Translation of Love

The doctor comes to release me from the hospital not long after breakfast. I’ve never been so happy to go home and Victor says he’s just happy that he can sleep in a bed again. He knew that it would be too hard for me to get into his Range Rover with my bruised ribs so he had Alex drop my car off at the hospital last night. That’s the thing about Victor, he’s always thinking ahead, doing his best to make things easier for me. It’s one of the many reasons that I love him.

When we get home, everyone is there waiting for me. Even Rob makes an appearance. Victor helps me walk inside, pouting because I refuse to let him carry me in. The smell of food engulfs my senses as we walk into the house and I know that my dad has been cooking. I make the rounds, saying hello and hugging everyone until Victor freaks out and makes me sit on the couch. Before I met Victor, I was alone most of the time. I kept to myself often and rarely had guests over to my house, with the exception of Jordan. Seeing everyone here, laughing, talking, eating and getting along, warms me up inside. I realize that meeting Victor brought me back to life, brought the real me back to my family, not the woman who I was pretending to be. It feels good to let go of all of the armor that I used to protect my heart for so long, to let myself be free to love the people around me and let them love me in return.

Right now, I feel like the possibilities for my future with Victor are limitless. I’m no longer worried about what could happen or how I could get hurt. None of it matters anymore and nothing hurts quite as much as not having him around. That’s why I’ve decided to give myself over to him completely, not just pieces of me, the pieces I let him see while hiding the dark parts away. I’ve decided that in order to love and be loved fully, I have to give him everything.

Once everyone leaves for the night and Victor has bullied me into letting him carry me upstairs to bed, I decide that it’s time for me to let him hear the truth of what has kept me broken for so long. I’m sitting up in bed, watching him strip off his clothes until he’s left in only a pair of boxers. He gets on the bed, sitting directly in front of me. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re worried about something,” he says, stroking my cheek.

I look at him wondering where to begin. “I’m ready for you to hear it, everything that happened with Brian.”

“I thought you told everything to Detective Andrews, Babe. I was right there.”

I shake my head. “No, I know, I mean before that. The reason I didn’t want to date anymore.”

He breathes in, understanding what I’m saying. “I wanna hear it, Love, I do. But not if it’s gonna upset you, I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“I want you to know. If we’re gonna be together, I think it’s important for you to know. Besides, you’ve already heard most of it.”

He nods and gives me an encouraging smile. “Okay.”

“Brian took advantage of my loneliness, the emptiness I was feeling after losing my mom. He fed off of that, and in the beginning he was good to me. He was sweet and understanding. When things started to go bad between us, I tried to break up with him. He was gone once, disappeared for a couple of days, not picking up his phone, off doing God knows what. So I packed up all of his shit, put it in garbage bags and left it outside of our apartment. When he finally came back he was so outraged to find what I’d done.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “That’s when he started hitting me.” I open my eyes to gauge the reaction on Victor’s face. He’s angry but controlled. “It was like a switch that just clicked in him, and from then on, I felt like he was always hitting me but I was just too scared to leave. I stopped hanging around my friends and family. Especially Dad. He was a cop so I couldn’t let on that something wasn’t right.”

“How long did this go on?”

“I don’t know, almost a year I guess.”

“Brian knew that I was miserable, and I think he thought that I would eventually go to Dad and ask for help. That’s when he asked me to marry him. He promised that he would get help and that he wouldn’t hurt me anymore. You have to understand that I was living in fear. It’s the only reason I said yes. I thought that it would motivate him to get help, and after we got engaged, it got a little bit better. He stopped hitting me but I think that was more because he was gone all the time.”

I swallow and let out a shaky breath, tears running freely down my cheeks now. When I think of what I lost, what Brian took from me, it makes it hard to keep talking.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to keep going.”

“No, I want to.” Victor strokes my cheek again, encouraging me to go on. “A few months after we got engaged, I found out that I was pregnant.”

I hear his intake of breath to my confession. His eyes are full of questions. “Ellie.” I think he must know what I’m gonna say next and I lose it. I can’t hold back the uncontrollable sobs. Victor takes me in his arms, gently stroking my back and letting me cry. “Shhh, it’s okay, Love. It’s gonna be okay.” Slowly he lowers us, until we’re lying down face to face. “You don’t have to say anything else,” he says softly, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

I shake my head. “I want to.” He nods his head, allowing me a moment to continue. “Brian never knew about the baby. A few days later, I found out about the other girl and like I told you before, we confronted him. The truth is, after I found out that he’d cheated, I was kind of happy. It gave me the push that I needed. When I got home, I decided that I was gonna leave and go to Dad and tell him everything that was going on. I knew that he would protect me and the baby.”

“That makes sense,” he says, giving me a sympathetic smile.

I nod in agreement. “But I didn’t get that far. I remember coming home and running upstairs, I got out my luggage and started throwing my clothes in, trying to move as fast as I could in case he came back. Well, of course, once the other girl found out about me, she wanted nothing to do with Brian either. She broke up with him and he was furious. He came back to me, and when he did, he found me packing up my shit. He went crazy, said that I didn’t get to walk away from him now that I ruined what he had going on. He picked up my suitcase and threw it across the room.”

He sighs, I can see the realization in his eyes. “F*ck, Baby,” he says softly, his eyes getting wet.

“No, it’s not the same thing. When you did that, deep down I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. I ran out of habit not out of fear.”

“It’s no excuse.”

“Stop, you’re nothing like him, you’re everything that he’s not.” He closes his eyes, letting the information sink in, trying to calm himself down. When he finally opens them, I know he’s ready to hear the rest. “I tried to run away from him, but he caught me and he hit me, just like this last time. He got me on the ground and kicked me a bunch of times. I tried to shield my stomach with my hands. I remember lying there praying that the baby would be okay. Eventually, I passed out. When I finally woke up, I was on the floor, alone.” I swallow and try to fight back the new stream of tears. “I was sore everywhere and when I was finally able to stand, I saw that I was bleeding and I knew. I knew the baby was gone. I tried to clean myself up the best I could. I took a shower and finally I called Jordan. I was terrified that she wouldn’t pick up, because I hadn’t talked to her in so long. I’d cut everyone off, but she didn’t let me down, she answered the phone and when I told her I needed her she came right away.”

“She loves you.”

“And I love her. When she saw me, she lost it, said that she knew something was off. She got me out of there and took me home with her. She took care of me. I made her promise not to call my family but she didn’t give a shit what I wanted at that point. She called Dad. He went to her house and when he saw me, I thought he was gonna have a heart attack. We fought and fought, he tried to get me to press charges on Brian but I just wanted it to be over. I think a part of me was scared of what he would do to me. Eventually, Dad gave up trying to convince me to press charges but Brian never bothered me again until now. I know Dad had something to do with that, although I’m not sure what he did. I went home with Dad, moved in with him, and once I got better, I changed everything about myself. I changed my wardrobe, made myself more conservative, dyed my blonde hair back to its original color and I put up the wall. I didn’t let myself get close to anyone. I cleared all the debt left behind from abandoning my apartment with Brian and my credit cards. I started saving up money and eventually I bought my little house. I started over.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that. If I could take it all away, I would. Make it so that it never happened.”

“Then I never would have met you, and you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Ditto.”

“You and Jordan are the only ones that know about the baby. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell anyone else about that, but I wanted you to know why.” I blink away a few stray tears. “Why I was how I was when I met you. He took something from me. A dream of something amazing and because of that, I was never able to look forward to the future. I could never let myself believe that anything good could last.”

“I get it. I know that I can never replace the baby that he took from you, Love, but I’ll give you a family if that’s what you want. It’s what I want.”

I smile at him, my heart swelling with love for him. “I want it too.”

He reaches over me and pulls an envelope from the nightstand. “I was gonna give this to you before you left Miami.”

He hands me the envelope and helps me to sit up. I open the envelope and pull out the papers, unfold them and begin to read. I let out a gasp and I look up to meet his gaze. “This is the deed to the house in Miami, my name is on here.”

“It’s your house now. It’s what I was talking to the realtor about that day. I knew, I knew that you were having a hard time believing that we would last. I figured that if I gave you the house, you’d finally let yourself believe. I wanted it to be an engagement gift.”

“What?” I question, barely audible, my heart pumping loudly in my chest.

He chuckles and opens his hand up to reveal a ring. I cover my mouth and nose with my hands and shake my head in disbelief. “I was planning on giving this to you that night, before all hell broke loose.” Fresh tears spring to my eyes as I stare at the most perfect ring I’ve ever seen. It is platinum with a band of smaller diamonds accenting a larger round cut diamond that appears to be at least two carats. “Ellie?” he calls softly. I look up at him. “Will you do me the honor of being my wife? I promise that I’ll make you happier than you could ever dream of. I promise that I’ll give you a house full of love, kids, dogs, whatever the hell you want. I don’t care as long as you’re mine.”

I giggle, looking at the situation, me in a t-shirt covered in bandages and bruises, him in nothing but boxers, and even still it’s the most perfect proposal. I wouldn’t change a thing. I nod my head in acceptance. “Yes, I’ll marry you. There’s nothing that I want more than to be yours.”

He gives me his knee melting smile, sliding the ring on my finger, and kissing me. I close my eyes, committing the moment to memory. The moment where he managed to turn the darkest part of me to light.