by Tracey Ward
It gutted me – her acceptance. The fact that she knew me and didn’t hate me because she should have. More than anyone in the world Jenna Monroe had every reason to loathe me, but she didn’t. She loved me, no question. No reservations.
It was the single most fucked up thing I’d ever encountered.
And I grew up in L.A.
“No,” I admitted roughly. “I don’t feel anything for anyone. Ben says it’s a coping mechanism to distance myself from what happened.”
“But when it’s over, when you start to resurface… do you…”
“I love you,” I told her plainly. I lifted my head and my hand, pulling the curtain aside until she stood in front of me, tall and naked and beautiful as anything I’d ever seen. I held her eyes as I told her firmly, “I never stop loving you. It’s there when I hide and it’s there when I come back, and whether I know it or not it’s there when I’m running from it. From everything. It’s like going to sleep. I’m on autopilot but I’m still me.”
“Like when you’re in the ring?”
Like when I let the animal have control, I thought morosely.
One side of me was ruled by fear. By terror and horrible memories that threatened to break me in two. The other was angry. It railed against the abuses, all of them, and delighted in doling out punishments to others. I only let that side loose in the ring when I was boxing and the person who stepped in front of me asked me to hit him. And I did. Over and over until the animal was quiet and my body was mine again. Until the fear was pushed aside and the itch in my palms was erased and I could be myself, be a man for two seconds.
The relief never lasted as long as I would have liked and as the frequency of my trips to the gym increased I wondered if I was more animal than human. If they hadn’t trained me as a boy to be a dog, rabid and wrathful, full of fear and fight.
I ran my hand over my hair quickly, letting out a breath of air in a rushed burst that I wanted to follow. I wanted to dissipate and disappear in the steam on the air and filter out through the apartment. Through the window.
I wanted out of my body.
Out of the cage I’d built for myself that kept me from her.
I caught sight of a dark gray towel out of the corner of my eye and I snapped it off the bar. Carefully I reached around Jenna with my other hand to turn off the water, then I gently pulled the towel open behind her. I was so close to her I could feel the heat coming from her body. Her naked, wet, warm body, and I had to close my eyes for a moment to keep my hands to myself.
I wouldn’t go there tonight. I wouldn’t bail on her. I’d stay with her as much as I could and I’d make it my norm, I’d learn it the way I once learned to walk, to breathe, to box. I’d make being with her my every day until I didn’t have to think about it anymore, until it simply was and then maybe, just maybe I’d be able to find this place in the dark. It’d be a light I could feel even when I couldn’t see it and it’d guide me home to her.
“What I am in the ring,” I explained slowly, my eyes carefully trained on my hands wound tight in the towel, “is anger. That’s it. I think of it as an animal that’s pure primal instinct. He likes to hit people. He likes to hurt people because that’s what was done to him. I’m a cornered street dog snarling and feral.”
“He’s your passion,” she said gently.
I shook my head, meeting her eyes hard. “Don’t dress it up. It’s not pretty. It’s fucked. Every part of me is fucked, Jenna.” I pulled on the towel, throwing her off balance until she tumbled into me. Into my arms where her body ran the length of mine so soft and warm and sweet. “Every part but you.”
Her eyes searched mine sadly and silently as her arms wound around me. Her feet slipped on the bottom of the tub and I lifted her easily, carrying her back to my bedroom while she buried her face in my neck and clung to me gently.
I laid her down next to me and pulled the blanket over us in the dark room. I let her look at me with no mask. No hiding, no void. No lies. All fear.
It was a scary thing being real with Jenna because no matter how much she loved me I harbored a voracious fear that she would find out the truth about what I really was, what I’d been through, and she’d leave me. It hunted me day and night, consuming me from the inside out until I worried there was nothing left. No muscle, blood, or bone inside my body. Only hollow, aching fear.
***
Ben grinned at me from behind his thick-rimmed glasses. His puffy white hair was flying in every direction as always, standing at odds with his perfectly pleated pants and polished shoes.
“You know what I’m going to ask you,” he told me.
“You ask every time.”
“Gotta do it, Captain.”
I nodded, refusing to speak. Afraid I’d vomit if I opened my mouth.
“Are you ready to talk about your past?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me impassively, silently. He didn’t blink, he barely breathed, and as the seconds ticked by I worried I’d broken him. That I’d mentally shattered my therapist.
“Really?” he finally asked quietly.
My palms itched angrily and I rubbed them together to calm the burn. It didn’t help. “Yes. Really.”
“Okay. Why don’t we start at the beginning? With your introduction into foster care.”
“No,” I protested. “Later. After that. I already talked about that.”
“In the session with Jenna?”
“Yes.”
“That was hardly talking about it. We barely brushed the surface of the problem. We have to delve deeper.” He eyed me critically, noting the rise in my shoulders. The curl of my knuckles. “And I believe you know that.”
I flexed my jaw, trying to loosen the tension that always started there.
“We’ll talk about something else,” Ben suggested lightly, sitting back in his chair. “Let’s talk about what made you finally decide to speak about your childhood and then we’ll circle around to the main event.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re asking.”
“I’m not,” he answered frankly. “So what’s on your mind today? What brought about this change in attitude?”
“Jenna.”
“Have you discussed the sexual abuse with her since the session she attended?”
I flinched at the boldness of his words. They were so blunt, so on the nose that they made me sick.
“No,” I ground out, my throat coated in gravel.
Ben made a note as he nodded, unconcerned by my tone. When he was done he looked up at me expectantly.
I glared back.
He sighed. “Kellen, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know you were sexually abused. I’m also not going to avoid using that term and speaking honestly with you about it. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?”
I pulled my lips in between my teeth and bit down hard, just south of puncturing the tender flesh with my teeth. I stopped myself, pushing my lips out on a loud burst of air from my lungs and settling back into the couch. “Fine.”
“You’ll never face the act if you can’t face the words.”
“I said it’s fine,” I snapped.
“Good,” Ben agreed pleasantly. “Let’s talk about Jenna then. What’s troubling you about her?”
“Sex.”
He blinked once, his eyes magnified in his glasses. “Go on.”
“The thing that I do… the running.”
“The fact that you emotionally shut down during sexual intercourse?”
“Yeah. How do I stop that?”
“How do you—“ Ben sat forward in his seat. “How do you stop removing yourself emotionally from sex?”
“Yeah.”
“Kellen, I have no idea.”
Ben had never given me a non-answer before. He was packed full of quips and wisdom and ideas. Full of help and hope. But this, this nothing, floored me.
“What do you mean?” I insisted tightly.
“I mean I don’t know. I can’t say ho
w to fix a problem that I don’t fully understand,” he explained. “You wouldn’t take your car to a mechanic, tell him the oil is leaking but never let him under the hood. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t tell me we can’t talk about the root of your problems and still insist that we resolve the symptoms. It doesn’t work like that.”
I groaned a curse, looking away toward the window. Toward an escape.
“Why is this an issue now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why is it bothering you now? You’ve used that coping mechanism for how long? Nearly fifteen years? So why fix it now?”
“Because it’s Jenna,” I answered simply, because that’s all there was to it. Jenna mattered. “She’s not like Laney was, she isn’t okay with ignoring the empty shit, and I’m worried…” I took a deep breath that burned in my lungs and made my eyes ache with a sharp sting I could barely comprehend. “I’m worried I’m ruining her.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Because it’s true.”
“How are you ruining her?”
“I’m making her run. I’m pushing her away. She used to stay with me afterward and we’d deal with it together. She waited for me to come out of it. She’s not doing that anymore. She’s started leaving.” I shrugged, turning my eyes back to his, the motion overly jerky. “I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to stop doing it.”
“You have to make amends with the abuse, Kellen,” Ben said simply. “You’re smart enough to know that.”
I graduated from high school with a perfect 4.0 GPA. I sprinted through advanced classes, dominated an accelerated learning program, took down Law School in only three years. The coma took its toll on my brain but I was still the smartest guy in just about any room, and still somehow with all of that I had convinced myself that this was all out of my hands. Unfixable and uncontrollable because that was the simplest solution – nothing. I wanted it to be true because I was a coward. I always had been. I always would be.
“We get to the root or we never cure the disease,” Ben told me quietly. “You want to fix things with Jenna? You want a healthy relationship where you both feel safe?”
“Yes,” I answered thickly.
“Then we talk about the abuse. Today.”
I looked anywhere but at Ben. The floor, the ceiling, the laces on my tennis shoes, but finally I couldn’t avoid him any longer. I couldn’t avoid it.
“Okay,” I told him solemnly. “Let’s talk about it.”
Chapter Nine
Kellen
“It’s Kellen, isn’t it?” she asked kindly.
I looked up at the woman standing in front of me. She was short and thin with long red hair that hung down to her waist, ruffling in the wind as she waited for me at the front door. The house around her was small and old. The paint was chipping on the railings framing the porch and the swing on the right side was half hanging, half falling down on the beaten boards beneath it. The lawn was cut tight, though, and a small flower bed around the mailbox was blooming green and purple. Pinks and yellows. They matched the bright colors of the woman’s clothes, all of which looked new and clean. Her arms were empty, no crying babies or bottles. It was quiet. Almost silent.
It was a far cry from my last foster home that had been overflowing with kids. The parents that lived there were nice enough but they were overwhelmed. They tried to manage all of us but there was just no way to do it. They didn’t have the manpower, and when the decision came down to choosing who stayed and who left, they were quick to send me on my way.
I paused on the cracked stone walkway. “Yes, ma’am.”
She beamed at me. “Look at the manners on you,” she chuckled. “That’s very sweet, but, baby, I’m going to tell you a little secret about women. Something you should try very hard to always remember. Any woman over the age of thirty hates to be called ‘ma’am’.”
“Sorry,” I replied awkwardly. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s okay. We just had our first life lesson.” She gestured for me to follow her into the house, pushing the front door open wide. “Come on in. We’ll see what else we can teach each other. I hear you speak French?”
“Yes. Oui.”
I stepped inside, moving past her and catching her perfume in my nose. It was too strong, too acidic. I tried very hard not to let it show that I didn’t like it. She seemed nice and I didn’t want to disappoint her again.
“That is what I’d like you to teach me,” she said with a warm smile.
“I can try.”
“How did you learn it?”
“My m—“ I choked back a sob as my eyes burst bright, soaked in salt. It came on so fast I couldn’t stop it. I looked away, feeling humiliated and childish.
Her hand touched my head softly. She caressed my unruly hair. “That’s alright. They told me you were still getting over her death.”
“It’s why they kicked me out of the last house,” I replied hoarsely. “I cried too much. They said I made the other kids angry.”
“Well good thing there are no other kids here. Just you and me, and between you and me you can cry as much as you want. You deserve to be sad over her.”
I sniffed in reply. For some reason her kind words made me feel even worse.
“Is that your only bag?” she asked. I nodded silently. “Good. Let me show you your room and then you can help me with dinner.”
That first night in Sophia’s house was quiet. It was also the first night in a very long time that I didn’t cry.
I helped her make dinner, we watched TV together, and when I went to bed in a room all to myself I nearly died with relief. I slept in late the next morning for the first time in over a year and I almost felt bad for not missing the rough hospital sheets and hard furniture I’d camped out on for so long, watching my mom wither away.
I didn’t feel bad about not missing my last house, though. I hadn’t made any friends there and neither of the parents had been half as nice to me as Sophia was. She smiled at me when I came into a room. She asked for help opening jars, telling me it was nice to have a man around the house. She gave me chores to keep me busy and paid me an allowance for doing them faithfully. She would ask me the French word for just about everything when we went grocery shopping, laughing and ruffling my hair when I confessed I didn’t know the word for bananas. I didn’t realize until I was in her house that I’d never had a banana before. Turned out I didn’t care for them.
I felt comfortable and safe, feelings that had been foreign to me for too long, and I reveled in it. I even started having fantasies that Sophia would like my company so much she’d adopt me and I wouldn’t be moved again. I started to wonder if maybe I was finally home.
Then one afternoon as I was getting ready to leave for school she leaned in to give me a hug and I flinched. Every time she hugged me she left her acrid perfume on my clothes. It was a smell that would stay with me all day and I hated it, but I’d been careful to never say it. Sophia had been teaching me more manners, more ways to avoid offending a woman, and telling her she stank was definitely something I shouldn’t do.
But that morning I was tired and I slipped. She saw me flinch, felt me pull away, and immediately her sweet smile turned sour.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
I shook my head quickly. “Nothing. Sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
My eyes darted over the wall behind her. I was searching for answers, for a lie to cover my mistake, but I couldn’t find one fast enough. “I don’t like your perfume. It gets on my clothes and I smell it all day. I’m sorry,” I muttered lamely.
She sucked in a sharp breath as she stood up rigidly. “I think you’d better get to school.”
I ran for the bus, eager to get away from the awkward situation, but it stuck with me all day. I felt guilty for upsetting her and I swore to myself I’d make it up to her when I got home. I’d find a way. Somehow.
When I got off th
e bus she wasn’t there to greet me like she usually was. I went in the house and couldn’t find her. Just a note on the table next to a peanut butter sandwich that said she wasn’t feeling well and that this was my dinner. She was in her room and she didn’t want to be disturbed.
I ate my sandwich, did my homework, and quietly got ready for bed. I wanted to tell her I remembered to brush my teeth without being reminded but I didn’t dare knock on her door. Instead I went into my room and clicked on the light.
It was empty. All of the furniture was gone. The bed, the dresser, the mattress, the blankets. Nothing but another note in the center of the room.
You were cruel to me today.
Cruelty does not deserve niceties.
You’ll get your things back when you show me you know how to be sweet.
I nearly cried that night as I went to sleep in the dark on the cold, hard floor. I was angry I’d disappointed her. I was hurt that she was punishing me so sternly.
And when the bedroom door opened slowly, yellow light spilling in behind the glowing red figure in the frame, I was afraid.
I just didn’t know why yet.
***
“Do you want to stop?” Ben asked gently.
I looked at him hard as the animal breathed in steadily and my entire body rested like stone in the couch of his office. “I want to be finished with this forever,” I reminded him calmly.
“That won’t happen in one session, Kellen.”
“It won’t happen in none either.”
He nodded. “Agreed. Please continue.”
“She came into the room and explained to me how wrong I’d been. How hurtful I was. What a hateful little boy I was. Not a man after all. Then she asked me if I thought I could be sweet. I wanted my bed back so I told her yes. She asked me if I wanted to be a man. I wanted to stop crying, to stop feeling so fucking small and powerless, so I told her yes.” My heartbeat spiked, my body going hot everywhere then cooling almost instantly. Like lava hitting water. Obsidian, sharp and shining. “She laid on top of me. She touched me everywhere and not just with her hands. I was old enough to understand what she was doing. I’d seen it on TV and movies. I knew what sex was. But my body wasn’t ready for it and when she didn’t get the reaction she was looking for she accused me of insulting her again. She left me there on the floor – shaking and scared. So confused by my own body that when the sun rose I pissed myself instead of going to the bathroom.”