Falling into Exposure (Falling 2)

“Tell me what that nightmare was about,” he says softly.

“I have them sometimes,” I say. “They are memories, but broken fragments mostly. I don’t remember them vividly, just small things. Bits and pieces.”

“What are they about?” he persists, concern furrowing his brow.

“I’m afraid that if I tell you the truth…” I choke back a sob. “You won’t want me anymore.”

“Victoria, that is absurd. There is nothing you could tell me that will change the way I feel about you.”

I look up at him, searching his eyes for reassurance.

“No more lies?” I ask hesitantly.

He nods and squeezes my hand in his.

“Do you remember when I told you about Eleanore?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Well, I already told you that she hated me,” I begin, “but, it was worse than what I told you.”

“How much worse?” he asks.

“I was a child when she met me, and she… tormented me. She was jealous of my relationship with my father, so she started doing things to get back at me. Breaking my toys, punishing me for things I couldn’t control, calling me names, that sort of thing. But over time, the punishments got worse. She started getting more and more violent with every punishment. I hated it, but I so badly wanted to please her. I really thought it was my fault that’s what she made me believe.”

Gabriel’s entire body tenses beneath me, and I can tell he’s upset, but he just waits patiently for me to finish. And it feels good to share this with him. To just let the words spill from my mouth without thinking about the repercussions.

“One day,” I continue, “when I was eight, Eleanore told me she found a new friend for me. She told me her name was Emma, and that she would be taking me to her house to play. I was so excited, I brought all of my toys with me the first day she took me there.”

“She walked me to the door, and a stinky older man answered. I still remember that first smell, I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever forget… it’s like it’s burned into my brain. He was so grubby and dirty and when he leaned down to say hello, I wanted to puke. He told me to come inside to meet Emma, and I remember looking back at Eleanore as I went in. She had this evil smile plastered across her face, and I knew then that something wasn’t right.”

“It turned out, there was no Emma. And I guess you can probably guess what happened next. Every week, three times a week, Eleanore would take me to his house. The stinky man told me he would kill me if I ever told anyone, and I believed him. This went on for two years. And then, I guess I must have gotten too old for him or something because Eleanore just stopped taking me.”

I begin to shake violently in Gabriel’s arms as I recall the broken memory, and he pulls me closer, trying in vain to comfort me. When I finally peek up at him, he looks like a raging bull, ready to destroy. There’s a vein throbbing in his neck, and he’s grinding his teeth together.

“Tell me his name, Victoria,” he says with a deadly calm. “I swear I’ll fucking kill him.”

I shake my head and plaster myself against his chest.

“No, you won’t. He isn’t worth it, and I doubt you’d find him. He skipped town when my dad found out.”

He takes a long, deep breath, trying to remain calm. “How did your dad find out?”

“Well, obviously what happened to me affected me, I guess. I don’t know. Like I said I only remember bits and pieces of it now. But while I was still young, I learned quickly that the best way to avoid Eleanore’s wrath was to avoid my Dad. That was the only thing that ever made her happy. So I withdrew, and our relationship suffered for years.”

“I guess he was too happy to really notice, he never picked up on those sorts of things. But once I was no longer really an issue, other people started to become an issue. Eleanore was obsessed with my Dad and insanely jealous. She started to imagine things between him and other women when there was nothing going on at all. She would even drive through the night to where he was working to try to catch him with someone else. But she never did. Their marriage started to fall apart, and they fought a lot. Eleanore got violent with him too. She started hitting him and making death threats. The cops were at our house all the time, and the whole town thought we were all crazy.”