Forgetting Yesterday

by Meg Jolie

  I glanced up. Claire no longer looked relaxed.

  “He didn’t like that you talked to me at the funeral,” she admitted. “In fact, he cornered me and told me to back off and not pressure you.”

  “Pressure me?” I gave her a confused look.

  “I think he was worried you’d move home afterwards. I think that’s why he didn’t want you to have a lot of contact with those close to you. I told him he could kiss my ass. I had every intention of talking to you after the funeral but you were gone,” she said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, he told me that I needed to rest and that I didn’t need the stress. He convinced me that we should head back to Bedford right after the funeral. It was right before finals week. I needed to study. In all fairness, I wasn’t that hard to convince. I just wanted to take the easy way out. I left my dad to deal with the emotional fallout of the funeral. I let Jason take me home where I could try to pretend my world hadn’t collapsed.”

  “I think you were in denial,” Claire quietly told me. “Your mom was a wonderful person and she was gone way too soon.”

  I nodded, forcing back tears. “It was easier to pretend everything was fine when I was away from everyone. He made it easy. And I let him make it easy. For that first year, we did whatever he wanted. We ate where he wanted to eat, watched the movies he wanted to watch. He was constantly talking me out of going back to my parents’ house. He told me it would only make things harder for me. He told me that I didn’t need to see my mom that way. And even though I knew it was wrong, I listened to him because I was a coward. He was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. Then he started going out with friends but he’d tell me I needed to stay home. His reasoning was that I should rest when really, looking back, I think a night out here and there would’ve been good for me.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Claire said wryly.

  “It’s not like he hit me right away,” I said, wanting to make that clear from the start. “But he left bruises. He’d always hold my arm a little too tight. Squeeze my hand until it throbbed. But he wasn’t always like that. He was thoughtful too but looking back, I think it was only when he didn’t feel threatened. I’m not saying I thought it was my fault exactly, but he would accuse me of being difficult…unreasonable. And I knew I was. My head was a mess,” I admitted. “I know I was difficult to be around. I know I lashed out at everyone around me.”

  “He used your grief against you,” Claire said, keeping her voice low.

  I nodded. “I see that now. The first time he hurt me, really hurt me, I blamed myself. I know how bad that sounds but it’s true. We were arguing, I don’t even remember about what. The fight itself was probably inconsequential. What I was really angry about was Mom being sick. I didn’t know how to deal with that so I took it out on the people around me. He got in my face and I shoved him. Hard. The thing is, he shoved me back twice as hard. I flew backward and hit my head on the coffee table. I ended up needing stitches. He said it was just self-defense.”

  I was quiet a moment, remembering that night. I had started the fight. I did remember that much. And I had shoved him first. At the time, I thought I was just as much to blame as he was. Looking back, I knew that he’d taken it too far.

  And it didn’t stop there.

  Claire wore a stoic expression. I knew she wanted to argue with me. She knew that I needed to finish uninterrupted or I might not finish at all.

  “A while later, a few weeks, maybe a month, I’m not even sure, I decided I wanted to move home. It was terrible timing. Right in the middle of the semester. My tuition was paid. I wouldn’t have been able to get a refund but worse, it was too late to withdraw so I would’ve failed all of my classes—completely destroying me GPA. I didn’t care. We fought again and he lost it. That’s the first time he hit me. I mean, really hit me and then he broke down. He cried. He begged me to forgive him, begged me to stay. He said it was only because he couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving that he totally lost his head. I should’ve left then,” I said with a knowing nod. “But I’d called my parents and told them I wanted to come home. They both firmly told me I shouldn’t. They didn’t know about Jason. They just knew how it would affect school. I know they thought that insisting I stay was in my best interest. I should’ve been honest with them then. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what had happened. Dad would’ve gone ballistic. Mom would’ve worried and stress was the last thing she needed. But more than that, I was embarrassed that I’d gotten myself into that situation.”

  I shook my head. “I think, in some twisted way, after that I kind of blamed them. If they would’ve let me move home, Jason and I would’ve been over. But they didn’t. I was pissed and hurt and didn’t understand their side of it. So I did the complete opposite. I didn’t go home for months. After a while, I barely went home at all.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And Jason and I got along great during that time. He got his way and I was completely compliant to his whims.”

  Claire bit her lip for a moment while I pulled myself together. Finally she said, “What changed?”

  “Finally, at the start of spring semester, after Mom was gone, my academic advisor talked me into seeing a counselor. My grades had been slipping and were nowhere near what they should’ve been. I was barely holding it together. So I went. She was great. I didn’t tell her all of the details about Jason. Just that he was controlling.” I let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Even after everything that happened, I didn’t want him to get into trouble. I knew that if I admitted the abuse to her, she’d have to report it. So I said as much as I could while leaving that out. I think she knew, though. She told me I needed a life outside of Jason. I needed to make some decisions on my own.” I felt a few tears trickle down, though by now, I’d talked this through so many times, I was surprised I was still affected. “I felt so guilty for the chances I wasted with my mom. Jason had talked me out of going home. I should’ve just gone. I wanted to believe him when he told me it was for the best. Now? She’s gone and I’ll never get those chances back.”

  Claire got up from her chair so she could sit next to me. She pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry about your mom, sweetie.”

  I sniffled as I reached for the tissue box placed on the end table. “I know. I’m sorry too. I wasn’t even there to say goodbye to her. I was going to go. I had my bags ready…but I was just dreading it. How could I not dread it? But I was going to go…”

  “And he talked you out of it?” she asked quietly.

  I nodded. “He told me there was nothing I could do anyway. But really, I could’ve said goodbye. By the time I realized that I needed to be there, it was too late. I shouldn’t have listened to him and maybe part of me was just using him as an excuse. I was scared and I think I was in denial. I just made one bad decision after another.”

  I thought back to my meetings with my counselor. It was like the haze I’d been living in had started to lift. “I realized that I needed my family. He was keeping me from my family. And what would my mom think of that? But I never got to ask her because she died. And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there for her or my dad. I can’t stop asking myself what Mom thought of that.”

  I answered my own question. “She would’ve been heartbroken. But it still took me a while to see that. It wasn’t until days later, after the funeral, after she was gone and it was too late, I realized what I’d done. How selfish I’d been. It was like day by day, I realized a little bit more how bad things had become. Losing her was like this huge wake-up call but it came too late. It came after I’d already missed out on something so precious, so irreplaceable. I should’ve been there to say goodbye.” I hesitated, trying to pull myself together. My selfishness was reprehensible. I was so disgusted with myself that I could barely stand it. Claire didn’t interrupt and I continued on a shaky breath. “I realized how much I’d let him control my life. By then I couldn’t leave. I only had a few months of school left. I just wanted to get through it. Plain and simple. I just wanted to get t
hrough it without more drama.” I shrugged miserably. “So that’s what I did. I’d been planning on leaving for a while. I was just waiting until the time was right.”

  I admitted to Claire that I realized he hadn’t just been keeping me from my family; he’d kept me from my friends too. Not just Claire but the few that I had made while I attended Haden. Over the past year, we’d drifted apart and I’d let them. I wanted to believe that if I hadn’t been so enveloped in grief for the past year, waiting out Mom’s illness, that I would’ve seen it coming. I needed to believe that under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have allowed it to happen.

  She cleared her throat and gently asked, “What about the night you left?”

  “The night I showed up here? That was the single worst fight we ever had. He was furious.” I didn’t want to go into details. I didn’t think I needed to. Claire had seen the end result. For awhile there, I hadn’t thought I’d be able to get away. Maybe I should’ve admitted that to her but I was trying to hold onto a shred of pride. I had gotten away. That’s all that mattered.

  Finally Claire shook her head. “I have to say, when I turned on the light…when I saw you standing there, your face banged up like that…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

  “I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut tight, building some resolve. “I finally woke up.”

  Claire let out a shuddering breath. “I am…I am so sorry.”

  My head snapped back so I could look at her. “What?”

  “I’m so sorry. I should’ve tried harder to be there for you when your mom got sick. I knew how hard it had to be for you.”

  “Claire, you did try,” I reminded her. I was the one that ignored the voicemails, the texts, the e mails. “You had a lot going on. You were fixing up your house. Starting a business. You’d just met Sean. You were busy. You had a life. We were living on opposite ends of the state.”

  She shook her head stubbornly. “Still, I should’ve tried harder. I just thought…” she faded off and gave me a guilty look, “I thought maybe you didn’t answer because you were seeing someone. I mean, I knew you were seeing Jason. I thought maybe things were serious and you were just too wrapped up to call. I should’ve known better. Especially after the funeral. That was the first time I met him and he really rubbed me the wrong way. Before that night, I didn’t realize that something might be wrong. But when he told me to back off…and when I saw him grab you…” Her face turned grim and she sounded disgusted with herself. “I should’ve realized just how bad things were. I should’ve stepped in. I should’ve done something. But I just wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to make things worse.”

  “You did do something,” I firmly told her. “You gave me a way out. You gave me somewhere to go.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “It’s nagged at me, these last few months. And yet, I didn’t track you down. I had my suspicions and I did nothing.”

  I tried to shrug her off. “You know what? It’s over. It’s done. It’s in the past. There’s nothing that can be done about it now. And to be totally honest, all I really want to do is forget about it.”

  She looked ready to argue again but she must’ve noted how much this conversation was exhausting me. “Okay,” she finally said. “I just hope someday soon you find someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated.”

  I could only nod. I wanted that kind of relationship.

  How had I turned into that person? The kind of person who tolerated such a volatile relationship? I didn’t know.

  He’d been a part of my life for nearly two years. I had loved him, even if it had been a twisted, dependant, unhealthy kind of love. I had been sure at one point that we’d had a future together. We’d talked about it. Planned it. I was sure he had loved me, in his own way. But things had changed. He had changed. Or maybe it was just me that changed. Regardless, he was out of my life now and I was starting over.

  “I’ve known for a while that I needed to leave him. It was just that I was so close to being done with school. I’d put up with him for so long, what were a few more months? I know my attitude toward him changed though. We were over. In my head and my heart, anyway, we were over. He could tell.” I paused, thinking about the last few months. The tension in our apartment had been almost unbearable. “I was afraid if I moved out before graduation, it would only make things worse. I was afraid he’d show up on campus, or track me down somewhere. That’s why I waited until I could make a clean break and just get away. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where there could be confrontations. Not if I didn’t have to. So I just tried to pretend like everything was okay as I counted down the days. The day after graduation, the day I got my degree, I left. And I came here.”

  “You’re sure he doesn’t know where you are?”

  I shook my head, wishing she would stop worrying. “I don’t know how he possibly could know.”

  “Good,” Claire said firmly.

  “But I made it clear that we’ve been over for a long time. Even if he didn’t want to hear it, he had to know it was true,” I said quietly. “We were just no good for each other.”

  She rolled her bottom lip through her teeth before saying, “I’m so glad that you see that. I’m sure you’ll find a job. I hope you’ll fall in love with the town. You just wait and see. Everything is going to fall into place. I’m sure of it.”

  She raised her nearly empty wine glass up to my nearly empty wine glass. We both smiled, relieved to be moving on from the conversation at hand.

  “Here’s to hoping,” I said.

  “And old friendships and fresh starts,” she added.

  We clinked our glasses together and though her words were cheesy, I believed every word.

  Chapter 5

  I gazed at my face in the mirror as I pulled my long, blond hair back. It was Thursday. The bruising was better. Not gone, but better. I let out a sigh as I let my hair fall down around my shoulders again. My face looked pale making my gray eyes look a little dreary.

  I’d spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday tucked safely inside of the house. I’d been bored out of my mind. Alex had knocked at the door each morning to let me know he’d arrived. He’d done the same in the evenings with an update for me to pass along to Claire. Other than that, I’d been on my own.

  I’d worked my way through a small stack of movies and tried to read an old romance novel that Claire had tucked away. It hadn’t held my interest.

  After that, I’d decided to update and tweak my resume as I furthered my job search. There were a few possibilities in nearby towns. By that afternoon, I was feeling somewhat better about my prospects. Not great, but better. I had even submitted a few electronic applications.

  As for trying to do anything else, well, I was distracted constantly by the noise on the roof. Alex had brought a small crew with him, two other workers. I could’ve sworn I heard every footstep they took. I knew they were in a hurry to finish up, before the rain came in.

  I was glad to have them finishing, not so happy about the rain. I wanted to spend some time out in the sun but I felt a little too self-conscious to hang out in the yard with a roof full of guys. To kill some time, I decided to make something for lunch. Claire had gone shopping the night before, something I had told her I’d be happy to take over soon. I was sure that even if I got a job, Claire’s work schedule would always be busier than mine.

  After three days of canned soup for lunch, I decided to make calzones. Not only did they sound good, it would take me awhile and fill up my afternoon a bit. That was something I desperately wanted to do. I pulled out the ingredients and set to work.

  They were already in the oven and I was cleaning up the ensuing mess when the doorbell chimes rang throughout the house. It only made sense that it was Alex. Again. I wiped my hands off on the kitchen towel before I hurried to the door. I noticed then that the rain had finally hit.

  As I swung the door open, I saw his workers leaving. Alex was standing on the steps, barely sheltered fr
om the downpour by the overhang.

  “Come on in,” I ordered.

  As he stepped inside he said, “We finished up. If you could just let Claire know we’ll come back tomorrow, hopefully when it’s drier, to do some clean up. I thought we’d be able to get everything picked up, but we didn’t. No sense doing it in this downpour. Luckily, the roof itself is done.”

  “Great. She’ll be happy to hear that. I’ll tell her you’ll be back tomorrow, though,” I agreed. I didn’t want to think about why I wasn’t all that excited by the news that the roof was done. I knew I should be. Only minutes before I was telling myself I couldn’t wait to have the house to myself.

  I noticed his eyes dart curiously toward the kitchen. “Baking again?” he asked with a small smirk.

  “I just made calzones. Do you want to stay for lunch?” The offer came before I really thought it through.

  He made a sound of indecision and then he laughed, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners and sparkling as he did so. “I shouldn’t. I didn’t knock on the door so you’d feed me again.”

  “It’s fine. I made plenty and I really don’t mind,” I said as I motioned for him to come in. “It’s lunch time and you’ve been here for hours. You must be hungry.”

  “I’m always hungry. So, yeah, if you insist,” he joked. “It sure beats eating another cold ham sandwich. Besides, with this rain, it looks like I’ll be taking the afternoon off.”

  “Is that going to put you behind schedule?” I asked as he followed me into the kitchen. I opened the oven door to check on lunch. They needed a few more minutes.

  “Nah,” he said. “Since we had a cancellation and we got this roof done, we’re actually a little bit ahead of schedule. Not that it’ll stay that way, it never does. But for now, we’re good.”

  He dropped himself onto a bar stool as I pulled out what I needed to serve the meal. I was suddenly wondering what I’d been thinking asking him in. Was it out of line? He didn’t seem to mind. He could’ve said no, made some kind of excuse or simply politely declined. But he hadn’t and I was glad.