‘uh’ sound added to her vowels, hinting at Southern roots. I spent plenty of time practicing the accent as a teen not to notice. “Why is that?”
She dabs at her cheeks, warming them up, but I don’t see any pink on them. “Beauty queen most’ my life.” She sighs and faces me, completely skipping the ‘of’ in her sentence. Her hand awkwardly stretches between us in prime handshake position. “Hi, I’m Ivy Levine. Guilty of growing up a pageant princess and getting involved with a self-absorbed, sadistic asshole.”
I smirk because as she replaces the medial ‘t’ with a ‘d.’ The more flustered she gets, the less you can notice the Southern drawl, which makes me think she’s playing the part. Most pageant princesses—as she calls herself—are born in the South. I don’t doubt she has pageant blood; she seems kind of prissy. It would also explain her super white teeth, posture, and the fake smile she’s flashing my way.
“Mercy Williams.” I shake her hand. “Fucked-up life and even worse love issues.”
“Well, dang. I’m glad I was never up against you. You’re beautiful.”
Color creeps to my cheeks as I avoid eye contact. “Thank you.” The words come out soft and meek. Not very often a girl like me gets told she’s beautiful, especially not by a beauty queen.
“Did I say something to offend you?” There’s a prickly tone to her voice, and her onglides falter, as she relaxes.
“No, of course not. I’m just not used to getting a lot of compliments.”
“Oh, because of the gothic vibe?”
Gothic? Oh. Right. “Yeah,” I force out a small chuckle. “Lover of all things dark and twisted.” Like fucking Breaker Beneventi.
“I see you two girls have met!” Addie comes in and claps her hands excitedly. “Ivy, you don’t have to be back here.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says, as she grabs the bowl of fruit in my hand.
Addie adds in, “She was found in similar circumstances as yours.”
“What?” I ask without flaw, despite the rapid pounding inside me. “Near the forest?” Did she escape The Butcher too?
“Heavens, no.” Ivy shakes her head. “She’s referring to the fact I wasn’t fully clothed when I showed up at the hospital. Why were you in the forest?”
“I-I…” I technically don’t lie. “The guy I loved left me there.”
“Sometimes, I really hate penis.” Ivy rolls her neck.
Addie chuckles. “Not all guys are the same, but hopefully, here you’ll learn to see the red flags in a relationship and gain the confidence you
need to run before you have to run.”
Ivy doesn’t seem to lack confidence.
Addie smiles and puts a warm hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. “You stick close to Mercy. She’ll help you get to know the place and get to know the ladies here. Every Tuesday night we have game night, and Friday night is movie night. On Wednesdays, we host a ‘Remember the Me I Used to Be Night.’”
I hate Wednesdays. I never quite know which me I should be that night.
“Why?”
“Because it helps you see yourself before the person who messed up your life walked into it.”
It only works for people whose lives were better before they fell in love. Most of the stories here are about women who had a somewhat normal life and then it got destroyed. Nothing about me was normal.
Addie drops her hand and heads over to the cabinet to grab herself a mug. “I need more coffee. I don’t know how you girls don’t sleep and still look divine. The bags under my eyes are so heavy, I don’t think I could ever fully close my eyelids.”
Ivy giggles. “They aren’t so bad.”
“Right.” Addie elongates the word before taking a sip of her freshly poured coffee. “Neither are my muffin tops and the saddlebags.” She wraps her hands around her mug. “I used to be hot in my day.”
“No one doubts that,” I say. Addie has gorgeous bone structure and high cheekbones. If she smoothed those fine lines and stretched her skin to flatten the wrinkles, time would turn back and reveal a bombshell.
“Nothing a plastic surgeon can’t fix,” Ivy suggests, as she pours herself some coffee. “I know a few good ones if you’re interested.”
“No.” Adelaide flips the nonsense away from the air. “I got into my fair share of trouble back in the day. Too much if you ask me. After my husband died, I got involved with the wrong men and my daughter learned the wrong things from me.”
My heart melts as Addie’s pitch drops. The guilt she carries for her daughter makes her look like she is in her seventies, and not early sixties.
“She’d still be alive…” She clears her throat and banishes the strain from her eyes as she looks at the both of us. “The only thing I’m concerned with now is helping girls like you two. You say you’re only going to be here a little while Ivy, but the programs I have set up here are good for you. We can help get you on your feet and be independent. There are psychology sessions or group sessions if you aren’t ready to talk to someone.”
“That sounds like a wonderful setup, Addie.” Ivy’s eyes zone in on me. “Are they helping you? Would you suggest the individual ones?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug while eyeing Addie, who is looking at me and relying on me to help this stranger out. “I’ve been here a few months, and I still haven’t been able to waltz into one of the therapy sessions and ask for a time, but one day, I hope to. The group sessions help me feel a little less alone, if that makes sense.”
Addie encourages me to continue with a non-obvious roll of her finger.
“I’m going to group today, after breakfast. Not a lot of girls are there at this one, and it’s easier to get things off your chest. I don’t really like talking in public.” Too much talking can make me slip up.
“Why not?” Ivy asks.
I chew on the inside of my lip as I try to come up with an unsuspicious answer. “I still hate myself,” I mumble out and shut my eyes. “I hate myself for falling for a guy who would never love me, and who I doubt is capable of love.”
“Are you here because of him?” she asks.
I bob my head and open my eyes, praying Addie will save me from the onslaught of questions. She’s just as curious, so she’s letting us carry out the conversation without her. “Yes.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“No, and I don’t ever want to see him again.” Even in my tone, the lie is heard, but no one calls me on it.
“I understand that,” she says softly. “I hate my boyfriend. He’s awful, but sometimes…”
I shift my head to watch as Ivy loses herself in her own thoughts. She expresses exactly what it feels like to try to hate someone you love. Convincing your mind takes time, and most of the time I can hate Breaker, but ‘sometimes’ get me every time. His lips, his touch, his presence—
“Sometimes are the worst, right?” Addie abruptly breaks me out of my head with her poignant voice.
“Yeah,” both Ivy and I say in unison, and look at each other. We have something in common. We all do at Addie’s Refuge.
6
Blood & Terror
327
Addie is leading today’s session, and her patience amazes me. All the other women here are slightly annoyed with the constant Southern accent, but Addie encourages sharing and putting it all out into the universe. Which Ivy has no problem doing.
Oh my, God. Does she ever stop talking? I rub at my temples. Group therapy might as well be Ivy therapy, because she’s commandeered the sessions twice. It’s not so bad for me, but I’m just tired of being here, and her thin voice is too high to tune out.
“Yeah, so this all happened after we got together.” She waves her hands in the air, pointing at her bruises, as if she had been the only one here to earn that badge. “I wanted him enough to spend my whole life together, and apparently, he wanted the leeway to do what he wanted. ‘Till death do us part,’ and in ‘sickness and in health’ were excuses to hit me.”
“Was it the first time?” Addie asks.
“It wasn’t the first time he put me in the hospital, but before this he was nice to me. Like, I loved him.”
“You don’t still love him?” one of the girls asks.
“I hate him most days,” Ivy says a bit softer. “I’m most ashamed of the days I still love him.”
My head rings with those words. That’s pretty much how I feel on an hourly basis. One hour I miss his touch, and the next, I’m petrified of having even his memories near.
“Who else feels this way?” Addie asks the group of us. Most girls raise their hand, including me. “Maybe this warrants a discussion on why you love your aggressors?”
Ivy’s long fingers are gently placed on my knee. Despite our differences, all the women here share something in common: our human rights were violated. The warm touch is actually soothing, and when she removes it, I immediately feel the disconnection from the world.
The woman who spoke up before goes first, “I don’t see him as an aggressor, which is probably the wrong thing to do—”
Addie interrupts, “There’s nothing wrong about the way you feel. You have to let yourself feel in order to heal.”
“I met him in high school and things were okay until graduation. He didn’t want me to go to college…” I zone out and only half-listen. I’ve heard this in other sessions and most of these women have told their stories. They fall in love and don’t leave because they love him.
It is my turn, and there is still plenty of time left in the session. I could say I’m not ready to share yet, but I want to heal, so I say, “I’m ashamed I knew who he was and loved him anyway.”
No one gasps or gawks at me, but they all nod in understanding, even Addie. My heart swells and relies on a version of what happened. “There were three friends, and I knew what kind of stuff they did, but I liked his attention, but at the time I had to choose one of them, so I chose the one who seemed nicer.”
Ivy shakes her head. “These guys don’t know what nice is.”
“That’s not true,” I rebut. “Br—he was nice to me. He kept me away from his asshole friends, and he talked to me when I was so lonely.” My voice cracks as I explain a more acceptable version of my past. “I never had a lot of friends, so I didn’t know what it was like for someone to want to talk to me, much less like talking to me.”
“Was this before or after you had sex?” Ivy asks bluntly.
“Before.”
“Well, there you go. He wanted to get in your pants.”
“Ivy,” Addie intervenes. “Le
t her talk.”
“It’s okay,” I stand up for her and reach out to touch Ivy’s knee, reassuring her. The action is foreign and a bit awkward for me, but the feeling reminds me of when I was a kid and happy.
She curtly nods her head and rests her back against her chair. “I’m sorry.”
I smile and continue, “He actually started talking more after we slept together. Opening up, like being in my arms provided him some kind of relief that life didn’t. I had never slept with anyone, and I was terrified, but I also knew it was inevitable.” And I wanted to do it on my terms, not his.
The time with Breaker in the office bathroom ached through me. He left me alone for five days, and in those five days, I kept feeling him inside me. By the time he came back, I craved his touch. Maybe it had been the weeks in isolation or fear driving me to be more than just a number, but I melted in his touch. Every. Fucking. Time. Even when he kept reminding me of how evil he could be.
“He had this presence, you know? Addictive and commanding.”
All the women, of different ages, nod or voice their agreement. It makes me feel not so alone in my plight. Taking the details out and tweaking the basic storyline gave me a common thread. Sharing my story and having support does help.
“I get that,” a strange woman around our age speaks up. I had noticed her when she came in a couple weeks ago, but she only showed up to session today. “They can be the ugliest mugs on the face of the planet, and still they overwhelm the space around them. It’s easy to feel like you’re worthy of sharing that space. I keep falling for guys who screw me over.”
“Right? Despite knowing he was an awful person, I kept convincing myself he was not awful with me. And I took him wanting to share his time with me as a sign he liked me. In less than a month, I fell for him. I don’t know if I love him, but I know I don’t hate him, and I miss him all the time.”