Not until last night.
Maybe I’m a fool to fall back into bed with him. But hearing those words, “I want you”… it did something to me. Like finally having your wish come true.
It took me back to the first night I met him and through all the years we spent together when those words would have changed everything. And to the first night, when I knew he wanted me to stay and I knew he cared for me. He didn’t even know me, but I knew he cared. He had to have cared, in order to do what he’d done.
That night was both hell and a living nightmare. But for me, it was the start to what I thought could be a fairytale.
I remember that entire month and the days after so vividly. I was only seventeen, soon to be eighteen, and I’d never heard the name Madox Reed before. It all happened because I had to pee, if you can believe that. Well, maybe not. Maybe it all happened because my stepdad was a dick. I wouldn’t stand for it, not even when my mother would.
I guess that was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’d reached my limit, and there was no going back. He yelled “cunt” when he punched the window as my mother drove away, weeks before the night from hell.
My mom had left him before so many times. It was like a yearly holiday. They fought a lot, damn near constantly. And every once in a while my mother would have enough and leave, taking me with her.
She’d always go back to him though, and after this particular fight she did just that. We’d spent the longest time at her friend’s house. Two weeks exactly, which was the most time she’d ever stayed away, but just like always, she’d gone back. She forgave him.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t get the fear out of me from that single moment. It lingered every time I got into my mother’s car.
When she was leaving him and driving away, I was sitting in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead and trying not to show anything at all. No tears, no anxiety. My mother was a wreck and she needed me to move quickly, to pack my bag and get in the seat – just like we had before. Through the yelling, through the fighting, I kept it all bottled deep inside, where it shook and shook and shook. Like a can of Coca-Cola waiting to explode. My heart raced when I saw him come out of the house as the engine thrummed and my mother rubbed haphazardly under her eyes. Her mascara smeared, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t like she could see it at all. Her face was red and there was barely any makeup left from all the wiping she did.
She put the car into drive as he screamed something at her. All the windows were closed, but my mother screamed back regardless. Still fighting, even though she was leaving.
They did that to each other. They fought and pushed each other away. It even got physical sometimes. As we took off and I stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the pain in both their voices, my stepdad punched the window – my window – and yelled “cunt” as my mother drove away.
Even in the memory, my body jolts.
The window was closed. Every time I remember it, I think about how hard he hit it. I can’t tell for sure anymore if it was as hard as it felt back then.
I never cried when we left him. My mother needed me to be strong. But back then if I allowed myself to dwell on that thud of the window, the sight of his fist, even the word that romance novels have taught me to love so much because it’s used so differently… that four letter C-word, I cried and I kept crying. I couldn’t stop.
Madox used that word too, weeks later. He didn’t know what had happened – he didn’t know I hated the word, he didn’t know the word made my body shake in a way I wish I could control – and he said it in bed. But when he said it, it was with a reverence that singed the memory of what it used to mean into nothing but ash.
The way he used it was sinful and decadent. It’s the only way the word should ever be used.
Because of him and my books, I love the word now; I’m over the power that word had held over me, but back then it brought me so much fear. Just the memory of how it was used was enough to make up my mind.
That wouldn’t be for weeks though. I had no idea who Madox was at the time.