Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

by Claire Adams

  “You just called me a little girl,” I said with more than a bit of resentment in my voice. Brian still held the gun on Dominic, but I could see that he’d managed to move his phone to the front pocket of his hoodie, and I hoped that he was adept at blind dialing.

  “You know what I mean, Ava,” he said as he turned and looked at me. There was something in his look, a kind of coldness that I’d only seen once before, and I shivered at the memory before I looked away. “Ditch this loser and come home with me. You know I can offer you more than he can even dream of. I mean, what does he have? A frayed hoodie, old sneakers and a gun? Really?”

  I could see Brian bristle as Dominic pointed out where he was lacking, and I shot a quick look at Brian, hoping that he wouldn’t get caught up in this imaginary pissing match and do something stupid. I could hear the sound of all three of us breathing, and for long seconds none of us moved, and then hearing the sound of sirens in the distance, Dominic suddenly turned and ran back toward campus; his long legs pumping fast as he made his escape.

  For a moment, I thought Brian was going to give chase, but instead, he was at my side in an instant, urging me not to move while he checked me for injuries. I tried to assure him that I was fine, but he methodically checked my limbs, torso, and then cringed as he saw the fingerprints Dominic had left on my neck when he’d cut off my air.

  “That son of a bitch is going to pay for this,” he muttered.

  “Brian, don’t,” I warned. “Just don’t. He’s not worth it.”

  *****

  “Is everything okay over here?” the campus security officer called as he walked across the grass. “We got an emergency call from this area, but it didn’t identify who the caller was.”

  “Yes, we’re fine, officer,” I said in a voice that was far more cheerful than I felt. Brian gave me a strange look, but followed my lead and nodded. I exchanged pleasantries with the officer for a few minutes and when he asked how my father was doing, I saw Brian’s eyebrow raise as he suddenly understood my reticence to get the officer involved in the situation.

  “Alright, well, tell your parents I send my best and thank them for the housewarming gift they sent, will you?” he smiled as he shook my hand and then Brian’s before turning and heading back to his car.

  “Does your father know everyone?” Brian asked.

  “Just about,” I replied with a grimace. “I feel like I’m always under surveillance.”

  Brian winced as the words hit their mark, then turned and said, “But maybe he’s got good reasons for trying to ensure your safety.”

  It was my turn to wince, and I nodded and then shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  “I think we should head back to the dorm, Ava,” Brian suggested. “Who knows where that nutjob went, and if you’re not going to report him, then we need to be somewhere safer so I can better monitor the situation.”

  “Why do we have to let him dictate what we do?” I protested. “He ran off like the coward he is, so there’s nothing to worry about!”

  “Unfortunately, I do think there’s something to worry about,” Brian said seriously. “He’s obviously becoming bolder and more dangerous. He choked you, Ava!”

  “That?” I said. “Oh, that’s nothing! I’m used to that with him, and that’s not violent.”

  Brian stood staring at me with his mouth open for a long while before he shook his head and bent down to pick up the trash bag and remnants of our picnic. “I don’t even want to know…” he murmured as he put his hand on my lower back and guided me back to the path that led to campus. “Ava, he is getting progressively bolder and I’m afraid he’s using these confrontations as a means of measuring how much he can get away with.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I was used to Dominic’s strange and erratic behavior, after all, I’d lived with him for a year and things had been much weirder back then. Brian had no way of knowing that this was mild in comparison to what Dominic used to be like.

  “I mean, I think he is planning to really harm you,” Brian said. “I don’t think you’re safe.”

  I nodded to indicate that I understood what he was saying, but down deep, I didn’t actually believe Dominic was capable of doing anything that bad. How could he hurt me? He said he loved me, didn’t he? The thoughts raced through my brain as we briskly walked back to the dorm. The earlier playfulness had disappeared, and I felt frustrated.

  “He’s not a bad person, you know,” I said quietly. “He was actually quite good to me at times.”

  “Oh, really?” Brian said as he scanned the path ahead of us never taking his hand off of the gun at his side. “Could have fooled me.”

  “You don’t have to be so judgmental,” I pouted.

  “I’m not being judgmental at all,” he replied. “I’m simply concerned about your safety as it’s my job to ensure it, and if you won’t report him, then I have to figure out another way to keep you safe.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, don’t piss off my father,” I was being stubborn and I knew it, but he was being stubborn, too. “God forbid that Daddy Dearest gets wind of this mess and actually steps in and says something.”

  For the rest of the walk back to the dorm, Brian said nothing. He simply scanned the landscape from behind his dark glasses while I stomped ahead; angry for reasons I wasn’t even sure I understood.

  *****

  “So, tell me more about Dominic,” Brian said as he locked the door to my dorm room and then double-checked it to make sure no one could get in.

  “There’s nothing more to tell,” I replied as I grabbed the remote and turned on the television. Brian walked over and shut it off, then turned and stared at me for a minute.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I need to know what happened between the two of you.”

  “You know, sometimes you are a real pain in the ass,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “I don’t want to talk about Dominic or my relationship with him or anything else about my life if you’re going to be so judgmental!”

  “Ava, you don’t understand,” he said as he sat down on the couch next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to be judgmental, I want to know more about you and Dominic so that I can figure out how to better protect you.”

  “Well, it feels more like an inquisition than an inquiry,” I shot back.

  I sat staring out the window for a long time. I couldn’t look at Brian because I didn’t want him to see what I was thinking, but I knew that he was right. The more I could tell him about Dominic, the better he’d be able to anticipate his next move. I was torn, though. I didn’t know if I could go back down that road and tell Brian about my life with Dominic while I felt so conflicted about it. I wasn’t sure if Brian would understand why I still felt drawn to Dominic despite what had happened and why I’d left.

  Heck, I wasn’t even sure I understood it.

  “Ava, it’s okay,” Brian said. “I know this isn’t easy for you to talk about, but I’m not going to judge you. What happened is in the past, but I need as much information as possible to keep you safe.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “But I don’t like the fact that I need protection in the first place. I don’t like needing someone else to keep me safe.”

  “I know you don’t,” he said. “But right now it’s the reality, and you have to accept that.”

  I looked away and thought about how this entire situation had gotten so far out of control. How do I tell him about this whole mess? What is he going to think of me? As my mind raced, I thought about what I’d already told him about Dominic and tried to figure out how to explain the darker parts of our relationship. I wasn’t sure he could handle it, and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to handle his reaction, but I knew that Brian wasn’t simply going to stop asking questions.

  I took a deep breath and began.

  “He wasn’t always like this,” I explained. “Or at least, he hid it really well at the beginning of our relationship. He was so incredibly sweet and attentive
. He’d bring me flowers and little gifts, things that showed he’d been paying attention to what I did and said.”

  Brian nodded as he listened, and I cringed as I thought about how these acts of kindness had actually been manipulation rather than love.

  “It took me a really long time to realize that he’s a sadist,” I said as calmly as I could. “He enjoys torturing people and he does it often, and without remorse. In fact, he actually finds his sadistic games arousing.”

  Brian reached down and took my hand as he listened intently. He didn’t say a word as I spilled the sordid details of Dominic’s twisted games; he simply listened.

  “I was so naive when I got together with him,” I explained. “I didn’t understand that he was grooming me to become his partner in crime, and once I’d been dragged to the depths of misery, I didn’t know how to get out. It began so simply, he’d show me something and then tell me it was our secret. He’d confess something and frame it as shameful or hideous so that I’d be compelled to reassure him that it wasn’t. He’d entice me to extend the boundaries of our relationship, both physical and emotional, and then praise me when I’d go with him or punish me if I refused. I can see it now, but at the time, I was so desperate for his attention and affection that I let it cloud everything.”

  “It’s okay,” Brian said quietly. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Oh, I know that,” I said, rolling my eyes dramatically. I’d been told that more times than I could count, and I was tired of hearing the mantra only because I didn’t fully believe it. I still felt like I was responsible for so much of the twisted activities that Dominic had dragged me into, mostly because I hadn’t had the strength to say no.

  “I’m serious, Ava,” Brian repeated. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Just stop, okay?” I pleaded. He nodded and squeezed my hand. “It took a couple of months, but I can see now how he was grooming me by breaking me down. He’d get angry about some small infraction of the ‘rules’ that only he knew existed, and then he’d punish me. At first it was just silence, but after the Chem exam incident, he began regularly beating me for all kinds of things. He was so good at it…”

  Brian didn’t move a muscle as I told the story.

  “He knew just how to slap me hard enough to hurt, but not so hard that it left a mark,” I said, shaking my head. “Or he would leave marks where no one could see them. And as our sex life got more adventurous, he’d often extend the boundaries into non-sexual aspects and make them part of some twisted game. He’d frequently ask to tie me up and practice with his cane. It got so confusing, you know? The boundaries got blurred in a way that I didn’t know what I had actually consented to, and that cane…”

  “The cane?” Brian asked confused.

  “He had a long, thin cane, about the length of a pool cue,” I said, wincing as I recalled the whistle it would make as it sliced through the air just before slamming into my flesh. “He’d always say that I had the best ass to practice on because it was fleshy enough to take the blows. And he always made me thank him for it as he cleaned my wounds after he was done. He’d dab alcohol on my raw skin, and I’d cry until he finished and then he’d pull me close and stroke my hair. Sometimes he’d tell me how wonderful I was for allowing him to practice something he enjoyed so much, and other times he’d tell me how if I’d just behave the way he wanted me to, he’d never have to use the cane on me again. I was always trying to figure out what was going on, but the rules were always changing, and I never knew what they would be from one day to the next.”

  Brian nodded as he listened. There was something about the look in his eyes that told me he understood what I was talking about. He didn’t seem to be judging me, and that made it easier to open up and tell him more.

  “He was always plotting revenge on someone,” I said. “He had a list of grudges a mile long, and he told me that these people deserved what they got because they’d broken some rule of his. He was absolutely obsessed with rules and following them, but the weird thing was that he never felt like the rules applied to him. When I’d ask him to tell me what rules he lived by, he’d punish me for being sassy. So I stopped asking and just learned to watch closely so I could figure out what he might want on any given day. But he was never predictable. One day he’d want me to be sweet and innocent and dress in pretty flowered dresses and accompany him to the zoo or a museum, and the next day he’d be yelling at me about dressing like an immature child when he wanted to be with a woman. It was beyond confusing. I had so many different wardrobes and he was constantly changing his mind about how he wanted me to dress and behave.”

  I looked away as I recounted the day that I decided not to get up and get dressed until Dominic told me what he wanted me to be. I’d stayed in bed, waiting for him to get out of the shower, and when he entered the room he flew into a rage because I wasn’t up and ready to go. He’d yanked me out of bed and screamed in my face about how lazy I was and demanding that I get up and get dressed. When I asked him where we were going, he’d told me I was being rude and disrespectful and told me I’d need to learn how to follow directions. I was so completely confused, but I’d gotten out of bed and headed to the shower. On the way, I made the mistake of asking where we were going so that I could figure out how I was supposed to dress, and he flew into a rage and beat me until I lay on the floor sobbing as the blood ran from my nose and mouth.

  “When he was done, he looked at me and said ‘Go wash your face’ and walked out of the room,” I said as tears slid down my cheeks. Wisely, Brian didn’t move a muscle. He watched and waited until I continued. “I didn’t leave the apartment for two weeks—I couldn’t, not with the black eye and swollen lip. He wouldn’t even look at me. He’d come home and treat me as if I were a piece of furniture. I felt like nothing, like I didn’t exist. It wasn’t until I’d healed that he began talking to me again, and then he was loving and kind. He brought me flowers and chocolates every day. He’d take me out to incredible restaurants or book us a flight to some exotic locale for the weekend, and he’d treat me like a queen while we were there. He’d make love to me in a way that made me feel like he really did love me more than anyone else, and I’d be seduced into thinking that he’d changed. That this time it could be different; that he really loved me and that everything that had happened before had been in my imagination.”

  Brian squeezed my hand tightly.

  “Until the next time I’d break one of his rules,” I whispered. “And then he’d punish me in ways that…” I shook my head as I tried to clear the memories. I just couldn’t go back down that horrible hole of pain and self-loathing.

  “He’d punish you to try and rid himself of his own pain,” Brian said quietly. “You were his canvas.”

  I looked up, surprised that he had been able to voice my thoughts so clearly, and shocked that he wasn’t condemning me. I nodded slightly.

  “I don’t understand it,” I said. “I don’t understand how he could use me the way he did, and I don’t understand how I allowed myself to be used! I actually felt sorry for him more often than I felt sorry for myself!”

  “It’s classic Stockholm Syndrome,” Brian explained. “The abuser psychologically manipulates the victim to the point that the victim feels sympathy for him.”

  “I know,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “We’re studying this in Psych class, remember?”

  “I do remember,” he said. “But I don’t think you understand how it works. I think you’re being incredibly hard on yourself because you don’t believe that it actually exists and that you are a victim.”

  “No, I get it. I get it,” I said. “I was abused, I developed Stockholm Syndrome, I was rescued, I’m fine.”

  “Ava,” Brian squeezed my hand again. “It’s not that simple. You can’t just intellectualize abuse and expect that the experience will disappear. Dominic did a number on you and you’re still trying to recover from it. Granted, you’re doing a damn sight better than most people, but you’re
still suffering.”

  “I’m not suffering!” I shouted. “It was my stupid fault that I got into the situation in the first place!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “I mean, I started dating Dominic to get back at my parents, so it’s my fault that I ended up with a psychopathic lunatic!”

  “You can’t actually believe that,” he said solemnly.

  “What other explanation is there for it?” I asked. I was pissed at him for lecturing me and for trying to upend my own logical explanation for what had happened and how it had happened.

  “Ava, you didn’t invite a psychopathic lunatic into your life,” he said calmly. “You fell for a guy who manipulated your feelings and abused your body until you didn’t know which end was up. That wasn’t your fault. Psychopaths don’t have a conscience like normal people, so they don’t operate within the same rules as people with a conscience. That’s not your fault.”

  “But if I hadn’t been so stubborn and tried to rebel against my parents…” I trailed off.

  “That has nothing to do with it either,” he said. “Millions of kids rebel against their parents every day, but that doesn’t mean that they are responsible for the behavior of people like Dominic or that they deserve to be abused because they rebelled.”

  “But I made the choice!” I yelled.

  “Yes, but you made the choice based on the faulty information fed to you by a person who was looking to manipulate and abuse you,” he said quietly. “You’re not responsible for his reprehensible behavior.”

  I angrily pulled away from him and buried my face in my hands as I began to sob quietly. When he reached up to touch my shoulder, I shrunk back, and he withdrew his hand.

  “It’s okay, Ava,” he whispered. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”