by Kate Stewart
I might have been labeled perfect, but I never fucking asked for it. I was the son of an unimpressed father and doting mother. Early on I accepted it and vied for her affection because she made up for the lack of his. Failure was my enemy. I excelled to spite him though I never hated him. I only wanted to save myself the embarrassment of failing in front of him. And now I could never admit where he truly succeeded, and I had failed.
My father had the unconditional and unwavering love of the woman I loved most in the world . . . until Abbie. But even at his worst, my mother remained loving and loyal. I foolishly thought I could have the same thing. I loved Abbie’s flaws, quirks, and her imperfections. More so, her willingness to admit them without disguising them in sex and perfume. It’s what drew me to her.
She’d let me need her. She’d let me love her, and it was reciprocated. I stopped caring who was watching with her. I needed her love over everything.
Maybe I didn’t deserve her as the man I was.
But I deserved her now.
Didn’t I?
I’d played her way, by her rules. I left my baggage at the door because it worked for me on the same level that it did for her.
I was the man she needed me to be, but it was effortless because it was who I was. The man I’d grown into despite my past. And being free of that burden was a God send when all I wanted to do was forget.
Bottle in hand I moved to my bathroom and studied the cut on my lip and the purple and green bruise on my jaw. I was, once again, covered in Kat’s wrath.
Cupping water over my face, I stared at the evidence that wouldn’t be washed away. A day or two and there wouldn’t be a trace of her physically, but the anger that brewed was what fucked with me. It wasn’t hopeless, at least not in the way it used to feel, trapped.
Anger surfaces as I thought of how I had given Kat my life, my time and attention. She’d wasted it, wasted us both. I ran my finger over the faded scar at my temple, a gift from Kat, an everyday reminder she happened.
“Babe, haven’t you had enough of those today?”
“I’m hurting,” she muttered, absently recapping the pills.
“Your therapist said we should do as much activity as possible. Let’s get out today.”
“I don’t feel like it,” she replied low, her resentful eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
“Okay, let’s stay in.”
She sat at the vanity, running a brush through her hair while I lay in bed watching her. The first time she did her morning ritual, I thought it was odd, like out of some old movie where handmaidens would eventually come in to dress her. She’d been raised regal, and over the years I found it a comforting routine, and oddly sexy. I watched her as she combed through her dark strands, her hair cascading down her frame, her porcelain skin covered in silk.
“I know a few things we can do indoors,” I rasped out as I pushed off the covers and walked over to her table to kiss her bare shoulder.
“Don’t feel like that, either.”
“I miss you,” I said softly to her in the mirror.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m right here.”
“Are you?” I pushed a breath out and knelt in front of my wife, stilling her hands.
“Kat, you haven’t let me touch you in months. I’m hurting too.” I slid my arms around her.
She pushed at my shoulders as I kept hold. “Jesus Christ, Jefferson, is your dick all you care about?”
“No, but it would be nice if my wife gave a damn,” I said as evenly as I could manage. Her eyes flared, and I shook my head. “Forget it, I’m sorry. Let’s just do something today, anything you want.”
“I’ve got work to do.”
“Kat,” I reasoned. “It’s Sunday. The office can wait.”
She pushed my arms away and I hung my head.
She resumed with her brush as I sat on my heels. “You’re only thinking of you. What do you expect from me? I’m hurting!”
“Well, that’s surprising considering you’ve taken half a bottle of pills.”
She tilted her head and shot daggers at me. “Who in the hell are you to tell me when I’m not in pain!”
“You don’t sleep, you barely eat, our marriage is suffering.”
“You mean your dick,” she scoffed.
“I mean our marriage! I can’t get a few words past you without you twisting them and throwing them back. You’re always on the defensive. We need to talk about this,” I said, snatching the bottle of Vicodin off the vanity. “This fucking shit is wrecking your brain. You aren’t yourself.”
“Give them back, Cameron. Don’t you dare hang those over my head.”
I shook my head. “I want to talk about this.”
“You’re fucking pathetic, you know that?! The only problem here is you.”
“Oh, I’m pathetic? I’m the problem? When did that happen? I’m not the one numbing myself to the point of being frigid.” Her body went stone still as I reeled it in, because her words hurt, and I could see something in my wife’s eyes for the first time that looked like hate. But that couldn’t be true. Kat didn’t hate . . . anyone.
“Stop,” I said, reaching for her, “let’s stop.”
It was the shock that registered first, not the pain. But I didn’t get a chance to recover because she swung the steel-plated brush again and caught me in the temple. She stood, hovering above me, and landed another blow. I felt the rush of nausea as blood trickled down my temple.
“Get the fuck away from me! Don’t touch me! It’s your fault! I fucking hate you every day I wake up feeling like this! This, all of this, it’s your fault!”
Blinded by pain and boiling with rage, I stood so abruptly I knocked her back in her seat. I cupped my jaw where the last blow landed before I ripped the brush from her hand, cracking it in half and tossing it to the floor.
“What the fuck, Kat!”
“Don’t act like you didn’t deserve it,” she hissed. “What? You can’t take a punch, Jefferson All-Star!? Eight months I’ve been in pain because you let me fall. Eight months!” she screamed at my retreating back as I walked to the bathroom with my heartbeat ringing in my ears. Until then I never knew words had the ability to ruin flesh and bone worse than a hand or fist. How those syllables could rip apart visions of a future while they left invisible scars. Throbbing everywhere, I glanced in the mirror and saw my jaw was swelling and a large gash across my temple was bleeding freely. I watched it trail a path down my jaw and drip to the carpet. I threw out half of her cabinet to get to the antiseptic as she slammed the bedroom door. Intent on seeing it through, I turned on my heel and snatched the bottle off the floor before she came back into the room, her pills her focus, the pills her afterthought, not her husband. I shook my head as she moved toward me.
“This has got to stop.”
“Give them to me,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Jesus Christ, Kat, look at me! You need to think about what you’re doing!”
“What I’m doing? You’re ruining my life!”
“I’m pointing out the fucking obvious. This shit is changing you.”
“Give them to me!” Her face was porcelain perfection and her eyes stung the deepest part of me. They were laced with hate, and it was all for me.
“No.”
She flew at me then, the blows coming more rapidly, her nails scratching my skin, my face, her eyes wild. It was as if a switch had flipped. I moved to stop her, and it only fueled her. She landed every blow, determined to draw as much from me as she could, and I backed away before I snapped. The second I loosened my grip, she snatched the bottle away. Head pulsing from the fresh hits, I watched her open her bottle and palm a pill, swallowing it to spite me.
“What the fuck did you just do, Kat?”
“Stay away from me, Cameron,” she warned, tears pouring out of her as if I’d somehow hurt her. “You don’t know what it’s like to need this, you don’t know what it’s like to need it to breathe! You don’t love me. There’
s no way you love me!”
“How can you say that? We went through this together!”
“I hate you,” she heaved out through a sob. “I hate you.”
“Cameron.” Max’s voice sounded on the other side of my door before he rapped his knuckles against it.
“What are you doing here, Max? It’s late.”
“Door was unlocked. Why in the hell is it so fucking dark in here?”
Fuck.
I closed my eyes. “Not feeling great, man. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You and me both. I think I got dumped.”
“Dumped?” I answered, searching my cabinets for some way to cover the bruises and finding nothing.
“Yeah, if you can call it that. She let me in then kicked me out. Look, man, why am I talking through a door? Got anything stronger than beer?”
Gripping the bottle in offering, I opened the door to see he was shitfaced. There was no way I could ask him to leave. I ducked my head as I walked past him. He was on my heels as I moved toward the kitchen. “So how did it go with Kat?”
“Same old shit. I think I might be divorced soon.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said, snatching my bottle from my grip before taking a healthy sip.
“What’s with the stalker lighting? Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Just got home.”
He flipped the switch in the kitchen and I cringed. “Where’s Abbie?” He peered over at me. “The fuck happened to you?”
“My goddamned life,” I said bluntly and instantly regretted it.
Max sobered. “What happened?”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “Like I said, I’m not in the mood.”
“I didn’t come over to make love. Kat did that to you?”
Whatever lie I told him, I already knew he wouldn’t believe.
He took my silence as confirmation. “Then why the hell aren’t you on the phone with your lawyer? She can’t touch you now.”
I stared down at the bottle. “First, because it’s two o’clock in the morning. And second, because it’s not worth it.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” he said, moving toward me as I took a step back. “Kat’s done this before?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said, taking another step forward.
I shook my head, my voice stone. “Back off. Leave it alone.”
“How long?”
Something foreign crept up my spine. The same part of me that lashed out at Abbie. I couldn’t control my bite. “I don’t want to talk about it, fucking ever. We’re never going to have this conversation.”
I gritted my teeth as he watched me too closely. “Let it go, Max. She’s gone.”
“Okay,” he admonished. “Where’s Abbie?”
“Gone too,” I said, snatching the bottle from his grip and finishing it off before I spoke. “Turns out they were working together.”
Max stood speechless, a first for him.
“I know,” I said with a dry laugh, pulling two beers from my fridge.
“You have the worst luck of any pretty boy I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah,” I said, tossing the beer caps into my sink and handing one of the bottles to him. “I thought my luck was turning.”
“Apparently, you need Jesus,” he said, taking a swig.
“Trust me, he won’t listen, either.” Max eyed my chin.
“Damn, we’re a mess. It’s like we’re back in college again, screwed up little boys instead of grown men.” I didn’t have an ounce of argument until his eyes trailed over my face.
“Stop looking at me that way, man. If it was anyone else, you would have asked me how he looked.”
“But it wasn’t a he, it was your wife.”
“I’m telling you now to let it go.”
“I always hated her. She was such a pretentious bitch. Just tell me why you let her do it.”
“Why I let her?” I sneered. “I never let her do shit,” I said, taking a long sip. “And I’m not talking about it.”
“So, what now?”
“Am I’m supposed to have a plan for this? It’s over,” I said, hating the words, wishing them back and away from me. But it felt over. It felt more than over.
“She loves you. It’s so obvious.”
“I don’t want a pep talk, all right? This is so much more than that. There’s no fix. I fucked it up permanently. And don’t bother to say I told you so.”
He took a sip of his beer. “I wouldn’t.”
“Then you can stay.” Max stared at me from across the island.
I took a sip of beer, careful to avoid the cut on my lip. “Tell me about Rachel.”
Max shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit. I can’t let this go, man. I know that’s what you want, but I’m pretty fucking pissed off. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call someone and report this shit right now.”
My retort was instant. “Because you’ll end our friendship.”
“It will save you from a messy divorce. Cameron, you can’t let her get away with this.”
“Let it go. It’s over.”
Max ran his hands through his hair as he weighed my words. “She took advantage of the fact you wouldn’t hit her back. I know you, Cameron, but this isn’t chivalry. This isn’t you being the bigger man.”
“If you give a damn about me, you’ll listen to what I’m about to say. I left her. Our relationship is over. She’s no longer a part of my life. Drop it and never mention this again.”
Max nodded. I walked over to my closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket tossing them on the couch before I slammed my bedroom door behind me.
I didn’t sleep. Instead, I stared at the ceiling until the sun lit my bedroom. Half the night, I tried to figure out how I would move on after what we had, the other half I had to resist the urge to go to her.
We were never strangers. The largest piece of me had recognized her as home. But even if I’d made it to her door, I had zero defense. And part of me was furious she’d touched me in a way I never expected. In a way I couldn’t press past.
“Cameron,” Max said at my door.
“Yeah, man,” I said, sitting up, my head splitting in half as I moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
Max stared at the floor. “I’m still fucking pissed off and you look like shit.”
I grinned. “I love you too, man.”
“I’m heading out.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not playing ball today. I’m too hungover and I have work to do.”
“By work, do you mean Rachel?”
“Hell yes, I’m not going to end up like you. Mid-thirties, ugly, and alone. But I’ll be back later.”
“What in the hell for?”
“Someone has to keep you drunk.”
“Some would argue that that’s not being a friend but an enabler.”
“Some would say I know better for you and others can suck my cock.” He grinned spitefully and shut the door behind him with a thud.
I was still kicking myself for admitting it to him. The Band-Aid had been pulled off, but I never told a soul about Kat’s abuse. Even when I was going through it, I was in a constant state of denial that she meant to hurt me. I knew the woman attacking me wasn’t the woman I married. That was my frame of mind at the time.
It was the day I realized it was Kat that I left. And a few months after that to fully leave her emotionally. The rest of the time I was trying to make sure she didn’t hurt herself or anyone else. And damn near every time I went to help her, she attacked me verbally or otherwise. It was a vicious cycle, but I could never bring myself to report it, to report her and it was mostly because I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, let alone a lawyer or any fucking judge. I’m six-foot-three with an athlete’s build. I dwarfed Kat in size. It was a ridiculous notion that she could do so much damage.
But women can scar, they can always scar, if you
let them.
And Max was right. She took advantage of the fact I wouldn’t hit her back.
It was a nightmare on a consistent and predictable spin cycle.
Foolishly I checked my phone and saw that I had nothing to look forward to. Instead, I stared at the screen saver, a picture of us on Abbie’s front porch on New Year’s Day, the day she reached her goal of five miles. It was my favorite picture and had the opposite effect it had the day before. Raw inside, I gave into temptation and flipped through more pictures while my heart hammered as a reminder that in no way was it over for me. Even as angry as I was with her refusal to listen, or that she slapped me, I couldn’t believe we were done. But I needed peace. It was the only thing keeping me sane. And I needed a distraction because Abbie was far too angry, and I had too many fresh bruises.
For the first time when it came to her, I didn’t trust my judgment to make any call.
I had games to coach. My only saving grace.
I’d barely toweled off from my shower when there was a knock on my door. My hopes of who was behind it dashed when I opened it and took a step back.
“Dad?”
“Hey son,” he said casually, a smile briefly touching his lips. “I know it’s early. Hoped you might be up.”
He’d lost a few pounds since Christmas. He seemed smaller in stature, his hair in need of a cut. He looked lost, as if he was uncomfortable standing there.
“Can I come in?”
“Sorry, yeah,” I said, opening the door wider to let him in.
“Nice place.”
“Thanks,” I said holding the knob as I watched him walk around. He looked completely out of place in my living room.
“I would have come sooner but I wasn’t invited,” he said dryly as he studied the picture of me, my mom, and Max that sat on one of my end tables.
Ignoring his sarcasm, I shut the door. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine. What happened to your face?”
I shrugged. “Got rough on the court.”
He eyed me warily and I moved toward the kitchen his sarcastic timber unmistakable. “I don’t recall basketball being that hands on.”