Forgetting Yesterday (4 page)

As he should’ve been.

Unlike Claire, he might’ve missed the warning signs completely.

In fact, I was sure he had. If he’d had any idea of how Jason had treated me, he wouldn’t have tolerated it.

“I really don’t think he’d look for me anyway,” I said. I honestly didn’t think he’d
care
enough to look for me.

I had
realized that one perk of leaving my phone behind was that
he
couldn’t call me. At the time, I’d been sick over it. But now, I thought it might be a blessing. I was sure I hadn’t shut it off as I’d left it on the end of the couch. If he hadn’t found it right away, he’d undoubtedly tried to call it. As of now, I was completely inaccessible to him.

“I wish you would’ve come sooner,”
Claire said quietly.

I sighed
. Claire had said no questions asked. I knew she’d hold to that. And yet, I knew I did owe her an explanation.

For
the longest time, I had not wanted to tell anyone. Just the thought of it crushed me with apprehension. But now, sitting here with Claire, I felt differently. If you’re lucky, you will find friends in life that are there for you. No matter what. No matter how much time or distance has come between you.

Claire
, I knew, was one of those friends. The kind that everything can fall right back into place with, as if no time or distance had ever come between you at all.

I hesitated briefly and Claire didn’t say a word. It seemed that she knew I was standing at a mental crossroads.
She waited patiently as I took another sip of my wine, trying to decide which path to take.

I decided maybe I’d feel better if I had everything out in the open. And hopefully she would too.
I wanted her to know that I realized I’d made mistakes and that I was trying, in my own way, to make up for them.

It wasn’t as if ei
ther of us could feel any worse if I dove into the truth.

I hoped.

So I gave myself a mental shove and that’s what I decided to do.
   

“I don’t want you to worry about me, even though I know you’re going to. And that you have been,”
I admitted. “So I’m going to start out by saying I’ve gone to counseling. I started seeing someone shortly after my mom died. She…she really helped me to see things more clearly.”

I
could immediately see the change in Claire. My words had allayed her fears, her concerns, at least a little. Just as I had hoped they would.

I
started at the beginning, when I had transferred to Haden University my junior year. I was only there a few months when we found out Mom was sick. If I’d known
before
, I never would’ve made the transfer.

Things would’ve been so different.

“I decided to live in the dorms because I didn’t know a single person in town,” I explained. “I didn’t get to know my roommate very well. She was into partying. I was into studying. I had no friends, not really. It just wasn’t a priority. I could barely deal with my emotions, let alone my class load.

“
One night, my roommate insisted I go out with her. She said that since we were living together, we really needed to get to know one another better. I agreed because I really did need a break, something fun to look forward to. So I went and that was the night I met Jason.” I paused to take a long sip of my wine. “I had no interest in dating but I definitely needed a distraction. That was all that I’d planned for him to be. As days turned into weeks and those weeks turned into months, we started spending more time together. Somehow, he’d managed to work his way into my life.”

I
glanced at Claire who was listening intently.

“
At first, he made me feel better. He provided the one bright spot in my life. It wasn’t his fault I had no other friends. I barely had room in my life for him. Little by little, things became serious. As things got worse with my mom’s health, I turned to him more and more. He was my escape. I moved out of the dorms and I moved in with him.”

Even now, all this time later, pain tore at
my heart. Thinking of Mom’s illness was still hard. Thinking of what a horrible daughter I’d been was even harder.

“
When Mom was sick, I felt like I was living my life in a haze. I didn’t mind, I maybe even actually
liked
, that he took control of everything. I wasn’t in any condition to do much more than struggle through school and my part-time job. After the funeral, after she was gone…One weekend I had packed to go see my dad. Jason refused to let me go. He started in with excuses about why I couldn’t leave. We hadn’t seen each other much that week and he had a busy week ahead. I was always so buried in my studies that it never left time for him. That kind of thing. I really just wanted to see my dad. I needed to. And he kept talking, twisting things around, until I decided he was right, I really didn’t need to go.”

I
glanced up. Claire no longer looked relaxed.

“He didn’t like that you talked to me at the funeral,”
she admitted. “In fact, he cornered me and told me to back off and not pressure you.”

“Pressure me?”
I gave her a confused look.

“I think he was worried you’d move home afterwards. I think that’s why he didn’t want you to have a lot of contact with those close to you. I told him he could kiss my ass.
I had every intention of talking to you after the funeral but you were gone,” she said.

I
nodded. “Yeah, he told me that I needed to rest and that I didn’t need the stress. He convinced me that we should head back to Bedford right after the funeral. It was right before finals week. I needed to study. In all fairness, I wasn’t that hard to convince. I just wanted to take the easy way out. I left my dad to deal with the emotional fallout of the funeral. I let Jason take me home where I could try to pretend my world hadn’t collapsed.”

“I think you were in denial,”
Claire quietly told me. “Your mom was a wonderful person and she was gone way too soon.”

I nodded
, forcing back tears. “It was easier to pretend everything was fine when I was away from everyone. He made it easy. And I let him make it easy. For that first year, we did whatever he wanted. We ate where he wanted to eat, watched the movies he wanted to watch. He was constantly talking me out of going back to my parents’ house. He told me it would only make things harder for me. He told me that I didn’t need to see my mom that way. And even though I knew it was wrong, I listened to him because I was a coward. He was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. Then he started going out with friends but he’d tell me I needed to stay home. His reasoning was that I should rest when really, looking back, I think a night out here and there would’ve been good for me.”

“Undoubtedly,”
Claire said wryly.

“It’s not like he hit me right away,
” I said, wanting to make that clear from the start. “But he left bruises. He’d always hold my arm a little too tight. Squeeze my hand until it throbbed. But he wasn’t always like that. He was thoughtful too but looking back, I think it was only when he didn’t feel threatened. I’m not saying I thought it was my fault exactly, but he would accuse me of being difficult…unreasonable. And I knew I was. My head was a mess,” I admitted. “I know I was difficult to be around. I know I lashed out at everyone around me.”

“He used your grief against you,” Claire said, keeping her voice low.

I nodded. “I see that now. The first time he hurt me, really hurt me, I blamed myself. I know how bad that sounds but it’s true. We were arguing, I don’t even remember about what. The fight itself was probably inconsequential. What I was really angry about was Mom being sick. I didn’t know how to deal with that so I took it out on the people around me. He got in my face and I shoved him. Hard. The thing is, he shoved me back twice as hard. I flew backward and hit my head on the coffee table. I ended up needing stitches. He said it was just self-defense.”

I was quiet a moment, remembering that night. I had started the fight. I did remember that much. And I had shoved him first. At the time, I thought I was just as much to blame as he was. Looking back, I knew that he’d taken it too far.

And it didn’t stop there.

Claire wore a stoic expression. I knew she wanted to argue with me. She knew that I needed to finish uninterrupted or I might not finish at all.

“A while later, a few weeks, maybe a month, I’m not even sure, I decided I wanted to move home. It was terrible timing. Right in the middle of the semester. My tuition was paid. I wouldn’t have been able to get a refund but worse, it was too late to withdraw so I would’ve failed all of my classes—completely destroying me GPA. I didn’t care. We fought again and he lost it. That’s the first time he hit me. I mean, really hit me and then he broke down. He cried. He begged me to forgive him, begged me to stay. He said it was only because he couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving that he totally lost his head. I should’ve left then,” I said with a knowing nod. “But I’d called my parents and told them I wanted to come home. They both firmly told me I shouldn’t. They didn’t know about Jason. They just knew how it would affect school. I know they
thought
that insisting I stay was in my best interest. I should’ve been honest with them then. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what had happened. Dad would’ve gone ballistic. Mom would’ve worried and stress was the last thing she needed. But more than that, I was embarrassed that I’d gotten myself into that situation.”

I shook my head. “I think, in some twisted way, after that I kind of blamed
them
. If they would’ve let me move home, Jason and I would’ve been over. But they didn’t. I was pissed and hurt and didn’t understand their side of it. So I did the complete opposite. I didn’t go home for months. After a while, I barely went home at all.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And Jason and I got along great during that time. He got his way and I was completely compliant to his whims.”

Claire bit her lip for a moment while I pulled myself together. Finally she said, “What changed?”

“Finally, at the start of spring semester, after Mom was gone, my academic advisor talked me into seeing a counselor. My grades had been slipping and were nowhere near what they should’ve been. I was barely holding it together. So I went. She was great. I didn’t tell her all of the details about Jason. Just that he was controlling.” I let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Even after everything that happened, I didn’t want him to get into trouble. I knew that if I admitted the abuse to her, she’d have to report it. So I said as much as I could while leaving that out. I think she knew, though. She told me I needed a life outside of Jason. I needed to make some decisions on my own.” I felt a few tears trickle down, though by now, I’d talked this through so many times, I was surprised I was still affected. “I felt so guilty for the chances I wasted with my mom. Jason had talked me out of going home. I should’ve just
gone
. I wanted to believe him when he told me it was for the best. Now? She’s gone and I’ll never get those chances back.”

Claire
got up from her chair so she could sit next to me. She pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry about your mom, sweetie.”

I sniffled as I reached for the tissue box place
d on the end table. “I know. I’m sorry too. I wasn’t even there to say goodbye to her. I was going to go. I had my bags ready…but I was just dreading it. How could I not dread it? But I was going to go…”

“And he talked you out of it?” she asked quietly.

I nodded. “He told me there was nothing I could do anyway. But really, I could’ve said goodbye. By the time I realized that I
needed
to be there, it was too late. I shouldn’t have listened to him and maybe part of me was just using him as an excuse. I was scared and I think I was in denial. I just made one bad decision after another.”

I
thought back to my meetings with my counselor. It was like the haze I’d been living in had started to lift. “I realized that I
needed
my family. He was keeping me from my family. And what would my mom think of that? But I never got to ask her because she died. And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there for her or my dad. I can’t stop asking myself what Mom thought of that.”

I
answered my own question. “She would’ve been heartbroken. But it still took me a while to see that. It wasn’t until days later, after the funeral, after she was gone and it was too late, I realized what I’d done. How selfish I’d been. It was like day by day, I realized a little bit more how bad things had become. Losing her was like this huge wake-up call but it came too late. It came after I’d already missed out on something so precious, so irreplaceable. I should’ve been there to say goodbye.” I hesitated, trying to pull myself together. My selfishness was reprehensible. I was so disgusted with myself that I could barely stand it. Claire didn’t interrupt and I continued on a shaky breath. “I realized how much I’d let him control my life. By then I couldn’t leave. I only had a few months of school left. I just wanted to get through it. Plain and simple. I just wanted to get through it without more drama.” I shrugged miserably. “So that’s what I did. I’d been planning on leaving for a while. I was just waiting until the time was right.”

I admitted
to Claire that I realized he hadn’t just been keeping me from my family; he’d kept me from my friends too. Not just Claire but the few that I had made while I attended Haden. Over the past year, we’d drifted apart and I’d let them. I wanted to believe that if I hadn’t been so enveloped in grief for the past year, waiting out Mom’s illness, that I would’ve seen it coming. I needed to believe that under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have allowed it to happen.

She cleared her throat and gently asked, “What about the night you left?”

“The night I showed up here? That was the single worst fight we ever had. He was furious.” I didn’t want to go into details. I didn’t think I needed to. Claire had seen the end result. For awhile there, I hadn’t thought I’d be able to get away. Maybe I should’ve admitted that to her but I was trying to hold onto a shred of pride. I
had
gotten away. That’s all that mattered.

Finally
Claire shook her head. “I have to say, when I turned on the light…when I saw you standing there, your face banged up like that…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

“I know.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, building some resolve. “I finally woke up.”

Claire let out a shuddering breath. “I am…I am so sorry.”

My head snapped back so I could look at her. “What?”

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve tried harder to be there for you when your mom got sick. I knew how hard it had to be for you.”

“Claire, you did try,” I reminded her. I was the one that ignored the voicemails, the texts, the e mails. “You had a lot going on. You were fixing up your house. Starting a business. You’d just met Sean. You were busy. You had a life. We were living on opposite ends of the state.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Still, I should’ve tried harder. I just thought…” she faded off and gave me a guilty look, “I thought maybe you didn’t answer because you were seeing someone. I mean, I knew you were seeing Jason. I thought maybe things were serious and you were just too wrapped up to call. I should’ve known better.
Especially
after the funeral. That was the first time I met him and he really rubbed me the wrong way. Before that night, I didn’t realize that something might be wrong. But when he told me to back off…and when I saw him grab you…” Her face turned grim and she sounded disgusted with herself. “I should’ve realized just how bad things were. I should’ve stepped in. I should’ve done something. But I just wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to make things worse.”