Idon’t like the quiet. I never have, not even when I was a baby. According to my mom and dad, the only way I’d sleep as an infant was with music playing or the TV on. Even now, I can’t sit in a silent room because it feels like the walls start to close in on me, and my mind gets too loud.
But it’s quiet now. When Abel left a little over two weeks ago, he took the TV remote and all of my charger cables with him. The stupid TV doesn’t even turn on without the remote, and my cell died days ago, so the only sound in this god-awful apartment is the nasty voices swirling around inside my head.
I shouldn’t even be in Rapid City right now. I was supposed to start my new job at Mountain Ink, my friend Betty’s tattoo studio, months ago, but when I gave notice on my apartment, my landlord tried to take ownership of my vintage Addams Family pinball machine, and I ended up having to go to court to get it back. The judge finally ruled in my favor three weeks ago, but here I am, still here, in a shitty Airbnb surrounded by boxes filled with my stuff.
Exhaling loudly, the sound of my own breath makes the silence seem even quieter as I flop onto my back and stare up at the ceiling above me. I’ve been living in this Airbnb for almostthree months now, sleeping on this awful bed, while the rest of my things were being held hostage at my old place.
When Abel, my ex-boyfriend, called me eight weeks ago, I stupidly thought he was just being nice when he offered to speak to my landlord on my behalf. He said he had experience in being the voice of reason, and that maybe if a guy turned up, my asshole landlord might not feel like he could intimidate him.
Abel and I broke up almost six months ago. The split took us both by surprise, and even though we stopped having sex, we stayed friends because going completely no-contact felt wrong for both of us. I really thought he was just trying to be a good friend when he offered to help. Unfortunately, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and now it’s clear his offer of help was just his way of inserting himself back into my life.
The first time I met Abel was when he came into the studio to get a tattoo. Somebody he knew had shown him some work I’d done on them, and after that, he’d sought me out and booked a consult. He’s good-looking in a hipster kind of way, with black rim glasses and dimples that appear the moment his lips start to twitch into a grin.
He asked me out before we even finished the consult, and when I said no, he made it his mission to win me over. He was sweet and sexy and pushy, and I kind of liked being chased. I eventually said yes, and he took me out, and I honestly thought I’d found the one.
For the first few months, we were so wrapped up in each other that I didn’t realize we were spending all of our time together, and I didn’t notice I’d ditched my friends to be with him. I was so in love and lost in the honeymoon phase of our new and exciting relationship, and I thought I’d found my person. For the first time, I was infatuated, and we could barely keep our hands off each other.
It wasn’t until we’d been together for over a year that the stars in my eyes started to fade. He’d say and do things that sounded so reasonable I’d find myself agreeing with him, even if what he’d said was mean and hurtful. It was small things in the beginning. When we first met, he’d said he loved my gothic Lolita style, but then he started dropping hints that my dresses were a bit too much, or that he didn’t think I needed that much eyeliner, or that the frills on my socks were childish. He’d chide me for my opinions if they differed from his and shame me for my job, mocking tattooing as a profession and laughing at my insistence that it’s art.
I started to feel like nothing about me was ever enough for him, but it was hard to tell him how I felt because he never outright criticized me. Then one day, I looked in the mirror and hated everything about the way I looked. I was wearing my hair how he liked it, dressing to impress him, and constantly searching for his praise.
When I told him I wanted to break up, he was shocked, and honestly, so was I, because I hadn’t known I really wanted to leave him until the words “I want to break up” literally fell out of my mouth.
To say that Abel wasn’t happy about my decision to end our relationship is an understatement, and since the day I took my things and left, he’s put constant pressure on me to get back together. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s told me we need each other, we’re destined to be together, and that we make each other better. But even though I sometimes miss him, I’ve stayed strong, even though I still feel…something for him.
Not love. Now that I look back, I don’t think I ever really loved him. I think I just wanted to believe it was love, because deep down I knew it was wrong, and loving him justified not walking away.
For the last six months, I’ve stayed strong, but the day he offered to help me with my landlord, I was tired and lonely and sad, and so I said yes. I let him speak to my landlord. I let him call his lawyer buddy. I let him pick out my outfit for court. I let him back into my life, and somehow, instead of getting my stuff back, then driving to Montana, I’m still here in this Airbnb in Rapid City months later, wondering how I let this happen again.
It’s been two weeks since my bestie, Etta, called and snapped me out of my Abel-induced bubble. In the time I’ve wasted rescuing my pinball machine and letting my ex keep me under his spell, Etta has gotten married and now she’s pregnant. Her life is sprinting forward, while mine has been stuck in reverse, being drawn back into a toxic relationship.
Etta and I were supposed to be moving to Montana together. We were supposed to get an apartment and enjoy our wild twenties, and now I’ve missed out on all of that because instead of being in Rockhead Point, I’m still here, losing myself all over again to a man I should have been strong enough to resist.
I hadn’t realized I’d been dodging her calls until she called me on it and reminded me that it’d been weeks since I had last spoken to her. The moment I accepted her video call, I saw the shock, anger, and sadness in her expression.
But it was her tears that finally shattered the spell Abel had me under again. Seeing my best friend’s heart breaking because I’d let a man change me into a person I didn’t recognize again was the wake-up call I needed, and after I got off the phone with her, I called Abel and told him I couldn’t be with him, that we were over for good, and that I had to go to Montana.
Just like I expected, he showed up at my Airbnb. He cried and yelled. He told me I needed him. He told me I couldn’t live without him. Then he lost it, and he destroyed my precious pinball table, and the last ounce of feeling I had for him.
As splinters of wood flew around the tiny apartment as he smashed and stomped and broke my most prized possession, I think he saw my love for him be broken beyond repair too. That’s why he left and took the TV remote and all of my cables with him. He took them to punish me because he knows how much I hate silence. He took them because he thought I’d beg him not to. He took them because it was the last vestige of his control over me.
Instead of leaving me alone since then, he turned up the next day, pounding his fist on the door, but I didn’t let him in. He came the day after too, and the day after that, but I pretended I wasn’t home, ignoring him when he called my name over and over through the door. I’m sure he’s called me a million times, and if my cell was working, I’d be drowning beneath the pressure to answer and speak to him. But he took my charger cable, and instead of buying a new one, I gave the kid in the apartment next door some money and asked him to go and get me one of those prepaid cell phones from the store.
I only told Etta, Betty, Suede, and Johnny my new number, so they wouldn’t worry if they tried to call or message me on my old cell, but no one else. Knowing that Abel has no way to contact me unless I answer the door to him is the only thing that’s made me smile in the last fourteen days.
He ruined everything good I ever felt for him the day he lost his mind and destroyed my pinball table. He knew how much it meant to me. That’s why he broke it. But what was left of the veil that was shielding me from the reality of exactly who he is was ripped away as he threw something important to me into the wall and smiled while I begged him to stop.
I don’t know why I’m still here in this godforsaken apartment. There’s no reason for me to be in Rapid City anymore, but I don’t seem to be able to leave. Splinters of plastic and wood are still strewn all over the floor, but I don’t seem to beable to bring myself to clean up and throw away the remains of one of my most prized possessions.
I haven’t told my friends about what happened that night, how I ended my call with Etta, then looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and hated the person who was staring back at me. I haven’t told them I lost myself to a man again, because to the outside world, I’m the badass goth girl. I’m strong. I’m loud and confident. Only I’m not. Not anymore. Now I feel…broken.
The sound of someone knocking on my door drags me from my listless sleep. Checking my wrist, it takes me a moment to read the time. It’s eight a.m., too early for it to be Abel because he works as an IT consultant and project manager for a company that sells accounting software, and he has to be in the office by eight a.m. for the daily morning meeting.
Crawling off the sofa, which doubles as a bed, I pad cautiously over to the door, then push up onto my tiptoes and peer through the peephole.
“Knight,” I whisper when I see who’s standing in front of the door.
As I watch, he lifts his fist and knocks again, his expression neutral and calm, the same way it’s been every time I’ve seen him.
