Nothing Feels Better (Better Love 3)

When six o’clock rolls around and Patrick still hasn’t dropped the kids off, I give him a call. It rings and rings and rings. I call the police station and ask if they’ve heard from him. They say no. I call his mother, even though she hasn’t spoken to me since before the divorce, and it goes straight to voicemail. By seven, I’m ready to jump in my car and head straight to his house, but the sound of his truck pulling into my driveway fills me with relief.

I run to the front door and swing it open, only to be wrapped in a frantic hug by June. She sniffles into my shirt, and I pull back to see that her face is splotched and tear-streaked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and I hug her back to me. I look up and watch, confused, as Patrick takes Jude out of the truck, who then runs to me and latches onto my leg. Patrick struggles to remove Jude’s car seat—he refuses to keep one in his truck and insists on borrowing mine—then drops it on the lawn. When he turns toward me, the look of anger in his bloodshot eyes tells me everything I need to know.

“Go upstairs,” I say quickly to June. “Take Jude. Go into your room. Turn on some music and lock the door.” She doesn’t respond, just takes Jude’s hand and drags him inside the house.

I stand and try to pull the door shut before Patrick reaches the porch, but he grabs me roughly by the forearm and yanks. The smell of alcohol chokes me and makes my eyes water.

“You drove them drunk?” I hiss out, trying to tug my arm from his grasp. His grip tightens, and he shoves me backward into the doorframe. I grunt and shove back. “Let go of me,” I say through my teeth, but he opens the door and pushes me backward and inside.

I land on the floor with a thud, and seethe as he steps into my house and slams, then locks, the door.

“Get the hell out of my house, Patrick,” I say sternly, trying like hell not to raise my voice. I don’t want to scare the kids. I don’t want to piss him off any more than he already is.

“Shut the fuck up, Lyn,” he slurs, then shoves me out of the way with his booted foot. I push myself up and follow him down the hall and into the living room. He’s mumbling profanities under his breath, and I take note of the way he wobbles with each step.

He’s not just drunk. He’s completely smashed.

He drove like this. He drove like this with my children in the car. Fear and rage war inside me.

“You can’t even walk straight,” I say, my voice shaking. “You could have killed them.”

Visions of the ATV accident flash through my mind, but this time, it’s Patrick’s truck. This time, it’s both of my children. I jerk my head to chase away the thoughts.

“Shut the fuck up, Lyn,” he says again, raising his voice with each word, until he’s shouting. “You’re a slut. You’re an ungrateful, good-for-nothing whore.”

Spit flies from his mouth as he speaks, and I’d be terrified if it weren’t for the fact that his eyes can’t focus, and he can’t stand without swaying. He won’t be conscious much longer. But even with bleary eyes and slurred speech, the hatred is loud and clear.

He hates me. I wonder if he always has. He doesn’t see me as a person. He sees me as a possession, and he hates that he’s not able to control me right now. It’s why he insists on still calling me his wife, despite the fact we’re divorced. Why he calls me Lyn, knowing I don’t like it.

He never wanted to love me. He wanted to own me.

“Patrick,” I say calmly, “how about we call Travis to come give you a ride home?” Travis is one of his friends. Another cop. Travis is a decent guy, but he’s loyal to Patrick, so we can never be friends.

“You fuck him too?” he spits at me. I bite back my anger. I divorced him, so I didn’t have to endure this abuse anymore, but he just won’t go away. “You fuck Travis like you fucked that kid?”

My stomach drops, and I stare at him. He wheezes a wet, gurgling laugh, then pulls an envelope from his pocket and throws it at me. I try to catch it, but he’s drunk as a skunk and has shit aim, so I only graze it with my fingertips before it falls to the floor and the contents spill out.

He rages on about something, but his voice fades quickly. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears and all I can see are the pictures scattered on the floor. Four by six glossy finish images, some grainy and out of focus, some vibrant and sharp, have me falling to my knees as I sort frantically through them.

No.

No.

They’re all of me and Jesse.

All of them.

In the grocery store. In the parking lot of the state park. On the quad with his friends. In the game room of the pizza parlor. There are a few of me and Jesse in this kitchen that seem to have been taken from outside on the patio. My breasts are exposed, and he’s on his knees in front of me.

The pictures blur as my eyes well with tears. My most intimate, precious moments lie littered on the floor in front of me like trash. Each one more explicit in nature, each one a slicing violation of my privacy. A slicing violation of my dignity.

“How could you...” I whisper, just as my eyes catch on another photo, more recent, and I reach for it. Jesse and I in the courtyard on campus, pressed against the trunk of a tree covered with pink and white flowers. My eyes are closed, my mouth is open, and he’s...

It all makes sense. I drop the picture, just as my hair is yanked hard, and I’m pulled back up to my feet and pushed against the wall. His shove is weak, but I trip over my own feet and slam into the wall, pain shooting down my spine and neck from the impact.

Patrick wraps his hand around my throat and squeezes, and my thoughts strangely jump to Jesse. His hands always feel liberating, because I know their purpose is to make me feel good, and I know that I’m always in control. With Patrick, it’s a stark opposite. As his fingers attempt to tighten, his intentions are clear. Pain. Perhaps worse. He wants to hurt me. He wants me powerless. For the first time ever, I fear he might actually want me dead.

My vision sparks, and I know I should try to yell, but who will hear me? June and Jude? I don’t want them to see this. I don’t want them to hear a struggle. They’d never be able to unsee their father holding their mother against a wall by her neck. They’ve heard enough yelling to last a lifetime.

I wrap my hand around Patrick’s wrist and pull. His grip, like his shove, is weak, and it loosens enough that I can breathe a little better.

Patrick’s eyes are drooping rapidly. There’s an eternity between each blink. He’s minutes, if not seconds, away from falling over. That’s why I decide not to fight him. Why I don’t yell. I don’t want to stoke his adrenaline. It will just make it worse. It will scare June and Jude, who are likely huddled in the closet upstairs. I’ve been here before. I just stare into his bloodshot eyes and hope he passes out before I do.

“You’re going to listen to me,” he threatens. “You’re going to do what I say, or I will fucking kill you, Lyn. I will fucking kill you.”