NERO: Chapter 14

“I said decaf,” a woman snaps.

“Huh?” I glance up at the suddenly angry woman across the counter from me.

“I. Said. Decaf.” She says it slowly like she’s talking to an idiot.

I look down at the cup I’m holding out to her. “Oh, um, I’m sorry.”

“I watched you walk right past the decaf pot. If it’s empty, I’ll wait for you to brew more. I’m not drinking that.”

My shoulders slide higher with each sentence she speaks.

She saw me doing the wrong thing and didn’t stop me. Just let me fail.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “We have decaf made, I just… forgot.”

She scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

My face is hot when I turn away from the woman. She’s acting like I tried to force-feed her something she’s allergic to. Though now I’m sorely tempted to.

Like you’d ever retaliate.

I keep my eyes turned down as I set aside the cup of offending caffeinated coffee and reach for an empty one.

I’m not a kid, but when I get yelled at like this, it makes me feel like one. Like another powerless victim. Again.

When my fingers close around the bright orange lever on the correct pot, the woman comments a condescending, “Good job.” And I’ve never wanted to quit on the spot more than I do right now.

It’s been a long day.

A long week.

It’s been a long life. Why can’t I ever just catch a freaking break?!

And a good break. Not a bad break––like when my oven started making a rattling noise last week. Or three days ago when someone apparently used bleach in the washing machine right before I put my clothes in, ruining the only pair of decent jeans that I owned.

“I’d love to get that sometime today.” The woman’s voice slithers up my neck.

Without looking at her, I secure the lid on her decaf and set the cup on the counter.

I can sense her hesitating before she takes the cup and strides out of the café.

Good riddance. I don’t know what she was waiting for. I think my body language should be enough to let someone know I’m not interested in fighting.

I’d love to keep my shoulders back and head up when someone’s mean to me. But it’s hard. And that woman was old enough to be my mother, which triggered a whole other set of emotions. And too many memories that I’ve tried my best to repress.

I’ve never wanted to fight.

I don’t like it. I do everything I can to avoid it.

The few times I couldn’t help it and snapped back never ended well for me.

Just behave yourself and it won’t be a problem.

My mother’s voice, brought on by that awful customer, rings around in my head.

Mom was always shoveling the blame for Arthur’s behavior onto my shoulders. Always telling me “if only you’d this”, or “if you’d act like that”… But I was a kid. An innocent kid with no way to defend myself from his bullying. And we both knew that no matter how perfectly I behaved, it wouldn’t make a difference. When he was in one of his moods, he’d hit me whether I did something to bother him or not.

Unconsciously, one of my hands moves up to gently rub the front of my neck.

I’ve had stitches. Broke my arm that one time. All things that physically hurt more than the times he put his hands around my throat. But somehow that one was the worst.

Because when he choked me, it wasn’t about the pain. It was about the fear. The fear that maybe he’d go too far. Squeeze a little too hard.

My lips press together, and I force myself to breathe through the memories.

The worst part was the fear I felt when I saw that look in his eyes. The one that said he knew just how close he was to silencing me, once and for all. And that he was considering it.

I can almost feel the cold press of his god-awful ring against my neck.

I try not to think about it, any of it, but I’m almost certain he would’ve killed me if we hadn’t been so poor. Arthur always seemed to find a way out of trouble, but he didn’t have the sort of money a person would need to bribe the police to look the other way over a murder.

On my darkest days, there’s a part of me that wishes he would’ve. To end my misery, and add to his. Of course, I wouldn’t be around to enjoy his punishment, but I’d’ve died happy knowing he’d rot in prison.

It’s my biggest regret, that he gets to live a normal life. He might not be a happy person, but he’s free. He has control over his days. And he doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve to breathe after what he said––what caused me to finally run away, two days before my eighteenth birthday.

“Wait! Please!” I hike my purse higher on my shoulder. “This is my stop!”

The bus is overly crowded today, a by-product of the shitty weather, and I was on the verge of nodding off when the person next to me jabbed their elbow into my ribs, jolting me awake. It’s a good thing they did, because this terrible day would’ve been made even worse if I missed my stop entirely.

“Sorry. Excuse me.” I mutter my apologies as I shuffle sideways up the aisle.

I’ve come to terms with my size long ago. It’s just who I am. Wide hips, thick thighs… it is what it is. It’s fine. And I usually don’t care. But right now, when the bus driver is already glaring at me through the overhead mirror, I wish I could just sprint out of here. But narrow aisles, full of elbows, and wide hips don’t mix.

“Sorry,” I apologize one last time as I reach the front.

The driver doesn’t reply, only makes a show of opening the door.

A gust of damp wind flies up the steps, sending the sides of my coat flapping, like some sort of dumpy Marilyn Monroe skit.

God, I’m so over this day.

I grip the handrail tightly as I take the final step off the bus and onto the sidewalk. And I’m glad I did, because I nearly lose my balance when my sneaker makes contact with the thin slippery layer of slush covering the curb.

My hand has barely passed the threshold when the door snaps shut behind me and the bus speeds away.

“Jerk,” I grumble, pulling the sides of my coat together.

I should’ve zipped up before I left Twin’s, but I was rushing. Which I’ll blame on that bitchy customer, because it was her leftover caffeinated cup of coffee that I accidentally bumped over when I was putting on said coat. But now, with half a block left between me and home, I’m not pausing for anything. Cold wind be damned.

Another gust of wind has me tucking my chin to my chest and squinting my eyes. This wintery mix of snow and rain is early, even for Minnesota. The weight of the precipitation is going to knock more leaves off of the trees and that makes me sad. Because fall is my favorite season and a premature end to it will surely bring on a bout of seasonal depression.

With my head down, I don’t notice the small branch on the sidewalk until the toe of my right shoe catches on it.

I try to stop myself from falling. I really do. But I’m too slow.

A cry of alarm leaves my lips as I tip forward.

I try to shift my weight to my left leg, but that knee buckles.

There’s just enough time for me to let go of my jacket and stretch my hands out in front of me, bracing for the fall.

My left knee hits first, then both of my palms, then my other knee.

Pain ricochets up through my limbs.

The sharp sting is immediate, and I hold still, afraid to move just yet. Everything hurts––my body, my pride––but I don’t think I broke any skin.

I wait until the pain morphs into a throb before I shift my weight to look.

A piece of gravel grates against my palm, like the preverbal salt in the wound. “Shit!” I try to shout the word, in a sad attempt to dispel the emotion clawing against the back of my eyes. But it comes out as a croak.

“Shit,” I repeat, this time with a voice barely louder than a whisper.

Carefully, I get myself back up to standing. Glad that no one else seems to be around to witness my clumsiness. And extra glad that, unlike my jacket, I’d managed to zip my purse shut. The bag is dirty from the fall, but all the contents remain inside.

I blink down at the state of myself. My pant leg isn’t torn, which is a miracle in itself; and my wet palms are tinged gray from the sidewalk dirt, but not freely bleeding.

It’s nothing.

This is nothing.

You’re tougher than this.

You’ll get through this too.

It’s just a bad day.

I sniff. My throat constricting as that familiar hopelessness digs deeper into my chest.

This is nothing, I tell myself.

“You’re nothing!” An old but vivid voice shouts back.

My eyes squeeze closed. I hate that his voice still echoes in my head. Hate that he has any effect on me at all.

I’m not nothing.

My chest shakes as I pull in a lungful of air.

I’m not nothing.

I force my eyes open.

Today may have put me on the edge of a mental breakdown, but I’m not letting Arthur get one more tear out of me. He ruined my home. Ruined whatever relationship I may have had with my mom. He tried to…

I breathe through the horror of that last memory and remind myself that I got away.

But hasn’t he been controlling your life ever since?

Anger rolls through me.

I want to snap at my inner voice that they’re wrong. That all of my choices are my own. But deep down, I know that’s a lie. One simple word is all it takes to remind me how deep my trauma goes.

Virginity.

It’s a constant reminder of what I’ve been too afraid to let go of.

But, I held onto it with both my hands, even when I was the only one who believed it was worth protecting. The only one who saw it as mine to give.

I gently brush my palms off on my thighs, then begin limping the last few steps to my building.

I systematically avoided men when I ran away from home. They were terrifying. Stronger than me. Crueler than me.

It wasn’t my intention to hold on to my virginity forever. I just wanted to wait until I was ready. The years just sorta slipped away.

I don’t still go out of my way to avoid men. I no longer tremble, or sweat, when a man makes eye contact with me. I also don’t do anything to seek out their attention either. With how much I work, I don’t really give myself the opportunity to meet new people. The men I see come into the café are pretty much it for me. And as the poorly dressed, overworked, sleep-deprived woman who serves them their breakfast, I don’t really scream ask me out.

Even before everything, I can’t really say if any of the boys at school were interested in me or not. I kept my head down in class. Worked every day after school.

It’s nearly impossible to make close friends, let alone a boyfriend, if you can never invite anyone to your house. And I never invited anyone to my house.

Arthur wasn’t predictable. And no matter how much I wanted to have a friend, I wasn’t willing to subject anyone else to his torment. His attention on me was bad enough; I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I was the reason he directed that torment on someone else.

But for all the times he terrorized me––hit me, choked me… Arthur never crossed that line.

There were times I’d wonder––worry––if that was going to change. Like when I got a little older, and he started to look at me like he truly hated me, rather than the annoyed indifference he’d treated me with for years. Other times, his eyes would linger for too long on my chest, or on my hips. And I knew something bad would eventually happen. Knew it was inevitable. But I didn’t know what.

I wasn’t supposed to be home that day, but my shift ended early, and I had nowhere else to go. Every day since, I’ve thanked a god I’m not sure I believe in, for the fact that I got home when I did. That I heard what I did.

Because if I hadn’t…

My feet stop at the front door of my building, and my hands are shaking so bad, it takes me three tries to unlock the latch.

Stepping out of the cold, and into the lobby, I stomp the slush off my shoes.

I want to go straight to my apartment and straight into the shower, but since I’m already in the lobby, I limp over to the wall of mailboxes.

Whatever might’ve happened way back then… didn’t. And it’s not going to. Because if they haven’t tracked me down by now, ten years later, then they aren’t going to.

And yet, still a virgin.

Using the small, tarnished gold key, I yank the little mailbox door open with more force than necessary. There are only a few items, but the one on the top catches my attention. It’s the same pale green paper that all the building notices come on.

My heart rate picks up as I pull the letter out, confirming it’s from the landlord.

My hands are dirty. I need to change. And shower. And eat something. But the bad feeling in my gut grows with every passing second I stare down at the folded-in-half piece of paper. Tucking the other letters into my purse, I rip through the little piece of tape holding the ends of the page together and flatten the note out.

Dear Renter…

My breath catches, each line sending me closer and closer to full panic mode.

…improvements that have been made to the building…

… starting January, 1…st

The words begin to blur in my vision.

…monthly increase of $250…

It can’t be.

They can’t do that.

Not by that much.

Dread settles across my shoulders like an old friend.

There you go, proof you don’t have control over anything in your life.

How am I going to save for a better life if I can barely pay for the shitty one I already have?

My next inhale is choppy. I have until January, a couple of months to figure it out.

And do what? You’ll never find another place around here for cheaper.

The paper in my hands trembles in the air.

You’ll never be able to afford that dog.

And with it, fat ugly tears start to roll down my cheeks.