by Paula Cox
I stumble to my feet, wincing as my bruised eyes crease, and grip the counter. Facing him, I speak in as calm a voice as I can. “You have to leave, Patrick,” I say. I wish my voice was stronger. I wish it didn’t tremble. I wish I could be like Jude, carved from iron. And to think, only a few minutes ago I was happier than I’ve ever been.
“What?” Patrick snarls. “Why would I leave? You’re coming with me.” His fists are clenched at his sides, knuckles stained carmine with my blood.
I need to get out of here. But how?
I reason it out: he’s high and drunk, when he gets high and drunk, he gets paranoid, so I have to play on his paranoia.
As if God is listening, the air suddenly fills with sirens. There’s nothing unusual about that. More often than not, the New York air is filled with sirens. But that’s from a sober person’s perspective. I see it in Patrick’s face, fear flitting across his expression.
“I called the police,” I say at once, making my voice calm when all I want to do is scream. If this doesn’t work, he’ll take me, beat me, imprison me.
“W-when?” he stutters.
“I saw you coming down the street.” My heartbeat pulses in my face, something I’ve never experienced before. It’s like it beats up my neck, my cheek, and directly into my bruises. I fight the urge to wince in pain.
“You didn’t,” he mutters, but he glances behind him at the windows. “Did you?”
“I did.” I take a step forward. My legs feel weak, jelly-like, like at any moment they could collapse.
He stares at me for around half a minute, all the while the sirens getting louder and louder.
“This isn’t over,” he snaps, pacing to the door with wide steps. “It isn’t over!” he screeches, as he walks out into the street.
I watch as he breaks into a jog and disappears down the street. I wait for five minutes—the sirens grow quieter as they head toward some other disaster in some other place—and then go to the bathroom. I wash and clean the cuts, apply Band-Aids where I can, and then continue closing the bakery. When I’m done, I lock up and walk down the street faster than I’ve ever walked anywhere. I always thought it looked silly when people did that power-walking thing, but I do it now, pacing as fast as a jogging person.
I look over my shoulder every few seconds, terrified that Patrick might come to his senses and realize I tricked him. But then I’m at the door to Jude’s apartment building. I open it gratefully, run up the stairs like a person running to a safe haven, and lock and bolt the door behind me.
Only when I’m safe, I sit on the couch and let the panic overtake me.
For a few minutes, I pant like crazy, my lungs seeming empty and shallow.
When I catch my breath, I go into the bathroom to check on the black eyes. I hardly recognize myself. I’ve always liked my eyes, though I’d never admit it to anybody. But I have, ever since I was a girl. I like how big they are, I like the shade of green. People have often complimented me on them and, despite my shyness, it makes me feel good. Now, I can hardly see them. My skin is black and taut, puffy, turning my eyes into small beads which peer from two bruised mounds.
Jude will see these, I think, with a chill.
I could lie to him, tell him I fell over at work, but a man like Jude knows bruises well and he’ll know I’m lying. You don’t get two massive black eyes from falling over. No, he’ll know it was Patrick. Even now, after he just kicked the hell out of me, I don’t want Jude to hurt Patrick. I try and persuade myself otherwise, telling myself that he’s a monster, he’s beaten me my whole life, he’s always hurt and manipulated me, discounted my feelings, never even seen me as a person. But the idea of Jude hurting—or killing—Patrick provokes an involuntary tug in my chest. He’s my older brother, even after everything. It’s a love-hate, love-despise, love-loath relationship I can’t seem to get free of.
I go into the bedroom and collect my makeup kit, sit on the bed and open my little pocket-mirror. Maybe I could hide the bruises. I laugh darkly as I study them again. There’s no way I’m hiding these. All the foundation in the world wouldn’t be enough. Anyway, Jude would sense something’s up. I don’t wear much makeup. How would he react if I suddenly started wearing twenty layers of the stuff?
“Emily.”
Damn. I didn’t even hear him come in.
His voice comes from the living room. As one last desperate attempt, I take my pot of mascara from my makeup kit. Maybe I can cover it after all. But then Jude is standing at the bedroom door.
I pause, brush inches from my face.
“Emily?” He crosses the room and kneels beside me. “What happened?” His voice is unusually soft, probing, and for a moment I consider telling him the truth.
But then an image thrusts into my mind: Jude, bathed in blood holding a straight-edge razor, standing over my brother with a mad grin on his face. I see Jude kneel and cut him some more. I see the life empty from Patrick’s eyes. Despite everything, it makes me withdraw into myself. I can’t tell him. He’ll hurt Patrick. And Patrick is the only family I’ve ever known.
But he beat you, bad. He hurt you. How can you still stand by him? I swallow. That’s a question I’ve been asking myself my entire life without a satisfactory answer.
“Nothing,” I mumble.
“Nothing?” Jude cocks his head at me. “What’re you talking about, Emily? You look like you’ve just gone twenty rounds with Mike Tyson. Look, you’re in pain!”
I try and make my face a mask, stop myself from wincing, but the pain resurfaces every few seconds. It’s like there’s a creature in my face, behind my skin, prodding the tender places.
“Nothing,” I insist.
I jump to my feet, throwing my makeup onto the bed, and pace into the living room. Dropping onto the couch, I switch on the TV to the nature channel. Jude follows closely after me. He leans down behind the TV and yanks out the plug.
“It’s not nothing,” he says, hands trembling. He sits on the couch next to me. “Do you really expect me to believe that, Emily? Look at your face. I want you to tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“No? Why? I promised to protect you, didn’t I?”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
“No,” I repeat. “Can’t you just leave me alone? I want to be alone. I want to relax. It’s been a long day.”
In this moment Jude doesn’t seem all that different to me than Patrick. It’s unfair, I know, but Patrick will often bother me when all I want is to withdraw into myself, empty my mind, just sit and do nothing and let the worries of the world drift away. Jude is nothing like Patrick. I know that now. And yet right now he’s having the same effect on me. I feel anger rise in my chest. Unfair anger. Unearned anger. But anger all the same.
“I’ll leave you alone once you tell me what happened,” he presses.
“Just leave me alone!” I screech, wheeling on him. When I scream, my cheeks pull at my eyes; the black bruises pulse in pain.
Jude leans back on the couch, watching with me dark eyes. “Why are you shouting at me?” he asks. No emotion touches his voice but curiosity. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Maybe I don’t need your help,” I grunt.
“Maybe not, but I think you do.” His tone is infuriatingly calm, the tone of a patient teacher talking with a problem child. But then, when he next speaks, an undertone of rage enters it. I look at his hands. They’re shaking. He’s trying hard not to lose control, I realize.
“What, are you going to hit me?” I hiss, hating myself for taking my anger out on him, but unable to stop. “Is that what you want, Jude? Do you want to dominate me? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to make me feel small and useless and pathetic? Is that what you want? Well, is it?” I bark the last words, hardly able to believe the acidic voice I’m hearing is my own.
“It was Patrick, wasn’t it?” Jude’s voice drops low, turns into a growl. “Patrick did this to you. You’re protecting him.”
“I
don’t want to talk about it.”
I stand up and go into the bedroom.
Chapter Fifteen
Jude
“Well, we’re going to talk about it!”
I follow her into the bedroom. Dammit, I’m trying to stay calm but when I look at her, her beautiful saucer-like green eyes turned into tiny emerald glints, rage bubbles through me. It’s a rage I haven’t felt in a long, long time. I’m Mr. Ice. That’s how I do my work so well. That’s why I was promoted. I don’t let my emotions cloud my judgement. I just get the job done. But twice in my life I’ve felt this broiling rage. The first time was when Mom and Dad sank deep into the lake; the second time is now.
She sits on the edge of the bed, looking down at her feet. Her hands are shaking, just like mine. Is she angry with me? How can she be angry with me when it was that fucking prick Patrick who did this to her? How can she take her rage out on me? For fuck’s sake, Emily, wake up! He’s a piece of shit and all he wants is to hurt you!
“It was him, wasn’t it?”
She doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring at the floor. One of the Band-Aids has come loose, revealing a fine red line.
I try and make my voice calm, but I can hear the rage rising in it. I can’t stop it. “Emily.” She doesn’t so much as flinch. “Emily!”
“Yes, and now it starts, doesn’t it?” Her voice is devoid of emotion. She glares up at me. It’s like she’s checked out of her head and has put herself on autopilot. She isn’t the Emily I’ve come to know over these past weeks, not even close. “Is this when you let your anger take control, Jude? Is this when you start hitting me?” She tilts her head, offering me her cheek. “Go on, then. Do it. It’s what it always comes down to in the end, anyway, isn’t it? You’re a killer, a bad man, an evil man. Why wouldn’t you hit a woman?”
“You don’t believe any of that,” I say, clenching my hands into fists. I don’t have much in the way of fingernails, but even so they stab my palms. “Just tell me what happened. That’s all I’m asking. I know it was Patrick . . . wait, it was at work, wasn’t it? Unless you went out of your way to see him, which I can’t imagine you did, he came to your work and did this to you. Wasn’t anyone else there? How did he just march into the bakery and tool you up like this?”
“Just . . . stop.” She sighs. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I think about Patrick, that giant pile of shit, twice as high as Emily and twice as broad. I see his giant fist smashing into her breakable face. How could a man do that? How could a man hit a woman half his size and not feel . . . something. Anything. Some small pang of guilt. It’s always confused me when big men hit little women. Aren’t they scared they’re going to kill them? I see Emily backed against a wall, trying to protect her face with her thin arms, as Patrick rains down blow after blow. My blood is like lava in my veins. Anger coils around my heart. Tiny devil-horned beasts roam around my body, poking me, singing into my mind: Are you going to let him get away with this? He hit your woman. He beat the fuck out of your woman. Are you going to let that stand?
But I can’t do jack without Emily’s permission. That’s the truth. I value her too much.
“Emily.” I say her name slowly, trying to make her see I’m trying here. “Just, just tell me, okay? Just tell me what happened.”
“No,” she snaps. “How many times do I have to say it? No, no, no, no! There, do you get the picture now?”
“Fuck!” I roar, jumping into the living room, vision hazy, seeing blood-red. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” My mind fills with Patrick, his fists, and Emily’s whimpers. In my mind, the whimpers are the worst of all. They’re not surprised or outraged; they’re the whimpers of somebody who is used to being beaten, somebody who has accepted it. “Fuck!” A woman like Emily shouldn’t have to just accept something so damn awful. Hell, no woman should. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I charge into the kitchen, barely conscious of my movements, and punch the microwave so hard the glass shatters. I tear it from the counter and hurl it to the floor. It lands with a crunch as the loose glass knocks around inside. I bring my boot down on it, caving it in. I tear cupboards loose, sending cutlery and cooking trays flying. I head-butt one, snapping it in half, my vision so red I can barely see what I’m doing. I’m bleeding, but I don’t feel it. I punch through another. Snap a third over my knee. I roam the kitchen like an enraged beast, end up near the oven. I kick it as hard as I can, rage coursing down my leg. The glass explodes and I take the oven glove—draped over a hook near the cooking surface—and rip it in half. The tear is loud in my ears, louder even than my frantic breathing.
After a few minutes, the kitchen is destroyed. I come to my senses slowly, and then return to the bedroom.
Emily stands near the opposite wall, fear etched into her features. She’s scared of me, I think numbly.
“Let me tell you something,” I say, chest trembling like the prologue to an earthquake. “There’s no way in hell you’re going to that bakery again. Look at you, Emily. I’ll die before I let you go back. Do you hear me? I’ll fucking die. Over. My. Dead. Body. You’re not going back there ever again. I can’t believe you’re protecting that piece of shit!”
I pace into the living room and throw myself on the couch.
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
My job is the only tiny shred of independence I’ve ever known. Sure, I have to give Patrick a large chunk of my paycheck, and sure, I can’t spend the rest of it on books or decorations or nice clothes or even a holiday because Patrick would explode in rage, but there’s something wonderful about going to work, alone, and having to face the challenges of the day, alone. It’s the one thing that’s ever made me feel like a real person.
And he thinks he can just take that away, I think, digging my fingernails into my knees. I sit hunched up on the edge of the bed, feeling a second wave of anger and resentment and confusion pass over me. He can’t just tell me what to do, I think, hands getting tighter. My fingers prick the fabric of my pants, but I don’t care. I bleed, but I don’t care. Does Jude really think he can just order me not to work?
And yet, a voice whispers, Patrick will find you again. If he had the guts to do it once, he’ll do it a second time. Who knows, maybe this time he’ll bring a gun, a knife. Maybe this time he’ll end it.
“No!”
I jump and go into the living room. Jude is sitting on the couch, head buried in his hands. I’m about to scream at him—something, I don’t know what—when I look over his shoulder and see the kitchen. I walk past him, poke my head around the wall partition.
“Careful,” he says. “There’s glass.”
“Like you care!” I snap back.
I feel mean but, oddly, I don’t feel mean about being mean. This is the first time in my life I’ve been in an argument with a man without feeling the need to hold back, to make myself small and mouse-like. With Patrick, I always let him win, let his deranged perspective become the norm. But I don’t have to with Jude. I can finally let out some of that years-old rage. Maybe, a background part of my mind muses, that’s why you’re getting so angry, because you’ve never really been angry before . . .
I ignore the thought and walk gently into the kitchen. The floor is covered in glass and shrapnel pieces of wood are littered everywhere, huge chunks of cupboard and sideboard. The oven is all but destroyed. Cutlery and trays lay strewn across the floor.
I return to the living room and stand over the couch, looking down at the back of Jude’s head, at the tattoos which creep up his neck. “I’m going back to work,” I say.
Without turning, he snaps, “You’re not.”
“I am.”
“Patrick will find you again. He’ll hurt you. Now, unless you give me your blessing to kill him—”
When he says those words—those words which should bring me joy—some twisted, beaten, submissive part of me recoils like a struck viper. Then it rears up, making itself big and dangerous. It spits, and acid-like ange
r courses through me. My brother! It roars. He wants to kill my big brother! That absurd protective urge inside of me is driven by something deeper than reason.
“You won’t kill him!” I hear myself scream. A vicious scream. A scream which cuts through the air like a sword.
Jude jumps up, spins, faces me. His face is as twisted as my insides feel. “Why the fuck are you protecting him?” he barks. “Why, Emily? Just explain it to me. The man hit you your whole life, and now you stand here protecting him. Humiliating yourself.”
We stare at each other over the couch like two people about to duel, arms at our sides, chests rising and falling almost in tandem, anger shooting from our eyes and clashing in the center of the room.