Arlene steps through the circle and stands in front of Chelsea, arms crossed as she looks down, annoyed. “I don’t think that’s true. I see your face when we run out of coffee in the morning or Chris assigns extra laps because someone was lagging behind. Maybe you don’t express your anger, but it’s in there.”
Chelsea looks away. “I mean, that’s like saying you want me to show you my liver. We both know it’s in there, but there’s no convenient way to make it visible.”
Arlene squats down and looks her in the eye. “Clever simile, but I think it’s more like you holding a marble in your mouth and telling me there’s no marble. You’ve just spent so much time pinning your lips and pretending there’s no marble that you’ve forgotten how to spit it out.”
Her eyes bore into Chelsea’s, and it’s all Chelsea can do not to look away. Because looking away would mean that Arlene is right, and Arlene is not right.
“I can see it in there,” Arlene muses with the tiniest quirk of her lips. “I can see that ol’ furious marble rolling around in there.”
She stands again, looming.
“There.”
Chelsea looks up. “What do you mean?”
“When I stood over you. You flinched. You made yourself small.” Arlene steps closer, somehow putting more weight and menace into her stance. “You’re still doing it.”
“Yes, well, you’re looming over me. What am I supposed to do?” Chelsea snaps.
“What you always wanted to do. Talk back. Feel something besides helpless. The more I loom, the smaller you make yourself, like you’re trying to disappear.” Standing directly over her, Arlene puts her hands on her hips. “Chelsea, who are you scared of?”
“C’mon, Arlene,” Joy says, squirming a little. “You’re freaking her out.”
“Chelsea can fight her own battles. So what is it, Chelsea? What do you want to do?”
Arlene is so close overhead, leaning down now, that Chelsea can smell her perfume, and Arlene nudges her with a foot, and there’s nowhere else to go, she’s trapped, she can’t get away, this is her boss, she can’t hit Arlene, she doesn’t want to hit Arlene, but God, you can only push someone so far—
Arlene nudges her shoulder with a knee, and Chelsea scrambles back, her blood singing, her head hot, her hands sizzling, her body telling her to shrink and freeze and to stand and fight, all at the same time, her muscles tense and quivering, an animal caught between a wall and a box.
“Chelsea!” Arlene barks, loud and harsh. “Are you gonna let me push you around like this?”
“No!” Chelsea shouts, scrambling to her feet, hands in fists and shaking. “No! You’re not my mother! You’re not my husband! You can’t make me do anything!”
“Let it all out, Chelsea. Scream!”
And Chelsea does. She fucking roars, all those years of rage bottled up and now unleashed on the world, an explosion that rattles her, inside and out.
The silence, after, is deafening. No one moves. Chelsea’s throat is sore, stripped.
Arlene goes quiet, the tension gone from her body. “What does it feel like in your arms, Chelsea?”
Chelsea looks down, surprised by the question. Her arms are up, palms open, defensive, like she’s pushing someone away.
Like she’s pushing David away.
“Tense. I want to push. I want to push so hard.”
“Go on and do it, then. Push him away.”
“He’s not here.”
“He doesn’t have to be. Push the air.”
Chelsea does, and it feels strange, but now it feels there’s a warm ball of sunshine in her stomach, like it’s okay.
“What do you feel now?”
“My arms stopped shaking. They feel lighter. Buzzing.”
“What else do you feel?”
“Just…light. Like when you tense up a muscle and release it. But everywhere.”
Her hands are by her sides now, and her cheeks feel warm. She looks to Arlene, questioning, amazed at how she feels twice as big as she did before but light as a feather.
“Was it your husband, Chelsea? Is he the one who hurt you?”
Chelsea nods. It’s all coming back. It never left. “He pushed and pushed and pushed.” She’s panting now, memories flapping past like her mind is flipping through a photo album, layers and layers of the same old thing. “Put me in a corner, sat me on a stool, cornered me against the counter. Bigger and more dangerous. His fingertips would bruise my chest when he’d poke me to make a point. I’d say the wrong thing, and his arm around my throat, choking…”
She trails off, one hand to her neck. Everyone in the circle is staring up at her, silent. Arlene is a few feet away, looking alert and open and smiling kindly, her eyes alight like Chelsea is a kid riding a bicycle without training wheels for the first time.
“Go on.”
“He…he would never let me talk back. Or fight back.”
“He made you small.”
“He…wanted me small. Smaller and smaller every year.”
“He silenced you.”
“He hated everything I said. Didn’t want to talk about feelings unless he was drunk, and then it was only his feelings.” Chelsea’s throat hurts in a different way, like the words are clawing their way out; she’s never spoken about this before. It’s like she’s been under some sort of magic spell and talking about it now is painful. Her mouth is dry, her eyes wet and burning. “I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Arlene nods knowingly, as do several women in the circle. “That’s a common tactic of abusers. They gaslight you, convince you you’re remembering it wrong or that if you told someone else they wouldn’t believe you. They want you to think you’re crazy, irrational, helpless. They want you cut off from your support, to have no one to tell. They want you silent.”
Chelsea nods; God, it makes her feel stupid, that she let it happen. Here on the outside, it’s ridiculous, it’s obvious, it’s clumsy. But on the inside—
“It happened for so long. I forgot what normal was.”
Arlene steps forward, hands up, careful, watching Chelsea like she’s a skittish cat that might run or lash out.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
Chelsea hangs her head. “It was my fault. I let it happen.”
Arlene shakes her head, eyes smiling and yet sad, and Chelsea wonders if maybe something similar happened to her, too. “It’s not your fault. It’s something that happened to you, not something you let happen. That’s like saying you let a boulder fall on you. You didn’t ask for it. If abusers telegraphed their playbook, there would be no victims.” She puts her hands on Chelsea’s arms and squeezes gently, and Chelsea feels a rush of warmth. “You aren’t small. You don’t have to make yourself small. You are allowed to have feelings. You are allowed to experience rage. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to be irrational and loud and ugly. You don’t have to make yourself less. Not ever again. You don’t have to play by those rules anymore.”
An odd, gulping laugh escapes, and Chelsea rides it out. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“It’s not that easy.”