“Is that what happened with you?” he asks, his hands clenched around the edge of the desk. “Your dad didn’t know what you wanted?”
I want to walk—no, I want to run. To hide, to be safe. But Trisha’s revelation has left me rawer than I was, empty in a way I couldn’t imagine. When your life is a dark hole, you believe everything passes through without having an effect or making an impression. The fact that my sister’s heartache makes me want to lie down and weep forces me to realize I am not as hollow as I believed. Maybe my father hasn’t stolen everything.
Everyone must reach a point in their life when they stop running. When it is easier to stand still than to keep being chased, even if the person chasing you is only in your head. When a fire burns, it rages fast and furious, devouring everything in its wake. But when the job is done, when all that is left is smoke and ashes, you wonder what has become of the fury that propelled the flames to destroy everything they touched.
I assumed I would never stop running, never stop being one step ahead of the demons that are in constant pursuit. I accepted that I would do that for a lifetime, and I was sure that if I ever stopped I would be devoured by the memories, be haunted by those still living. But now, standing before David, it has become harder to run than ever before.
“He didn’t care,” I admit, tired of my escape. Our status quo has created so much loss, I wonder what it would be like to do it differently. To try, to trust. “He . . .” I struggle for the words, search in vain for a way to describe what he did to me, to my family. “He beat us,” I finally say—the truth, the words harder than I thought. “All the time.” I wait for the pity, the disgust, all the things that come with someone knowing you are damaged. The acceptance that the scars that cover your body and soul have shriveled you to nothing but a fragment of what you once were.
“No.” His voice is broken, shocked. He shows pity but no disgust. I look up, sure I have missed it, but his eyes are filled with warmth. “I’m so sorry.” He comes toward me, but I take a step back. He watches me, not missing a beat. “There was no one who was able to stop him?”
“No one wanted to,” I whisper, confiding in him. “In the eyes of our community, he was perfect. In the eyes of my mother, he was right.” I have revealed too much to this stranger. Given too much of myself away.
“Sonya,” he starts, but I have to stop him. I can’t accept what he is offering. It is too much for someone like me, someone who is beneath him, beneath everyone, I am sure.
“I’m just like him,” I blurt out. It is the belief that I couldn’t even admit to Trisha. When she told me her fear, I kept silent about my own. But it is time to tell him, a voice urges me. Once he is aware of the truth, sees past the illusion to the reality, he will run from me. I won’t have to hide anymore.
“I don’t understand,” he says, stopping.
“I’m dark, evil like him.” I turn away, wrapping my arms around myself. The room has gone cold, quiet. My breath comes in gasps as I struggle to even it out. “I read stories, watch movies of women,” I pause, scared. What has not begun between us will be over forever once I tell him. The hope of more will become impossible. The burden of my secret has always been heavy before, but with David, the weight of it has become too much to bear. Only in revealing the truth can we be free of one another.
I imagine all his diplomas crashing down around us, his crystal accolades shattering, an earthquake tearing the room into two to give me an escape. But only silence echoes off the white walls. The only sound is him waiting for me to speak. “Of women being hurt.” I laugh to fill the silence. “It’s the only way I can find release.”