Wretched Love

Kate

I gotin the car without word or protest. I didn’t say a thing about my car, about my things. Preston wouldn’t approve of my new wardrobe anyway. I didn’t even mention my wedding and engagement rings at the motel. I didn’t utter a word.

Preston didn’t speak for thirty minutes after we started driving.

I counted.

Every second for thirty minutes.

I’d expected to be scared. To be absolutely terrified. This was going to be bad. I already knew. Could tell by the energy in the interior of the car, the calmness in the way Preston held himself. I always thought of it as the eye of the storm, that’s when I knew things were going to get bad. When he got calm like this. He was almost… meditative. Peaceful even.

Then, of course, he’d beat the shit out of me.

He’d broken my arm once, in one of those episodes. Violet was a teenager. She had been staying late after school, so I’d been enjoying an afternoon where I had everything done. The house was spotless. There was a casserole in the slow cooker. Laundry was clean and pressed. I had an hour, maybe an hour and a half to lay on the sofa, watch a movie.

Then I’d heard Preston’s car in the drive. The second I heard the crunch of his tires, I’d known. I hadn’t known what I’d done—it didn’t much matter—but I knew I was going to pay.

Preston hadn’t spoken for a long time then either.

Until after he was done beating me.

It was apparent my arm was broken the second it happened. The bone was pressed up against the skin, almost protruding out of it. The pain was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I hadn’t screamed. Or cried. I knew better than that. We’d both looked, wide-eyed, at the arm I cradled while curled up on the floor. I’d stared at it for some time before passing out. I came to in the emergency room, to Preston stroking my head, murmuring softly about how much he loved me. Soft but loud enough for nurses to hear, I’d guessed.

He’d spoken about how I’d fallen down the stairs, how lucky it was he’d come home from the office early.

I’d gone along with the story. I was well trained.

He’d been sorry. Very sorry. He treated me with kindness, love. He didn’t hit me for a year. An entire year. It was bliss.

But it didn’t last forever.

That wasn’t in Preston’s nature.

I figured, sitting in the car, driving back to the life I thought I’d escaped, that I likely had another broken bone in my future.

If I was lucky.

He wouldn’t kill me. I was almost sure of that. It would be too messy. Preston wasn’t a criminal mastermind; he didn’t know how to cover up a murder. Beyond that, in his own twisted way, he loved me. He loved his daughter. And he knew what my death would do to her.

“You hurt me, Katie,” he proclaimed in a level tone, after thirty minutes and thirty-one seconds.

My hands were fisted on top of my thighs. I barely heard him. Barely saw him. I was too busy going over every second of the interaction with Swiss before I left. The way his expression had changed, the way his entire body had changed. Like he’d turned into a different person.

A stranger.

My heart burned in agony at the thought of it.

I wasn’t afraid of what Preston was going to do to me. Not even a little. I was too busy being heartbroken. It felt like my bones were splintering. Like my muscles were being ground into hamburger meat.

I’d loved him.

Swiss.

I’d fallen in love with him. The very core of me was his. I loved him because he’d showed me who I was. No, he gave me the strength to discover that for myself.

The reality of what was happening was starting to sink in. Preston was driving us back to New Hampshire. Back to the life I’d been a prisoner for years. The life I’d hated. But the life I’d survived in because I hadn’t known anything different.

But I knew differently now.