by Shey Stahl
Next thing I know, his hand draws back, and he hits me across the face with an open palm. It stings, but I show no reaction other than raising my hand to my cheek. Both his hands raise and he wraps them around my throat, constricting my breathing. “Don’t you ever walk away from me when I’m talking to you. Do you hear me, Lennon? I’m your fucking husband. I will tell you when we are done!”
Does he think I’m going to apologize?
Hell no. Everything he just said only fuels my hatred for him and who he’s become.
His breathing falters, the muscles in his shoulders tensing as he bends down to look me in the eyes, one hand on my neck, the other on the wall behind me. “Did you fuck him in my bed?”
“I’ve never had sex with Eric,” I answer truthfully, reluctantly making eye contact with a monster.
“What about the other guys in the shop?” He speaks in a dark tone with words that roll off his tongue easily, ones laced with a bitterness that I chose to work late, as opposed to being here acting like the perfect wife. But what he’s forgetting is he is the one who has been fucking other women in our bed. He’s not thinking about how he’s chosen to betray me.
My stomach churns at the thoughts of him thinking I would do that. With quick short breaths, I swallow my irritation, but I’m sure he can hear it in my voice. “Stop being an asshole, Ben.”
“I’m the asshole?” He walks away, in the living room and straight to the liquor cabinet, reaching inside for the bottle of tequila and taking a drink straight from the bottle, squinting at the burn. Guaranteed, he’s already drank half that bottle today. The beer in his hand when I came inside was probably a cover. “Yeah and you’re a fucking bitch who can’t keep her goddamn legs closed.”
“I should have known when I picked you up in a fucking bar you’d eventually turn into this… this… I don’t even know what the fuck you are beside a cunt who fucks anything with a dick.” I will never forget the look on his face when he says that to me. It’s one of disgust, and the meaning behind them, the blazing eyes, all of it makes me flinch back at his tone because it’s not me. This person he’s portrayed me to be in his mind is nowhere close to who I actually am. Sure, I slept around before him, but I didn’t once we were married.
The glass in his hand crashes against the wall, and curse words are muttered under unforgiving breaths. The fury inside him is blinding as he stalks toward me.
Timidly, I stay rooted in place, my arms flat at my sides, afraid to move, afraid to even breathe as my mind scrambles for how this might end.
“I’m not going to hit you, again.” He snorts, bringing the bottle to his lips and then back down at his side. It’s a lie. There’s an eerie calm about the way he’s acting so suddenly. Something seems off. Remember that tornado theory? This is it. This is when the sky turns black and the wind picks up. “But I am going to fuck you. I think you need reminding who you belong to.” He pushes himself on me, pinning me against the wall. “Have you forgotten you’re still mine? People are starting to talk around town, Lenny.” Trying to create space between us, my hands jet out against his chest. He pushes against me, leaning in to spit the words in my face. “People are wondering what you could be doing at the garage so late. They think you’re fucking around on me. You’re embarrassing yourself. You’ve embarrassed me!”
“Screw what people are saying.” I shove him back away from me. “I haven’t done anything wrong, Ben.”
He catches himself against the wall, rage racing through his veins by the heavy breath he takes. “Oh, honey, you’ve done everything wrong since the day you were born. You’re so worthless. Even your crack whore mom didn’t want you.”
The sound of my hand connecting with his cheek echo’s through the room. My palm stings, and I assume his cheek does by the pink illuminating it. I certainly have his attention now, and I know exactly what’s coming next, but first, I’m the one screaming at him. “Fuck you, Ben! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
Spitefully, he smiles, and I hate the way it looks on him because it’s so natural, so convincing. “I think you need a reminder of your place in this house.” His hand moves from his side, jets out and grasps my neck with force, slamming my head back against the wall again.
He hits me once, twice, right across the cheek. It leaves me stunned, breathless and well, angry.
“You’re not messing around on me?” I shake my head, what little I can. “Prove it then.” He nods south, and I know what that means when his hands slip off my neck to his buckle. “Fucking prove to me you’re not messing around.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head, my cheek pounding hot and pulsing from the heat of his anger that lingers. “Not like this.”
He raises a dark eyebrow, looking down at me intently. “No?”
Ben used to be attractive to me. He’s got everything I would want in a man from the muscular physique to the blue eyes that shine brightly. Not to mention the tattoos covering most of his body and the pierced tongue, always a sucker for that. But now, love isn’t a word I’d use to associate myself with him. Hate is. So much fucking hate I can’t even look at him without wishing he’d die a horrible death.
“No. I don’t want to,” I push back, dropping my stare to the ground. “Not when you’re like this, and drunk.”
“You don’t really have a choice,” he says smoothly with no expression on his features. It’s a look I’ve grown to hate, his liquored breath so strong I turn away.
Though I know the way this is going to go, I try my hardest to stand up for myself. “Yes, I do.”
He shakes his head, slowly, back and forth, his face remaining stone like. “No, you don’t.”
And he’s partially right. I don’t right now because I know where this is heading and if I want to make it out alive tonight, I’ll do as he says.
I don’t scream. I don’t fight as he pushes my head south.
Over and over again my head is slammed down until tears and spit cover my face. Never again. I will never allow him to do this to me. I’m a strong, independent woman, and this is not a life for anyone.
He uses me to get off, and when he does, he makes sure to pull out so that he comes on my face, hot bursts of liquid smeared over my cheeks, dripping down my chin. “Don’t act like you don’t fucking want it.”
My cheeks burn, hot tears spilling from me, only a torn apart humiliated soul left inside.
I try to wipe it away, a quick swipe of my hand, my hands shaking with the terrifying reality I let him do this. I’m on the ground, left in his destruction, an aftermath of a cold heart.
He rights his jeans, buckles them, the clanging of the metal making me blink and watch his hands work the leather together. He kneels before me, waiting for a reaction.
Never again. Never fucking again will I allow him to demean me in this way. I sob in uncontrollable gasps.
He grabs me by the chin, his tight grip on my skin pinches together and I know bruises will follow.
Our eyes meet. Does he see what he’s done? Does he know the ways he’s torn me apart inside? “Remember this moment.” His bitter tone stings. “You’ll never be better than this, and you’ll never be better than me. Don’t even think about leaving.” He pauses and draws in a labored breath. “You will always belong to me. Even if you leave, I will always find you. Keep pissing me off, Lenny, and the next time, I won’t be so nice about it.”
I hold in a sob, biting back so much. And then I’m angry. Fucking pissed. Wanting to scream at him for doing this and making me wish I were dead instead of in this life, with him. When the wave of emotion hits me, it nearly knocks me off my feet, utterly unexpected and I rush to the bathroom just before I vomit.
After I finish, I stand in front of the sink to rinse my mouth and wash the remnants of Ben’s lesson off my face. I scrub until my face burns and the skin is raw. Even then, it’s not enough.
When I look up and see my reflection in the mirror, all I can think is... I hate my life. I hate my husband.
&
nbsp; WHEN I FINALLY come out of the bathroom, Ben is passed out on the couch. I stare at him for what seems like hours but in reality is only minutes. When he’s sleeping, he seems normal. Only he’s not, I don’t know who he’s become. I contemplate what to do next, and there’s the thought of chopping off his dick. There really is.
I don’t know when he became this person, and more so, when I became the person who allowed it.
As the memories of the last hour surface again, it’s not a hard decision to make. I need to get out while I still can. And before Ben does something I won’t be able to escape. Touching the bruises forming on my cheek, I know what this means. His behavior has been getting more and more unpredictable lately. I don’t know if it’s the drugs he’s been doing or just his natural paranoia.
My decision is made, and I quickly pack a bag. Unwavering in my choice, I only grab what I need, a few changes of clothes, not caring to take with me any reminders of my life here. As I throw everything into the back of my bronco, I quickly look back at the trailer.
I should be scared, but in reality, all I am is determined.
Determined to get away.
Determined to prove Ben wrong. I can make it without him. He doesn’t control me.
Determined to finally do something for myself.
I’m sure fear will find me, but right now I’m high on adrenaline and for the first time in a long time, I’m alive.
THE MOON GUIDES me through the night as I make my escape into the unknown. It’s a calming presence allowing me to do the things I couldn’t do in the day. In the confines of the night, I can run.
When you’re in pain, you’ll do just about anything to make it stop. But sometimes you can’t. Nothing makes it stop, and the more you try, the worse it gets. I tried with Ben. I really did because I wanted something in my life to work out. For someone like me who’s never had much of a family, God did I want that to work out with him. And then he turned into a total fucking dick.
The night’s sky releases its hold, the sun dancing over the distant mountain peaks. My mind wanders and my hands shake as the adrenaline is finally wearing off. I struggle to grasp what I’ve done. I did it, but I know this isn’t the end. I’m always going to be looking in my rearview mirror.
The first person I call is Eric, only he doesn’t answer, so I leave him a voice mail letting him know I’m not returning to the shop. I know I’ve put him in a bind now, but I can’t live like this. If I stay, who knows what Ben would have done to me in the morning, or the next day.
I drive for hours, and I don’t plan on stopping until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Bursts of orange, clouds parting to reveal beauty in the two-lane highway, my mind clears like fog clearing. Beside me in my bronco is my life in a bag and a few tools I managed to grab. The wind moves through the open cab, the early morning giving me strength to continue.
I had to leave. I tell myself that over and over again.
I had no other choice, even if I have $400 to my name and one bag full of clothes.
The last thing I wanted to do was run away from my life or obligations. I was never that kind of girl. I was the one who was pushed away.
Growing up in foster care, I was moved from one house to the next, hoping one might keep me. My mother gave me up when I was two, and though I know her name was Tess, that’s about all I know about her, other than she was a crack whore and died about a year after she gave me up.
I never quite found my place in life. In many ways, I was invisible to everyone around me. I was invisible. Nobody even knew my name half the time.
By the time I was ten, I was living with a couple in Kennewick Washington, a set of foster parents that took me in. It was the longest I had ever lived in one house and at times; it even sort of resembled a home. Maggie was kind to me, and Wes mostly kept to himself, which was fine by me.
They had family close by, so in the summers, we would spend our time in someone’s backyard enjoying a BBQ and hanging out. I even started to make friends with her nephew, Tyler.
Everything was going well until Maggie died of pancreatic cancer when I was fourteen. The thing was, I liked Maggie too and when she died, it was as if I’d lost the one person who cared about me.
After Maggie died, Wes moved me to Fairview Oklahoma where his family was from. The thought of Wes sends shivers down my spine. Though he never touched me, I wouldn’t have put it past him that he wanted to. He was a dirty, vile old man who moved me away from the closest thing to family I had ever known to a small town in Oklahoma where the rest of my life was destroyed. Wes didn’t give a flying fuck what happened to me. I was a paycheck for him. When I turned eighteen, I moved out.
Unfortunately from that point on, he was the only family I kinda had until I met Ben. Seeing how I didn’t exactly have a good understanding of how a woman was supposed to be treated, I had developed a thing for bad boys and the ones who basically treated the girl like shit.
That was Ben Snider. And the sad part was I thought that type of behavior was completely normal.
KNOWING I NEED a plan and gas, I stop my bronco sometime after I cross the state line into Colorado. The only person outside of Oklahoma I know is Tyler, Maggie’s nephew, my kinda sort of cousin who lives in Lebanon Oregon. I don’t want to call him, but I know I need to. As much as I would like to do this on my own, I need help. Tyler is a good guy, and I’m grateful that we have kept in touch over the years. He’s the only person I trust.
I hold the phone against my shoulder and ear, closing the door to the phone booth and dial his phone number. I don’t use my cell phone because if Ben has any brains, once he figures out I’m gone, he’s going to track it. I’ve watched enough television to know I need to dump it and get one of those prepaid phones, but it’s just something else I’ll take care of once I figure out where I’m going. “Tyler… is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” His voice sounds distant, cracking with the poor connection. “Who’s this?”
“Lennon.”
“What?” he asks, again, our connection fading with the sound of the rain.
“Lenny! It’s Lenny, remember me?”
“No shit? Wow! How the hell are you, girl?”
That heaviness in my stomach returns, the one reminding me just how stupid I might be to think I can get away with this. “Not good.” I stumble over the words, drawing in quick breath to blurt out what I’m saying. “That’s kinda why I’m calling. I need your help.”
“Anything you need. Talk to me.”
I tell him what happened with Ben and everything I haven’t told him in the past six months since I talked to him last. He takes it all in, breathing out slowly like a whoosh of breath he’s been holding in. “Did you tell anyone where you were going?”
“No.” My voice shakes around the words because I’m so damn nervous that this isn’t going to work. Right now it’s still all in my head that my plan to actually leave might actually work. “I didn’t even tell my boss. I mean, I left him a voice mail but I left in the middle of the night. I have a bag of clothes and a few tools. I left everything else behind.”
“Okay,” Tyler finally says. “Come to me in Lebanon and I’ll do what I can for you.”
It’s not that I wanted to put any burden on Tyler, but I also have nowhere else to go. What choice do I have?
I PROMISED TYLER I’d call him once I got into Oregon, so I stop off at a diner outside Boise Saturday night. It has a gas station next door, so I purchase a prepaid phone to make the call.
“Hey,” Tyler answers, his voice somewhat cheery given it’s nearing eleven at night. “I got a job for you.”
“Really?” After paying for my coffee, I shove what’s left of my money in my wallet. “Please tell me it’s not stripping.”
“No.” He laughs and I can almost remember what he looks like. Tall, brown hair with bright green eyes and a boyish grin.
I remember when I was twelve I had the biggest crush on him because he was an older boy a
nd paid attention to me. It was the little things back then. That was until I realized I was technically related to him. He just had this adorable look to him, like you didn’t know if you wanted to kiss or hug him, maybe both.
“Not stripping,” he finally says. “At the shop I work at.”
Stirring my coffee, I’m silent because I’m not prepared for that. It’s perfect. The only thing I’m any damn good at is working on cars. “Dude, please tell me you’re not joking with me.”
“Nope. Not joking. My buddy owns the shop. He said you basically have the job. Can you be here by Monday morning?”
“Holy shit… okay.” I draw in a deep breath sitting up straighter in the booth. “Yes. I’ll be there Sunday night probably.”
I can barely contain my excitement. “What’s the address and I’ll meet you there first thing.”
Tyler rattles off the address, and I write it down on a napkin and shove that in my bag as we hang up.
In a rush to get back on the road, I pay for my coffee and drive straight through until I reach Lebanon around midnight Sunday night. I pull off the highway and into a truck stop to catch a few hours of sleep.
As I lay in the back of my bronco, I think about Tyler’s friend giving me a chance without even knowing who I am. I’m almost afraid to think it, but my mind keeps pointing to the fact that for once in my life, things may actually be heading in a good direction. It’s a foreign thought. One that hasn’t crossed my mind in a long time.
LEBANON IS A small town tucked in between the trees off the interstate. Everywhere I look are small privately owned shops, it’s the type of town people come to and never leave. Not because they’re stuck here, but because they want to stay. Hell, I’ve been here all of four hours, and I don’t want to leave.
As I pull up to the shop, I take in the surroundings. It’s early, maybe around seven, but the sun is peeking over the metal roof glistening like diamonds from the rain that peppered the ground. It’s a large gray building with red and white trim, two oversized doors and then two smaller ones beside it. To the right of the shop appears to be an office with windows facing the parking lot and a covered walkway around the side.