His First Choice

Half an hour later Lacey was still sitting there, listening to Tressa talk about a mother who’d tell her, on a regular basis, that she wished Tressa had never been born, that Tressa had ruined her life, that she was the devil—and then, in another breath, when Tressa was agreeing with her or taking her side, hug her and call her a princess. A mother who would withhold affection to get what she wanted. Whose love was clearly conditional.

About a father who’d ask her mother if she knew how many times a day he thought about killing her, and then would hold her hand every time they went out. Who would take a typical childhood misbehavior and broadcast it to perfect strangers in an attempt to shame Tressa and Kenton into never doing it again.

And about the brother who’d fly off anytime anyone tried to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. The louder the yelling got, his or anyone else’s, the more he turned to drinking and drugs in order to cope.

The more out of control anyone got, the more everyone in her family hurled horrible insults at each other.

And the more they all clung to one another, as well. Clearly Tressa had loved them.

Her parents had been killed in a car accident shortly after she’d met Jeremiah Bridges.

“He was my rock,” Tressa said now, an almost dreamy smile on her face. “In some ways he still is.”

“Whose idea was it for the two of you to divorce?”

“Mine. As good as he is to me, Jem just doesn’t get my intensity. I can’t really be myself with him, you know? I had to continuously clamp down on every reaction—from loving a song

on the radio to issues on an election ballot. I bring equal passion to everything.” She paused, then grinned. “I’ve done a lot of work on myself. Faced my issues. And...I met someone. Another woman, actually, though our relationship isn’t sexual. We hang out most every night. She gets me. And when I started putting her first, over Jem, I knew that wasn’t fair to him.”

“Did you discuss this other woman with him?”

“Of course. That’s the one thing about me. I don’t keep anything to myself.”

Lacey was beginning to see that. She smiled and then quickly sobered. “So when you get upset, and you’re drama ridden, do you ever lash out like your parents did?”

“Absolutely not. I might say what’s on my mind, but I’m not cruel like they were. I threw a stick once. It flew through the air and hit my friend on the arm. I felt sick about it. She wasn’t hurt, but the look in her eyes, when she looked at her arm and then at me... It’s the last time I ever threw anything.”

“How old were you when that happened?”

“Thirteen. I was on my period and I’m always more dramatic then.”

“And your friend...did you remain in contact after that?”

Sometimes the best way to see the full picture of a person was to see how others treated them. How others judged them.

Not always.

Because victims treated poorly by abusers tended to invite those into their lives who would repeat the treatment. It was the pattern of abuse. Insidious hell.

She knew it well now.

Being treated poorly didn’t mean you were bad. But it could.

“Yeah, we were in contact. It wasn’t like I meant to hit her. She knew that. We were, like, best friends all through school. We’ve lost touch, but we’re friends on Facebook.”

“You work in finance, right?” Lacey asked.

“Yeah.”

“So you have a degree?”

“Yeah, I went to Cal State. That’s where I met Jem, actually.”

“He went to college?”

“Are you kidding? He has a master’s in business administration.”

He owned a construction company, had a hard hat hanging in his truck behind the driver’s seat. She’d figured he’d worked his way up.