He nods sharply and I sigh.
“I didn’t realize until recently, with Dr. Maxwell’s help, why I had such a hard time after all that stuff with Brandon went down. I knew I was pushing you away out of fear, but I couldn’t even understand it myself. You have to understand that I’ve never known a positive relationship with a man, so when you started getting close, I freaked out. You are so perfect on the outside that it terrified me beyond imagination that you could change just as easily as all the others.” I stop when he grunts, but he motions for me to keep going. “Right. So with that, you might understand a little better why his attack was the trigger for me. About two years into their marriage, he cornered me. I’ll spare you the gory details, but how I looked a few weeks ago? That’s close to how he left me, only he took it a lot further.”
He shoots off the couch, knocking his beer to the floor. I keep my eyes trained to the foaming liquid pouring out of the overturned bottle. I knew he would look at me differently, but it’s still painful to be right. Why would he want someone so fucked up?
“He put his hands on you? Son of a bitch! If he wasn’t already dead, I would fucking kill him. Gut that sorry bastard.” He paces in front of the couch, growling each word out with disgust. “Fuck!” He keeps his pacing up for a few minutes before he stops in his tracks and looks over at me. Shaking his head, a look of stark terror comes over his features. I watch in slow motion as he figures it out before I can tell him. Somehow, he just knows, and when I watch all that anger turn into a pain so great that he drops to his knees in front of me, my world ends. “No, no, no…”
I can’t move from my spot on the couch. My chest is heaving with the force of my emotions. My tears burn as they fall down my face and land in my lap. I can’t even move to wipe my eyes. He quickly moves over to where I’m sitting, his head hits my lap, and his arms wrap around my waist. When his shoulders start to shake with the emotions warring through him, my tears come quicker, and a loud sob breaks free from my throat.
That sob seems to break him from his silent misery because his he pulls his head up, unwraps his arms, and pulls me down into his lap. His strong arms wrap around me again, and he pushes his face into my shoulder. I cling to him, soaking up his heat, trying to warm my body and chase away the pain.
He doesn’t break his hold on me when he pulls us back up to the couch, still making sure that I’m in his lap and safe in his arms.
“I’m sorry.” I offer weakly.
He looks shocked, but desperation bleeds off his face. “What? My God, Dee, what do you have to be sorry for?”
I shrug my shoulders and just shake my head.
“You’ve thought this was your fault this whole time? Oh, Baby.” He pulls me back to his chest and rocks us slightly. “What that bastard did to you isn’t your fault, Dee. Never your fault. He was a sick, disturbed man. It kills me to think about you going through that, and going through it alone. I wish you could have opened up and told me that before, but I understand why you didn’t. That’s why you kept running?”
“Yeah. I don’t think I can ever prove to you how sorry I am for everything that I’ve put us through. I just saw you and all your perfection, and it reminded me of how he was when I had first introduced him to Izzy. I think I always knew deep down that you would never turn on me, but that fear was so ingrained, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t separate you two. And then when all of that stuff happened, it was like a light switch went off. I knew he was gone, but my mind couldn’t turn the fear off. He was everywhere I looked, and every time I looked in the mirror, I could see what he did to me. I punished you because of what he did, and I did it over and over.” I pause to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. He keeps silent and lets me finish.
“It’s taken me all this time to push back those feelings, to clear all of the dark webs of my depression. I can’t thank you enough for forcing me to start seeing someone, because without that I don’t think I ever would have healed. For a while, it was a lot of trial and error, trying to figure out what worked best with my trauma. Dr. Maxwell tells me that there will still be setbacks. Some people don’t ever really beat PTSD, but they do learn how to live with it, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Living with it. I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ll ever be completely carefree and healed, but these last few weeks with you by my side have given me all the hope I’ve ever needed that I will get past this.”
When he still doesn’t speak, but just keeps holding me tightly and staring off into the distance, I start to worry that he hasn’t heard me. So I say the only thing I can think of to make him understand where I am now. How I’m finally ready for him and all the love he’s ever been offering.
“Your love saved me,” I whisper.