I am HER... (67 page)

 
“Please Suzanne?  I
want
you to come home.”

 
“Um, okay, I will.  But not yet!  I just need a little more time here to straighten out my head a little, okay?  Then I'll go back to Chicago with you."
  "Okay, good. It's settled- just please don't wait
too
long.  I've been dying to have you home for 4 months now."
  "Oh, okay. 
Home.
  I'll try to get better quickly Marcus.  Thanks for coming today. I'll see you soon.  I have to go.  Oh, sorry about your shoes.  I'll see you later."
  Practically running from the room, I'm dying.  I have to get to my bed.  I just have to make it to my room. I hear Mack behind me.  I know he’s trying to help me, but I just can't do it.  I can't talk right now.  I can’t talk about my
feelings,
and I can’t stop this
madness
from hitting me full force.  It's like a train slamming into my brain. 
I. Am. So.
FUCKED!

 
"Please Mack!  Please leave me alone!  I don't want to talk yet!  I just can't! 
PLEASE
leave me ALONE!!  Just for now.  I will do or say anything you want later.  Just not yet.  I’M NOT READY YET!"
  As I make it to my room, unlock, and throw my door open, Mack grabs me, and spins me into his arms.  Slamming into his chest, I am shocked at his brutality, and then... I just don't care anymore.  Grabbing onto his shirt, I just scream everything out.
   I don't know what I'm saying. 
Christ!
  I don't even know what I'm feeling.  I just know Mack is holding me tightly to his chest, and I am hysterical.  The grief is pouring out of me.  The pain is slashing at me.  The agony has torn me completely apart.

 
What the hell is my reality?
I can't tell anymore.
  Screaming, and crying, begging, and fighting, Mack just holds me tightly.  Time continues as the pain rages inside me.

 
When I feel Mack shake his head, I look to see my New York Kayla crying in the doorway.  With her hand over her mouth, she looks pretty shaken. 
Welcome to
my
world sister...
Oh.
Funny!
 

 
Pulling away from Mack, I whisper, "It’s time for me to rest now.  We can talk forever, as long as I can sleep right now.  Please Mack.  I have nothing left."
  "Okay.  Suzanne.  I'll be in my corner if you need me when you wake up."
  "Please Mack, I mean
alone
.  I just feel so gross and kind of nasty right now and I need to be alone."
  "I'm sorry Suzanne, but I can’t leave you right now under the circumstances.  And even if I could leave you, I wouldn't.  I want to be here when this finally crashes all around you, and then I'll help you back up.  I’m not leaving you, especially after a day like today.  You know this, so please don't fight me.  Just rest.  Would you like anything first?  Food?  A drink of water?  Is there
anything
I can get you?"
  "I just want a quick rinse-off shower, than I want to lie down.  Mack there is nothing I can hurt myself with in the bathroom, so can I please just have a few minutes alone?  I need to wash all this
dirty
off my body."
  "Of course.  Do whatever you need to do Suzanne. I'll just be waiting for you to finish.” 
  "Thank you," I whisper as I turn for my bathroom.
  "Suzanne. Today changes
NOTHING
.  You are still the wonderful Suzanne I know and love, and you are still the Suzanne who is fighting so hard to find herself.
TODAY CHANGES NOTHING
.  Please remember that."
  Pausing in the doorway, I exhale.  "Okay, I’ll try to remember that.  Um, Mack?  I’m not ready…”

 
“Okay, Suzanne.”

  And walking away from Mack, I think about Marcus, and I think about
Z.
  I wish I could talk to Z just once.  I wish I could just tell him before I go back to my life with Marcus.  I wish I could just whisper the words I have always wanted to say.

  “I want to love you, Z.

   
But I am gone…”

   
     
 
PART 4

         
                            
AFTERLIFE

                  
                
Sunday, November 20

 
    Okay, so I'm finally ready to leave.  Everything I have is packed and ready.  All my clothes, and my Grey's anatomy DVD's are packed along with the countless ugly, sometimes
hideous
'I Love New York' trinkets and gift shop crap Kayla insisted on buying me…
in case I forget her.
    (Like that’s going to happen!)

 
I'm ready.  I finally told Mack 2 weeks ago that I'm ready to return to life in Chicago, with Marcus.  After countless hours talking together, Mack and I brought in Marcus so he could understand where I'm at, and where I plan to take myself.  To say Marcus was thrilled was an understatement.  It was quite touching really to be wanted by Marcus so badly.

 
I know deep down Mack thinks this is a mistake, but true to form, Mack advised me, and helped me prepare for my decision, without
manipulating
my decision.  All Mack did was set up a kind of outreach program for he and I, once I leave New York. 

 
Mack is still on retainer by my Estate, and as such, he doesn't plan to return to the hospital full time until the spring.  In the meantime, I am to fly to New York every Thursday morning, staying overnight at Kayla's so Mack and I have each Thursday and Friday together.  I'm to return every Friday night to Chicago, so Marcus and I have the weekends together.

 
I'm not returning to work in Chicago. Financially, I don't have to, and because Marcus has no legal holdings on my Estate, he can't touch my money.  The money from my grandfather doesn't fall within Marcus' and my prenuptial agreement.  Plus, Marcus has clearly stated that he wants nothing to do with my inheritance.  I think he still feels horrible about what my parents did, and especially about how he inadvertently helped them manipulate and abuse me throughout the years of our marriage. 

  Marcus has agreed to 2-
one hour private video phone sessions with Mack a week, and he seems to be okay with continuing his own counseling.  Marcus has also agreed to a two hour video phone session with me
and
Mack every Monday evening, so the three of us can discuss Marcus and my weekends together, which truthfully I'm quite nervous about. 

  It turns out Marcus is suffering from quite a bit of guilt towards me, and
because
of me.  But I know Mack is helping Marcus process the sexual reality I had created in our marriage.  I also know
Mack has tried to help Marcus understand that though he was brutal to me sexually; it was in fact
ME
who had created the need for the brutality and abuse, because of my own issues
and
because of my inability to understand at the time
why
I was forcing Marcus to hurt me.

 
It was such a strange little world I created for poor Marcus, and he is struggling with his part in it all.  Once I calmed down in October; Marcus met with Mack and I again, and I was able to apologize to him for the sexual hell I had put him through over the years.  Feeling the need to apologize to the man I believed raped and sexually abused me for years, because it turns out
I
forced
him
to do it was, well,
screwed up,
to say the least.  Actually, it was
So Messed Up
, I can't believe I survived the whole conversation.

 
Afterward, Marcus admitted that those 6 years with me were the absolute worst years of his life
sexually
, yet amazingly, the best years of his life because he loved me and our marriage so much.  Marcus is trying to recover himself, from the kind of
forced
role in my life that he felt trapped in, and disgusted by.  

  Oh, and apparently Marcus was never a 'five minute man' with all the other lovers he had throughout our marriage a
nd even before our marriage.  He was only a five-minute man with me, because I
demanded
he be quick and brutal.  So. Fucked. Up.
Honestly.

  I'm looking forward to seeing Chicago Kayla, and I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with a Chicago that doesn't hurt me anymore or cause me pain.  I know its messed up to blame an entire city for my hurt, but somehow Chicago itself has become a place of hurt for me.  Now, I’m going to learn Chicago as just the city I live in,
not
as a place of pain.

 
When I first arrive, I'm to take ‘baby steps’.  I’m to settle into my home again.  I have to learn to relax.  I have to try to find
reason
in my new life.  Maybe eventually I’ll find another job.  But for now, I am to enjoy this time of calm.  Maybe I can update my Kindle with new books- dirty
and
otherwise.  Essentially, I am going to try to learn how to just breathe, day by day in my marriage, and in Chicago. 

 
That's the plan, and Marcus is totally on board with it.  Oh, we’ve also learned Marcus was only hard on me about working because when I
wasn't
distracted by work, I became more of a Sexual Psycho to him. He actually needed me to be caught up in work and distracted by it, so that I didn't have my brutal sexual
'episodes'
with him.

 
And so I have a lot to learn when I return to Chicago tonight.  I have a whole new Marcus, and a whole new marriage to learn.  I even have a home to learn to love; redecorating at will, based on my needs. 

  Marcus also explained our living arrangement, and my infamous sunroom furniture.   Marcus knew I had issues with
red
.  Marcus explained to Mack and I, that I was
always
aggressive and manic where 'red' was involved.  Therefore when he saw my sunroom furniture, bright red love seat and bright red chair, he was freaked right out. 

 
It makes sense now, but I never really understood his aversion to my favorite room until he explained it to Mack and I.   Once it was explained, a kind of reality smacked me in the face, and I realized he was right.  Every single time Marcus put his foot down about something in our home, or demanded that I change to fit
his
tastes, it was because I was wanting something
red.
 

 
I even remembered a full-out fit I had once in a bed and bath store with him because I tried to buy an entire sheet and duvet set, with matching pillows and curtains as well, in
blood red
.  I remembered shaking in the store so violently when I held the duvet in my arms, that Marcus had to pry it from my hands, and take me to his car.  Sadly, I also remembered sexually attacking him in the car, demanding that he fuck me hard right then and there. 

 
And so I learned red was a
MAJOR
trigger.  It seemed red was an issue after the Macys Incident, but now it makes more sense.  Mack and I spent 4 whole days on
red
.  From red clothing and red furniture, to red
everything
.  Slowly with Mack, memories came back to me.  Slowly, I understood
RED.

 
Red is everything I knew as painful.  My mother began dressing me in red at all her parties when I turned eleven.  Yet, my mother also made all her 'red is for sluts' or 'only whores were red' comments at the same time.  I was always in red when I was abused at the Country Club
and
at my parent’s home. 

  Apparently, by my mother’s
loving
request
, my room at Dr. Simmons hospital was also decorated in red, because she told the staff, I liked red, and that red
soothed
me.  God, she is such a nasty,
evil
BITCH!

  Mack even confirmed my memory of the red when he admitted seeing some of the pictures with the Chicago D.A.
  In the photos with all the different men, whatever clothing I was in, or had been wearing before the rapes, was red. Red was always everywhere I was hurt; my own blood included.

   Mack was sadly very messed up over this himself.
  Mack even admitted to me how hard it was for him to see me so abused as a child, so much so, that he needed to speak with his own Shrink about it.  When I cried over his upset, Mack merely shrugged and said, 'Suzanne remember…  I'm a 2 on the crazy scale.  Of course, I have my own Shrink".  And that was it.  He held me while I cried for him
and
for the young girl in red.