“Rough day? Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, only to have him huff and sneer in return. “How about we go out for dinner?” I suggested, hoping it would take his mind off whatever was bothering him.
“You should have cooked for me already,” he had responded, like I was his personal chef or something. “Is it asking too much for you to have a home-cooked meal waiting for me every once in a while?”
I automatically blamed his attitude on the bad day he’d obviously had. So I had simply cleared my throat and calmly explained that I also worked and therefore didn’t have time to have dinner waiting for him. After all, I had only gotten off work a little while before he had.
“I don’t want any of your excuses,” he had spat in response. “Just get in the damned kitchen and cook me something.”
It had been hard to make excuses for him after that. I had been so stunned that I had laughed in disbelief. Not finding my laughter amusing, without warning Zander had painfully gripped me by the arm and literally dragged me into the kitchen, where he then proceeded to open the refrigerator and work himself into a rage about not having enough food stocked. He pulled out frozen meat from the freezer and threw it at me, just barely missing my face with a pound of ground beef.
His hand, however, didn’t miss my face.
“Stop it! What’s wrong with you?” I had screamed. Two seconds later, I was staggering across the floor from the backhanded slap he landed across my face. Every time that memory resurfaced, I could still feel the terrible stinging across my left cheek.
When the whole ugly ordeal was over, Zander had apologized profusely. He had even shed a few tears, insisting he hadn’t meant any of it. He’d sworn that it had all been stress, and that he just hadn’t been in his right frame of mind. Afterwards, he had hugged me so gently, I couldn’t believe he was the same man. He kissed my cheek repeatedly, made love to me, and ordered me the biggest bouquet of flowers, reverting right back into the guy I had originally fallen in love with. Not before long, I had almost convinced myself that I had only hallucinated him hitting me.
But in due time, that other side of Zander resurfaced. Yet I had been too weak to not fall for his apologies. Furthermore, every time he promised not to lay a hand on me again, I believed him, until the next time.
My patience eventually grew thin, as did my ability to forgive. Consequently, Zander had come to underestimate me. I wasn’t nearly as weak as he once knew I was. I had come to realize that I deserved better than the life he was forcing me to live. I had too much respect for myself to keep letting him put his hands on me whenever we disagreed about something. I refused to be the victim.
Although my eye and jaw still throbbed from Zander’s fists, my heart had stopped aching over him long ago. I wished it hadn’t taken me so long to reach this point, but it was better late than never.
Our last argument, it had been so stupid. This was partially because he’d been drunk, but that was nothing new. Once again, he had come home late, filthy drunk as usual; how he never managed to crash his car and kill himself had become an endless source of frustration for me.
This time, he threw a fit because I hadn’t set the DVR to record one of his favorite television programs that I didn’t even know he watched.
He landed one good blow on me, hard enough to make stars dance in my eyes. But I fought through it, staying conscious and managing to dodge the second strike. Staggering through the apartment, I grabbed my car keys and my cell phone before bolting from the apartment, not caring about the roaring thunder and bright lightning flashing through the sky. I just wanted to get out.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t had time to charge my phone battery before leaving, which resulted in me having to make a stop at the nearest gas station in the pouring rain, hoping the old and outdated payphone located there still worked.
“Good evening, ma’am,” the store clerk said. I hurried inside, keeping my head low despite knowing how odd I looked wearing sunglasses during a thunderstorm. Even though it made me look suspicious, I was grateful for the fact that I always kept a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment of my car.
“Is everything all right?” the store clerk asked, although he could clearly see that I was far from it. Glancing briefly up at him, I saw that he was a kind looking older man with white hair and concerned eyes.
I fumbled inside of my pocket and pulled out a wrinkled dollar. “Can I please have four quarters?” I asked, my teeth chattering thanks to the rain clinging to my skin, chilling me to the bone.
“Yes, certainly,” he said, retrieving the change from the cash register.
I could sense that he wanted to say something else to me, but I hurried back out the door, not giving him the opportunity. When I reached the payphone, I dialed the first number that came to mind.
“Hello?” came my brother’s voice. Already I could hear concern in his voice, as if he somehow intuitively knew it was me. My big brother had always been protective of me, and I sometimes suspected he possessed a sixth sense that let him know whenever I was in trouble.
“Tobias,” I choked out.
“Jo? What’s wrong?”
“Zander…”
“What did he do? I’ll kill him.”
I sniffed loudly and took a deep breath. “Don’t be ridiculous. What good will you be to me if you’re in jail? I just want to leave him… I can’t deal with this anymore.”
“Did he hit you?”
The long pause was more than enough confirmation for what had happened. Tobias began to swear and call Zander every offensive name in the book. “How many times has this happened, Joanna? How long have you been dealing with this and not telling anyone?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m dealing with it now by to leave. Look, I know this is asking a lot, but I just need a place to stay until I get back on my feet again.”
“Then come over,” Tobias said. “Pack your bags and get the hell away from him immediately. I’ll lend you however much money you need, you know that.”