“Oh, yeah. That is me.” I laugh and turn back toward the living room. “Let me grab my purse.”
“Already paid for.” He hands it over, offers a small salute, and leaves.
I lean against the door, holding the pizza in the palm of one hand, clutching the root beer in the other. August knows me so well—he remembers that I like pizza and root beer when the Lakers play.
He knows me well, and we have no more secrets. No more shadows or shame. There are obvious disadvantages to Andrew leaking that file, but I can’t deny the good it did. Yes, the darkest, hardest parts of my life were put on display for everyone to dissect and judge, but now I have nothing to hide.
And no one to hide my secrets from.
Caleb is dead. I’ve held onto my humanity enough not to take joy in it, but I can’t say I mourned him. Never has ‘survival of the fittest’ been truer. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Caleb had lived, I would have died. I almost did. His eyes were cruel until his last breath, and he tried to diminish me until the very end. And with him gone, it’s like my entire existence exhaled.
There wasn’t any question that it was self-defense. If the file released wasn’t damning enough, the head wound, marks on my neck, and bullet in my shoulder testified against Caleb. I answered all the questions the police had, but I really wanted to leave it at that and go on with our lives.
But it’s not that simple.
I’m in a relationship with one of the NBA’s rising stars, one who leads a very public life. Two of the league’s most popular players were ensnared in a “love triangle” that turned violent and tragic. One of them ends up dead, and the woman caught in the middle was holding the smoking gun. It was the juiciest basketball story in decades. In the locker room, after games, in interviews, reporters always found a way to bring up “the scandal.” It was awkward.
August was evasive, impatient, ill-tempered. And I was … not sure. Not sure I was ready to talk about the things that almost destroyed me—to talk about my life like it was some telenovela. Like some sensationalized soap opera with a fairytale beginning, a villainous prince, and a grisly end. And the last thing I wanted to be was the poster child for domestic abuse, not with the way our culture finds ways to blame the victims.
But none of that was the ultimate deciding factor in why I finally spoke. I spoke because maybe there’s some girl like me. Young. Vulnerable. Naïve. Flattered by his attention. Maybe she thinks his jealousy means he loves her more or that it’s cute. Does she realize that slowly, surely, she’s being cut off from her friends? Isolated from her family? Being molded into something she’s not? Into what he wants her to be?
The heart speaks in whispers, but sometimes by the time we listen, it’s too late. I learned that the hardest way. And maybe that girl can change her course before it’s too late.
That’s why I spoke.
I sat down with Avery Hughes one-on-one. She was thoughtful and compassionate, but she didn’t let me get away with telling only part of the story. And I didn’t want to tell it in sugar-coated half-measures. Once I decided to speak, I wanted to roar. Not just for all the women who might end up in a toxic relationship, but for those in one right now.
I get it. I know how real the fear is. That leaving doesn’t always mean getting away for good. That it just might cost you your children. That leaving just might cost you your life. I know the system fails us too many times, protecting rights the abuser shouldn’t have and offering us little shelter. I’m not recommending women kill their abusers. I just hate that our system leaves us with so many shitty options—difficult options that many survivors must negotiate even after leaving. Our choices are sometimes catch twenty-twos that catch us around the neck—that choke us and make difficult, dangerous situations more difficult and dangerous. Our laws don’t make common sense and don’t offer any real protection until the perpetrator’s done something to prove he’ll hurt you.
And sometimes by then it’s too late.
The pizza burns my hand through the cardboard box.
“Shoot!”
I shift the box, propping it against my chest and grabbing it by the edge. I drop off the pizza and root beer in the kitchen and wander down the hall. The closer I get to the guest room, the softer I tread. I love watching August and Sarai together. My daughter is one of those kids you think is adorably precocious when you first meet her. After about the fiftieth question and a few of her “sage” ponderings, most search frantically for an escape. Never August. He answers her fiftieth question with the same patient thoroughness that he did her first.
By the time I reach the door, she’s already asleep. My heart contracts at how beautiful she is, how peaceful. I’ve fought hard for that peace—to protect her from the violence that lived under the same roof we did the first year of her life. How many times did Caleb beat me, rape me with her just a wall away? And yet she hasn’t been touched by it. If there is one thing I got right, I hope it was preserving her innocence while he stripped mine away.
August stands and sets the book on her bedside table. He doesn’t otherwise move but stares down at her for long moments before bending to leave a kiss in her hair. My heart contracts again, harder, longer, watching him watching her. He loves her like his own. I know that. I also know he wants us here every night, all the time.
My beautiful prince in sweatpants.
His body has changed since I met him that night in a bar. He was leaner, lankier then. Playing in the NBA he has, by necessity, added more muscle, reduced his body fat to almost zero. The ridges of his abs, the chiseled line of his legs, and the cut of bicep where his shirt sleeve catches and strains prove it. All over, he’s harder and more defined.
So am I. Harder. Defined by all the things I’ve experienced and what it took to survive. I’ve been through a lot since I was a college senior on the verge of graduating. I’m not that bright-eyed girl in a bar whose biggest concern was bad calls by the refs. I’ve had a daughter. I’ve lived through hell. I’ve killed a man.
I will never be the same.
Some things imprint us so deeply, we can never return to what we were before. But would I want to? Sure, I’m more guarded, but I like to think I have more compassion because I’ve known true suffering, and I hurt when I see it in others. I may be more cynical, but I like to think I’m wiser, too.
When I told my story, some said I was a hero. I’m not. I’m just a woman who ended up in a bad relationship with a bad man and had to fight my way out of it. I did what I had to do to protect my daughter and to protect myself. That doesn’t make me special, but it does make me a survivor. It’s happening to women just like me and nothing like me all the time. To our neighbors, to our best friends, to our sisters. It’s happening behind closed doors, or even out in the open, documented in redacted police reports or in a million views on viral videos that we judge and poke at and debate.
Even when I shared my story, everyone had opinions. I should have left sooner. I should have pressed charges. Why didn’t I trust the system to “punish” him? Why didn’t I tell everyone? Was it really self-defense, or was it revenge?
If you’ve never had to fight for your life in your own home, if you’ve never had someone you thought loved you hurt you the most, then you don’t know. But I do. I k
now how it feels to wake up every day living in a nightmare and sleeping with a monster, and I told the world in my own words and on my own terms.