Trust Me (Rough Love 3)

I’ll leave you. No, I’d already done that. Twice.

I’ll hurt you. No, I did that just about every day.

I’ll let you go. There. That was something I hadn’t done yet. My hands curled into fists as a trembling vortex of loss opened inside me, in my gut and my chest and shoulders and all the way up to my brain.

I’ll let you go, Chere, because I don’t know what else to do, where else to take this fucking debacle we call our relationship.

Simon’s funeral was over by now. I couldn’t go back and change my mind, and let her go, even if I wanted to. I couldn’t make her un-hate me, not this time. She was safewording out, bang by bang, kick by kick against the metal bars that were supposed to keep her safe.

But relationships, real, healthy relationships weren’t supposed to be like this. Good girl, Chere. You know you can do better than this. Better than me. You’ve always been a fighter, you scrappy little bitch.

But approving of her choices didn’t mean I was happy about them. No, I wanted to snatch up the cage with her inside and throw it against the fucking wall.

“Shut up,” I yelled. “Shut the fuck up for one fucking minute and listen to me.”

“No.” She put her hands over her ears. “Let me out. Let me out!”

“Jesus fucking shit.” I rubbed my fingers down my forehead, over my eyes and down my cheeks. I didn’t want to let her go. I’d put so much time into our relationship. So much physical and emotional energy. Why? Why had I tried when I knew all along it would eventually fail?

I forced myself to reach for the lock. I opened it, hard, angrily. “You want out? Then come the fuck out, you fucking piece of shit.” I called her a piece of shit. I think I really meant me.

I kicked open the door, my mouth pursed in a furious line. She stopped flailing against the bars and crouched on her knees, staring out at me.

“Come on,” I said. “You wanted out. The door’s open.”

“You go away first. I’m not coming out until you go away. I don’t want you to touch me.”

“Get out of my cage.”

“I’m serious. I don’t want you to touch me.” Her voice cracked. She was crying. “I don’t want you to touch me ever again.”

“I’m not going to touch you. Get the fuck out. Get out of my dungeon, get out of my house, get out of my fucking life and save both of us a lot of trouble.” I pointed toward the door. “You have one hour to get the fuck out of this apartment and never come back.”

She crawled from the cage and headed for the door without a glance in my direction. I wasn’t even sure she heard what I’d said, heard my shouted permission. She was leaving either way. I could see it in her movements, in the wary way she fled for the exit.

Fuck.

Slavery shouldn’t end this way. A relationship like ours, that had been so close and so connected, shouldn’t end this way. But facts were facts. I couldn’t give her the relationship she wanted. I felt too emotionally decimated to try.

Instead I sat on the floor by the cage and looked at my watch as the minutes ticked by. She’d be getting dressed now, hurriedly, throwing her things into her suitcases, if she even took the time to do that. She’d run outside and flag down a cab, and scurry to Andrew’s. At least there was that. At least she had a safe place to go, someone trustworthy to take her in.

Damn me to hell. Fuck. I’d only ever wanted to take care of her. Why was it beyond me? I’d designed mile-long bridges across vast bodies of water, and yet I couldn’t bridge a body’s width of distance between me and her.

I’m never leaving you, never. I remembered when she’d said that. I remembered how comforted it made me feel. Lies and empty promises. “You’re just another fake slave,” I muttered in the heavy silence. “Another woman out to use me for money and power.”

I knew that wasn’t true, but I had to say it, or else admit the actual truth, that I was the one who couldn’t make our shit work. Otherwise I had to admit that I was the one with the fucked up past, that I was the one who was weak and haunted by past relationships. I was the one who was an unfixable mess.

An hour and a half passed before I finally did what I’d wanted to do. I stood and threaded my fingers through the bars of the cage, picked it up and flung it against the wall hard enough to leave jagged gouges in the concrete. The cage bounced off the wall and fell sideways. The violence felt satisfying, yes.