4
Tegyn
Flippingthrough the pile of mail I’d just collected from the box, I swallowed hard when I saw it. There was another envelope. I recognized it immediately. No writing on the outside. I knew what to expect inside. Sadly, this wasn’t my first letter. I sighed. I thought the first was a joke, only the punchline never came. Worse, more letters did and they only seemed to get angrier. I carefully grabbed the gloves I used for cleaning from under my kitchen sink. Then I wandered over to my office desk and used the letter opener along the flap so I could, albeit reluctantly, pull out the letter.
Like those before, this one had the classic combination of cut out words and sometimes letters. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so damn scary. This one was a message I’d seen before: Watch your back. I’d gladly watch all sides if it meant finding out who did this. I just wanted it to stop. Reaching into my bookcase behind my desk, I pulled out the manila folder where I’d kept all the envelopes and letters. It seemed like the prudent thing to do. Then I reached for my phone and called Annie.
“You rang?” she joked in her thick Long Island accent.
“I did,” I murmured sadly.
“Oh no. What’s wrong? You know better than to try to hide anything from me,” she grumbled.
I let out a mirthless laugh. “Who said I’m trying to hide anything? Actually, I’m calling for advice. As my BFF, I thought you might have some for me.” I bit my lower lip and waited for her to catch up.
Annie was quick. Seconds later, she gasped. “You got another letter, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I did.” I sank into my desk chair and twirled back and forth, never taking my eyes off the window which looked out over the front yard, my driveway, and my mailbox. It took everything in me not to close the blinds and shut up the house.
“Do you think it’s him?” she asked.
“Trent?” I sighed. “I don’t know. The timing is rather suspicious. We have a court appearance coming up.”
“I hear ya. He still wants you back, huh?”
“I think he’ll always want me back, but I finally don’t want him.” I cringed at my words. I wasn’t entirely sure that was true. We had a history. And for some reason, I was always drawn to him, lured back in, even when I thought I had gotten away.
“You need to call the police. Promise me this time you will,” Annie urged.
“Yeah. Sure.” I swallowed hard. “I’ll call them now.”
“Good. See ya. Stay safe.”
Our call ended, I decided to look up the non-emergency police line. Maybe they would have more advice for how to handle this because at the moment, I had no idea. I spun around in my office chair, maybe hoping it would catch up with my spinning mind. Instead, I was assaulted with a rush of memories. A not-so-subtle reminder of how I ended up here played out.
After being engaged for a year and a half, I finally convinced Trent it was time to plan our wedding, only to have to delay it another six months after he had a terrifying accident in his truck coming home from work one afternoon. He was in the hospital for more than a week; he’d scraped the crap out of his face, and messed up his back. The man was in a lot of pain. And then he wasn’t.
It didn’t take me long to figure out why. After all, addicts can’t hide their dirty little secrets for long. The problem with drugs is that the body builds up a tolerance. Before I knew it, we’d stopped having sex, since he couldn’t feel it. And he spent all his time chasing pills instead of spending time with me. I had begun to wonder if this was the life I wanted. One particular night gave me extra pause.
We had run into an ex-girlfriend at lunch, which sent him straight into a tailspin. On the way home, he had stopped by a friend’s house and begged for some pills. Though he wanted something to calm his nerves, he ended up with Adderall. Jacked up as he was after popping a half dozen of them, a fifth of Goldschlager was “required” to calm him down.
It had taken everything in me to keep him level all night. In an effort to prevent any temper issues, I had been working overtime. When our cat escaped into the night because Drunk Trent left the door open, I had rushed into the back yard to locate her. As I walked back through the door into the house, I found him trying to jump the love seat...naked. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
“Damn it, Tegyn! Why won’t you ever help me? Now I’m hurt,” he had thundered.
No amount of explanation made sense to him, much like I didn’t understand why he punched a hole in the wall, why he tried to break my toe so I could see how he felt, or why he tried to strangle me shortly after that. Finally, he passed out in the hall for a few minutes after he had tried to call another ex and initiate a threesome I had no interest in. When he woke, he seemed calmer, ready to have quality time with me on that Sunday evening, our last chance before a new work week.
The night grew impossibly worse when he admitted to me while we were having sex hours later that he had in fact tried to cheat on me the week before with his long-time friend with benefits.
“What does that mean?” I asked as calmly as I could manage, given that my world seemed to be falling apart.
“Well, I couldn’t actually cheat,” he began. “I couldn’t keep it up for her, only with you.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes for a moment. This wasn’t the time for me to explain he’d barely been managing to keep it up with me lately. As frustrated as I was, I pushed him off me and announced, “Okay, I’m done with this.” I’m not sure what I meant. I’d like to think I’d suddenly grown a backbone, but Trent was my Achilles’ heel.
Concerned, he questioned me while I tried to roll over and go to sleep. “What? We’re through?”
Experience had taught me this was a conversation for Sober Trent, one for the light of day, not four in the morning. Though I tried to ignore him, he simply managed to get angrier and angrier. Soon he was punching me in the arm repeatedly. “So, we’re done? We’re done? Then get out of my bed.”