by C R Martens
“Do you often think about your past?” he asked.
“I do now that I am forced to,” Eve said. “But, no, I don’t.”
“Oh, right.” He remembered which role he was here to play. “You can keep going.”
“I remember a conversation I had with Sandy before I left for England. We were both 20-years-old and we thought we knew all about love.
“‘I want him to be the one! I think he is, there are just some things that he needs to straighten out before I go to England,’ I said, hopefully optimistic.
“‘But what about the long-distance relationship issue?’ Sandy asked, looking at me, trying to catch my eye. ‘You are going to be in a new place, a different country, with lots of new people and impressions. Don’t you think it’s stupid to start a long-distance relationship with someone who you haven’t even known that long?’ Those were the exact thoughts going through my own head.
“‘I’ve been thinking that as well, but I can’t not try to make it work. I do love him and maybe it’s meant to be. I don’t want to give up. Not yet.’ I remember feeling slightly hopeless about the relationship but feeling an enormous excitement about going to England. I wasn’t ready to give up either. Even though I knew Ryan wasn’t a stable man.
“‘You have a decision to make and I don’t envy it.’ Sandy patted my knee and lifted herself up. ‘Let’s get back to work. Where are you going?’
“‘I’m doing the post round, nothing like an early morning walk inside,’ I said overly enthusiastically. I remember now that I told Ryan I loved him only four weeks into the relationship. I had been slightly drunk and very angry with him; he had just yelled at me for what I was wearing, accusing me of flirting with some of my male friends, which I wasn’t, not that I didn’t feel like it but because I couldn’t be bothered with yet another fight with Ryan. I realised that to Ryan I flirted with everyone and the reason he thought this was because I had never flirted with him. What we had wasn’t flirtatious, it was obsessive bordering on the destructive. It was the fastest I had ever said, “I love you”, and now I don’t know if I ever did love him or if he just happened to be at the right place in time to fit into the neatly-organised schedule of my life. Looking back at my idea of how life ought to have been like, I am glad and relieved that that is not the path I followed. And looking back it is also the last time I ever told anyone I loved them. What a waste.
Whenever I have been single, I have had the highest confidence and I always felt beautiful both inside and out, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s probably just another façade I put up, but it works. Things somehow changed when I met Ryan. I became insecure about myself in almost every situation I found myself in with him and I was constantly afraid that I was not good enough.
“‘Why don’t you want to come out and meet my friends tonight?’ I asked Ryan one night. I was on my way home from work, it was Saturday.
“‘I you told why,’ he said coldly over the phone. ‘I don’t want to go out drinking and partying with you – I do that with my friends.’
“‘I thought I’d just ask,’ I said, hoping he could hear the hurt in my voice. ‘Okay, I hope you have a good weekend then.’
“‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Ryan said and hung up.
“I could tell he was in a mood. We hadn’t been out since we went to Roskilde Festival and that was the first time he really scared me. He had screamed and shouted at me as he pushed me along the path to the bus. His grip on my arm had been violent. He didn’t want to be at the festival anymore, he didn’t want to see me having fun with my friends. Ryan pushed his way on to the bus and when I got my money out to pay, all hell broke loose.
“‘What the hell are you doing?’ Ryan hissed at me, grabbing my arm and dragging me through the bus.
“‘I was just paying the bus fare.’ The tears had started to well up in my eyes. ‘Stop pulling me.’
“‘I just walked on here, not paying,’ he hissed. ‘You paying makes me look bad.’
“‘But I would have paid for both of us,’ I said quietly. ‘And I don’t just steal or cheat. So, I am going to pay.’ As I started to return to the front, he ripped me back into the seat, forcing me to sit. He pulled so hard that the collar of my raincoat caught my throat.
“‘Are you fucking stupid!’ he said. It wasn’t a question. ‘You will sit here until we get to the train station.’
“I cried silently all the way back to Copenhagen. The next morning, he was pleading for my forgiveness and apologising, promising it would never happen again. This was all too familiar to me.
“‘I am so sorry, sweetheart.’ His hands clasped my face tightly. ‘It’s not like me, you know that, right?’
“‘I’m sure.’ I wasn’t and it didn’t feel right. ‘You scared me.’
“‘I would never hurt you.’ His face was full of remorse. ‘Trust me, it will never happen again.’
“‘Okay,’ I said, just to end the conversation. His grasp was so tight that all I could think of was getting away. It wasn’t the last time. Ryan was good at it. I never liked his mind tricks that he played on me. He played on my insecurities; he knew exactly which buttons to push to get the reaction he wanted. He left me hanging for days when I didn’t know what was going on or where he was. But I knew his one weakness. And that was me,” Eve recalled. “That’s when I ended the relationship for the third time.”
“You can keep going,” he said, breaking my silent thought. Eve look at her watch and then at the other camera behind the psychologist.
“Right, so, the time apart was brief and somehow while I was in England Ryan managed to get back into my life but we only saw each other every two months or so. But his jealousy was always there, it was the elephant in the room. The intensity of our relationship overshadowed everything else, and when he spontaneously moved to England for the summer between my first and second year, things escalated. It felt good, to spend all that time in the library though school was half done, he at least couldn’t disturb me there.
“One early Tuesday morning, Ryan was still sleeping. It was my only day off that week but I hadn’t told him that. I didn’t want to be around him all day so I lied and snuck out while he was still sleeping. I hid at the university all day even though we had the flat to ourselves as both of my flatmates had gone home for the summer. They hadn’t planned to be away the entire summer, but Ryan had that effect on people. If he didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be in doubt about it and as soon as he arrived, I slowly disappeared and my friends, in particular, wondered what had happened to me.
“‘Where have you been hiding?’ It was Courtney’s calming voice; she had been my housemate in the first year of Uni. She and Ryan had never warmed to one another.
“‘Around.’ I smiled and Courtney kissed me on the cheek. ‘Busy with Uni, I suppose.”
“‘In the summer holidays? What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘You know you can always talk to me. And I know that something is not right.’
“‘I’m just adjusting to Ryan being here,’ I said, looking down at the table we were sitting at in a café in front of the library.
“‘And?’ Courtney probed.
“‘And what?’ I had hoped I could escape the conversation without having to go into details.
“‘Okay, I’ll start then.’ She smiled. ‘I always thought there was something wrong with Ryan. You know that. And now that he has ‘moved’ here I know there is. You are never out anymore; you used to be smiling and happy all the time, except the time when I pissed you off. Now you do nothing but go to Uni and go home. It’s like that even when he isn’t here. It’s like he’s your own personal dark cloud.’
“I didn’t know how to respond. Courtney was the first to confront me about my absence in the social sphere.
“‘He says he is going to change,’ I said. ‘He is willing to do anything to make it work, even counselling.’
“‘What do you want to do?’ Courtney asked.
“‘I don’t
know yet,’ I lied. ‘Give him a chance. I mean he did give up his job to be here with me.’
“‘You don’t owe him anything, just remember that,’ she said. I lied, everything coming out of my mouth was a lie, but that was what I was used to. I knew exactly what I wanted, I just hadn’t found the right time and appropriate situation for it.
“The following weekend, Courtney convinced me to go out with her and some friends. When I asked, Ryan had said it was fine with him.
“‘What is that?’ he asked, looking less than pleased. ‘Is that what you are wearing?’
“‘Yes,’ I answered tentatively, knowing my answer was wrong.
“‘I can see everything,’ he said, looking the way he did whenever something didn’t please him, his eyes narrowing, his forehead frowning and his lips tightening.
“‘What do you mean? My arms are covered and I am wearing thick tights and there is no cleavage.’ I had specifically chosen this dress because I knew it would cover up everything, in the hope of avoiding this.
“‘I can still see everything, it’s too tight.’ His tone was getting harsher. ‘I don’t want anybody to look at you and think you’re easy.”
“‘I’ll change,’ I said, walking back into the bedroom. I put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I came back into the living room to grab my bag.
“‘I can still see everything,’ he said, now even more malicious than ever, he didn’t even look up. I didn’t go out that evening. I ended up texting my friends saying I had a massive headache. Two weeks later, I broke up with Ryan after a night out. I had finally convinced him to come out with me. But as the night progressed, Ryan became more and more tense and by the time we had gotten home from the party, things got heated. He cornered me in the hallway and when I tried to get past him, he shoved me into the front door and I fell to the ground. I had a bruise from where the door handle hit my back. I didn’t show him that. It was over right then and there, at least for the next 24 hours. By then he had pleaded with me to take him back, swearing on his life he would never hurt me again. I felt trapped, having nowhere else to go. So, I took him back. Things never changed, he never changed,” Eve finished.
“Good,” he said. He really had to take a refresher course in psychology if he was going to act this job again.
“So, should I bring cake?” she asked.
“Cake?” he looked confused.
“To celebrate our last session next week,” she said jokingly.
“No?” He was still confused. “No, that’s not necessary.”
Baffled by what Eve had said, he sat there, mouth open as she left the room. Either he was still confused or he was thinking about cake.
9.
I don’t know why I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t like him and I wasn’t attracted to him, but somehow, he got under my skin. He imprinted on me. I thought it was love, he convinced me it was. But the fact was I needed a challenge and he provided that.
It was the summer holidays between Eve’s second and third year. The exams had been hard but Eve passed them all and most with firsts. The chaotic fun of year two was over and the gruelling task of Eve’s third year seemed just around the corner, but first, she had work to do. She had found a job at a small office doing meeting prep and coffee runs. It wasn’t the best pay but it covered what it needed to for her new flatshare, which came with a hefty price tag. In two weeks it was her birthday and though she had gone back to Denmark to celebrate last year, this year she wouldn’t. There was one reason for that and that was her plan to break up with Ryan was finally happing. Ryan was in Denmark. The past three weeks before him leaving had been even more gruelling than ever before. And since he had been away it had been non-stop with emails, texts and calls. It was getting to be too much. So, Eve had hatched a plan to get rid of him. She would be out with her male friends, knowing it would be agonising for Ryan.
“Are you with them?” he texted.
“Yes. I told you I would be,” she texted back.
“Why did you not reply sooner?!” he wrote. Eve knew exactly what he was looking for. A fight. And that was exactly what he was going to get.
“Because I am at the pub with loud music and friends. Sorry I didn’t respond faster,” Eve texted back, keeping completely calm. And she knew all too well how he would read it. Like she was taunting him.
“Do you like them better than me?” he texted. “Do you want them? Do you want to fuck them?”
Eve decided that texting might not be the best way to continue, so she called him. He let the phone go to voicemail; she knew he was sitting with his phone in his hand, his responses had come promptly when texting. This was his game, this was what he did best – playing the hurt, blaming her for everything. He was manipulating and controlling. However, this time she was fully composed to deal with him. She called back again and this time he answered.
“Do you think you can play me for a fool?” Ryan’s bitter and angry voice flooded her ears.
“I am not the one playing games here,” she replied.
“Do you think I’m playing games?” he shouted back. “I’m not the one fucking around here!”
“I’m not cheating on you Ryan.” She remained calm; this wasn’t new to her. “I never have.”
“You don’t think I see the looks?” He was getting angrier. The calmer she was the more aggressive he became. “‘Why is she with him? What a loser he is.’”
“This is all in your mind, Ryan, you read too much into something where there is nothing. I can’t keep reassuring you. At some point, I thought you would trust me, but that has never happened.” Eve was tired and frustrated that it had ended here again. “This is on you.”
“What do you mean?” he shouted. She could hear his every breath. “We’re not talking about me.”
“No, we never talk about you,” she said very clear-minded, the intoxication from one pint too many was all of a sudden gone. “But maybe we should talk about you and what you do. You put me down to make yourself feel better, you call me every synonym for bitch every time I try to leave the flat to see my friends or even just to go to school. You tell me I look like a slut or that I am too fat for my clothes. So, let’s talk about what you did to fuck this relationship up.”
“You make me this way,” he started to explain, realising what was happening all too late. “Do you think I want to be this way, treating you like that?”
“Ryan, don’t you get it?” Eve was calm. “You broke it, you are the reason we are ending. No one else is to blame but you. The way you treat me is just a reflection of the pathetic man you see reflected in the mirror.”
“Don’t end it, don’t leave me,” he pleaded on the other end of the phone. His ability to change his mood in a microsecond was incredible. “You and I are meant to be together. I’m coming over there tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother,” she said. She knew he meant it, but she was ready if he did come. “Because this time you won’t change my mind. Bye, Ryan.”
She hung up smiling to herself, feeling oddly victorious. But dumping him was just half the plan. Now it was time to set in motion the other part. Eve started breathing really quickly, almost hyperventilating, and thought about someone close to her dying, forcing tears to appear in her eyes and then she walked shaking and crying back to her friends. She told them everything – no lies, or almost no lies, all that he had done and put her through, the only thing she faked was her fear and the tears. If he were going to come, she would make sure she had an army of people around her for protection. But her little performance hadn’t gone unnoticed and it wasn’t the first time either. That evening when she left her friends, she didn’t go home. It was her first night of freedom from Ryan’s suffocating grip, and she was going to find someone to replace him with right then and there. But only for the night.
In the aftermath of her relationship crash, she realised that they never really had a chance. If they had had the time to date, they wouldn’t have lasted that long. She didn’
t get the full picture of who he really was until he ‘moved’ to England. She had had glimpses of his rage, but when he came to stay, Eve saw what and who he really was and the amount of psychological abuse he was capable of bearing down on her was inescapable. There were moments when she felt scared of what he might do, not to himself, but to her. His threats of suicide had always been empty and used in a way to get a hold on her. He would become so threatening that she could do nothing but say yes. When they had met, Eve had been a 20-year-old blue-eyed girl whose biggest dream was to fall in love, have babies and live happily ever after. Searching for the happy life she had never had as a child. She regretted giving him more chances than he deserved, she regretted not giving herself the privilege to be young without being tied down. But he had preyed on her insecurities and secretly Eve had wanted an escape, which he for a while seemed to provide. Most of all, Eve regretted not trusting her own instincts, instincts that told her that Ryan wasn’t right. But she never went through an experience without learning something. This time she knew how to keep her cool in a pressurised situation, he could interrogate her all he wanted to Eve wasn’t going to give him anything that wasn’t carefully scripted in her mind.
Ryan’s threat wasn’t empty. But he was a coward when push came to shove; he spent three days stalking her, bombarding her with texts, emails and phone calls. Eve didn’t respond to any of them. No, she spent her time seducing new men right in front of him. On the third night, when she brought a man home, she turned at the front door and looked straight at Ryan standing across the street before she walked the other man up the stairs to her flat. Eve heard Ryan frantic out on the street scream in rage. The police came and that was the end of him. She had broken him just as he had tried to break her.
Year three of university didn’t have such a gentle start as year two but Eve could manage. She had found a new strength in herself.