I grab a wine cooler and find the cabinet I stash my meds in. Nicole has never mentioned them. I don’t know if she has investigated to see what I’m taking or if she just figures she knows and lets it slide.
I’m sitting at the table, trying to calm my heart and vaguely listening to the conversation in the living room. What I hear, doesn’t help my anxiety. Crusher is telling Dragon about some woman named Jess who was beaten. Dragon’s reply hits my stomach…sour.
“Pissed off man?” Dragon asks.
Is there any other kind? I sit there and replay Dragon’s question in my mind and it pisses me off that he says it so calmly. Is this the shit he deals with every day in his world? Is that why he sets off my warning bells?
“That’s just it, Boss…she had a note taped to her chest.” Crush reaches inside his jacket pocket and hands Dragon a piece of folded white paper.
Dragon opens the paper and you can see it’s covered with blood. My panic inches up another notch as I swallow down a large drink of the wine cooler. This woman they are discussing…was beaten… beaten and bloody. Was she dying…or dead? Why is Crusher here telling Dragon? Shouldn’t he be at the hospital? Did anyone call the police? Is this Jess some dirty little secret they are going to keep hidden?
I tune them out again, but not by choice. My head is full of memories. Of my last beating, of the injuries that are too many to count. How I was hidden and chained like a dog. If not for Ms. Martens….my hand shakes at her memory…at all the memories. I can’t be around Dragon and his men. I can’t be around Crusher. I don’t want to be around men who can act so calmly about a woman being hurt. I don’t want to be around men who come to each other to talk about things instead of calling from a hospital or calling the cops! Something!
I force my attention back on the three in the room and stand up. I need to get out of the house. It feels like air is being withheld from me. I need to breathe. I look up at Crusher and he looks over my body again. This time I don’t feel excitement though. No, this time it is bone-deep fear I feel. Time for kick-ass Dani to come out and give the world a fuck you. I grab a bottle of vodka, stuff it in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, carefully hiding what I’m doing behind the opened refrigerator door.
Nicole has this idea that going to counseling will help me. It’s making things worse. It’s bringing up all the shit I’ve fought to bury. One of their main rules is to not use alcohol to deal with your problems. Fuck that! They don’t live in my brain. I need the alcohol. So, I hide how bad my drinking has become from Nicole. I hide a lot from her. I couldn’t handle it if she knew how pathetic I truly am. I go to stand in the far corner, watching everyone and waiting for my chance to escape. Dragon lays a kiss on Nicole that almost melts my panties. What would it be like to have a man so crazy into you that he sets you on fire just saying goodbye? I immediately look at Crusher, because I’m stupid. I assumed he would be watching Dragon and Nic play tonsil hockey, but his eyes are glued on me. There’s a heat in those dark eyes that…if I had been a stronger person…a different person, I might have investigated. I am not a different person though, and all I can see right now when I look at either of them is how they dealt with a woman who was beaten and hurt. Worse, neither one of them seem in a hurry to go check on her—even now. They are more concerned with what happened instead of her and what she’s going through now…that’s wrong. So I give him a look that conveys my distaste for him and study my nails instead. When they finally leave, I look up at my friend and there’s so much I want to warn her about, but the words are frozen.
“Damn, Nic girl. You might have a problem,” I lamely say and I know she doesn’t understand why I said that. I can’t find the courage to have a serious talk, so I laugh it off.
*
We decided to spend the day shopping, hanging out and getting away from men in general. It was Nic’s idea and I agreed, as long as I didn’t have to watch some totally lame romantic sappy-crap movie. Nic loves them, but to me they’re stupid. I know better than anyone, that those movies are garbage. There are no happy endings.
It’s been a pretty good day and I have a great buzz going on. Buzz hell! I’m actually pretty fucking drunk and I don’t really give a damn because my brain isn’t bombarding me with images of the past. Screw what the counselors are saying. I’ll take tonight’s feeling over the constant fear and pain I’ve been dealing with.
“Seriously Dani, what kind of twisted freak could come up with this in their head?” Nic asks.