Damage Done (30 page)

"I couldn
’t go," he said suddenly, surprising himself. He
hadn't wanted to burden her with it, but he couldn't keep it to himself anymore.

"What do you
mean?" she asked.

“I couldn’t go today when
they did it,” he said, pushing himself up on an elbow to look at her, “I didn’t
go to say goodbye.”

Dylan was crushed. He'd lost
weight, his partners were picking up too much slack at work. It had been ten
weeks. It felt like an eternity ago.

"Dylan- " she
reached up and touched his face, wiped the tear making its way slowly down the
bridge of his nose.

"Rachel, I can't
explain it," he sighed, falling onto his back and raking his hands through
his hair, "I know what the doctors say, and I hear it. It makes sense, I
understand that he won't ever wake up, that if he did his life would be shit-
"

He paused, the tears coming harder, he couldn't stop them
anymore.

"Tell me," she
urged him.

"I just can't- "
his voice cracked, "I couldn
’t let
them take him from me yet. He's my boy, he's still got blood pumping through
him, you know? I had to stop going up there, I just wanted to scream at him,
'Wake up!' It was fucking killing me, Rachel."

She sat up and pulled his
head into her lap, stroking his hair. He held her tightly and buried his face
into her leg, desperate to choke back the sobs. He didn
’t want to break down, he couldn’t break down. He held
his breath and pulled head away to look up at her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't
want to do this."

"Sorry for what?"
she asked, glaring at him now, "For sharing it with me? I’m not the only one
who needs saving, remember? Don’t you dare be sorry for sharing that with me.”

"You're right, I'm not
sorry. I just didn't want to add to your shit."

"You're not adding to
my shit, I asked you. I want to know you again, Dylan. All of you. Let me love
you back."

He took a deep breath and
sat up to look at her, she was so fucking beautiful, her wet hair around her
face, the soft curls falling over her breasts and nipples, her green eyes
daring him not to let her love him.

God how he loved her.

"I know I have to let
him go. But I don't know how. I don't know how to say it."

***

She sat quietly, listened to
him work through his thoughts and ran her fingers through his hair. She'd never
felt so wholly in love, so desperate to hold someone, to make it better. Rachel
wanted to take all of his pain away and make it her own. She'd have died a
thousand deaths if it meant Dylan would never have to live with the heartache
of losing Michael again.

She wanted to tell him she
understood, that the pain would thin over time, even if it never leaves
completely. But all she could do was listen. She wouldn
’t burden him with that today.

Rachel had just turned nineteen and was almost nine months
pregnant. At Savannah's urging, she and Brent had eloped a few months before,
they'd been living in a small studio apartment in West University. Brent spent
his days in class and at the library, Rachel spent her days sleeping and
crying. At night he'd come home and tell her how fat she was and how lazy she was,
he'd ask if she'd done anything all day, screaming things like, "Get the
fuck over yourself." And then he'd snort another line of cocaine and
attempt to study.

Rachel would lay quietly in
their bed when he got that way, their six months together had progressively
become more torturous. But that night, he hadn't been content leaving her to
listen quietly from the other room while be complained and yelled. He'd stormed
in and thrown the lights on, yanking her from the bed by her arm and dragging
her into the dining room where his books and research papers were strewn
everywhere.

"Sit, bitch," he'd
said through clinched teeth, shoving her violently into the empty dining chair.

She'd felt the baby scramble to get comfortable, the kicks
in her belly made it impossible to sit upright the way Brent wanted. She pushed
her hips towards the edge of the seat and held tightly to the sides, fought
back tears, determined not to let him see her fear.

"What do you want,
Brent?" she'd asked coolly.

"What do I want? What
the fuck do you want, you trashy bitch? You want to sit around here and cry all
day while I bust my ass trying to make something of myself? So I can convince
my father to give me a job, and bring in money to take care of you and your
bastard? You think I don't know that's not my baby?"

He threw a book at her, and she'd known then his anger
would escalate quickly. It hadn't taken her long to gauge his moods, to develop
strategies for trying to bring him down a notch.

"Brent, I'm sorry I upset
you, I don't want anything right now. I just need to rest please. Can I get you
something to eat?" she'd asked while pushing her heavy frame from the
chair.

"Sit the fuck
down," he'd screamed, and then mocking her in a tiny voice, "No, you
can't get me something to eat."

"I'm sorry, what can I
do for you?"

"Suck my dick, let's
start there," he said as he unbuttoned his jeans and walked towards her.

Her chest weakened, felt hollow, bile rose in her throat
and she felt her hands grow numb. She'd let him pressure her into having sex
dozens of times, but he'd never said anything like that to her before. He'd
never come to her for sex in anger.

"Brent, I'm sorry, I
don't feel well, but I'll do it after you're done studying. Let me take a bath
and close my eyes for a few minutes until the nausea passes, okay?"

"Fuck you, open your
mouth," he'd said cruelly, standing in front of her and pulling his dick
out.

"No! You're an asshole,
get away from me," she'd finally said, knowing well enough to expect he
would blow up, that he'd probably scream all night and keep her awake, refusing
to let her sleep.

That night would have gone easier if she'd have just done
it, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to touch him, or even look at
him. She was disgusted and terrified.

"No? Oh, so you're a
strong woman now? Now that you've caught yourself a rich husband, all the
charms are gone, huh?" he'd snickered, "Fuck you, you stupid bitch,
open your mouth, you're going to suck my dick."

"No, Brent," she
screamed with as much confidence as she'd been able to summon, "Fuck you,
get out of my way."

She tried to stand up, "I'm calling my mother, I'm
leaving, move out of the way."

He shoved her back down into the chair, "Fuck you,
you're not leaving, you're my wife you fat bitch, sit down. Your mother won't
come get you, open your mouth!"

He'd been right, her mother probably wouldn't have come to
get her. She'd called Savannah a few months into their marriage and cried that
he'd pushed her and threatened to punch her. Savannah told her to go apologize
and to try harder to keep him happy. Still, she'd needed to get away from him.

"Move, Brent! I'm
leaving!" she'd yelled.

But his hands made their way to her neck then, and panic
set in. He'd never been so violent, and any other time she threatened to leave
he'd apologized immediately and begged her to stay, begged her to forgive him,
promised to keep his temper under control.

But that time was different.
He wouldn't let go, and she couldn't breathe. Her hands went to his, trying to
pull his grip from her throat, but he only gripped harder, pressing his thumbs
into her windpipe.

"You're not leaving,
you stupid bitch, I'll fucking kill you and that bastard before I let you
leave," he'd said, his fingers loosening just enough to let her have a
little air.

She kicked her legs wildly, the baby rolling in circles in
her belly, kicking her hard from inside.

"You think I'd let you
humiliate me that way? After I saved you from being just another whore on the
street? Huh? You and that dirty bastard you're trying to pass off as
mine?"

His hands gripped tighter then, the rage in his eyes had
grown. She'd felt herself slipping away as the baby kicked harder and harder.

When she came to she was
lying on the floor near the table and Brent was kicking her and screaming,
"Wake up, you stupid bitch, wake the fuck up!"

He kicked her in the stomach and the head, over and over.

"I'll fucking kill you
before I let you leave this house, do you hear me?"

"My baby, please!
Please!" she'd barely managed between gasps for air.

"Fuck that baby, you
want to see what I think about that baby?"

He'd stormed down the hallway then, still screaming. She
tried to breathe, tried to pull herself up. She needed to get out of there, to
get to a phone. But then she sat up, she'd seen the blood streaming from her
legs. The baby had stopped kicking.

"Nooooo!" she'd
wailed, clutching her swollen stomach desperately. "My baby! Please help
me!" she'd begun shrieking, praying the neighbors would hear, "Oh my God,
somebody help me!"

"Shut the fuck up,
bitch," Brent had said quietly as he stormed back in.

He had a handgun. She knew
they had a gun in the apartment, but it had never occurred to her he would use
it to scare her. To hurt her. He'd pulled open the bullet chamber, spinning it
and laughing.

She'd seen black then and
felt the panic surge as he pointed the gun at her and she'd screamed,
"Nooooo!"

She instinctively brought a hand from her belly to cover
her face, as if her hands would protect she and the baby.

"No? You don't want me
to take care of that bastard for you? How about I take care of you both? And
then I'll just kill myself? Is that what you want, you stupid bitch?"

He knelt in front of her,
she felt his breath hot against the back of her hand. Afraid to look, she'd
sobbed and begged him not to hurt her or her baby.

"Look at me,
bitch!" he screamed, and then she felt it. The barrel of the gun on her
stomach, aimed at her baby. The baby she was losing.

She'd cried and whimpered as
he forced her hand from her face, "Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt
my baby-"

She saw his blurred face
through her tears and watched as he'd pointed the gun towards his chin and
cackled, "You think I won't do it? You think I won't end us both right
here?"

And then he did.

The gun went off. Rachel
didn't remember the gun going off, but she knew it had because when the
ambulance pulled away with her she'd clearly heard the voices as they held the
oxygen mask over her face.

"Good thing that
asshole killed himself, or I'd have had to do it for him," and, "This
poor thing is better off."

***

She lay in Dylan’s bed,
stroking his hair as he slept. She hadn't relived that night in years, but for
the first time since it happened, Rachel relived it without feeling afraid or
fighting for breath as panic ripped through her.

What had changed? Why wasn't she racing to find the bottle
of Valium buried in her purse? Her anxiety leash had loosened, she wasn't
fighting the suffocation she'd normally felt over things she couldn't change or
control.

She could learn to deal with the fallout when crisis came
into her life, and she left Dylan that morning more confident than she’d ever
been before.

***

Kenneth was waiting for her
when she came home, he was hunched over at the kitchen table, he hadn’t slept
and his eyes were tired. He was defeated. She sat next to him at the table, she
was nervous, but if he wanted to confront her, he deserved to be heard.

"Kenneth- "

"Rachel- "

"Kenneth, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry that our
marriage isn't what you'd hoped it would be."

"Do you even know what
I hoped it would be, Rachel? Or does that just sound good when you say it to
yourself? Like you're not responsible for any of it?"

"Kenneth, I know I'm
responsible for it."

She wouldn't fight with him. She wouldn't ask him to see it
her way or outline all of the things he'd done wrong, things he could have done
differently, none of that mattered. It really wasn't his fault, they just
weren't meant to be together. But she'd accept all of the responsibility if it
meant not causing him any more pain.

She went on, "I'm sorry I couldn't make it work. I'm
sorry I wasn't happy, and I'm sorry that I can't be for you the woman you hoped
I would be."

"So what are you
saying, Rachel? You were serious, you really want a divorce? You're leaving me?"

"Yes."

"Are you fucking
serious?" he asked again.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Are you fucking
him?"

She took a breath, folded
her hands in her lap and looked into his face as he stared straight ahead. 

"Yes."