The waves lapped slowly up the beach.Harper watched them intently, trying to ignore the sickening feeling growing deep in her chest.
“They worked together as mechanics at a custom bike shop.My brother introduced us.”
Harper threw the stick into the water and watched the ebbing tide pull it out to sea.She wiped the sand from her hands onto the sides of her legs.
She let out a staccato laugh.“Did you know two out of three acts of violence against women in the United States are by someone they know?I’m a walking statistic.”
Trent put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward him.She jolted at the contact, but his arm felt warm against the cold chill that enveloped her.
“The first year was great.I was finishing up college.Our first date, he bought me an old version of Boggle because my brother had told him I loved word games.He’d pull all kinds of crazy shit.Like on Valentine’s Day, he hacked into the campus computer network and changed all the screensavers to a romantic quote anagram he knew I’d crack.The guy was a computer genius, but somehow couldn’t function in school.The second year… not so much.He started spending less and less time with me.”
Nathan’s words still stung her.The small digs about life passing her by, soothed with whispered sweet nothings about how much he’d miss her if she didn’t join him, swiftly turned into outright barbs: She cared more about kids at school than him.She was getting old before her time.She was no longer fun to be around.
She wiggled her toes in the cool sand and sighed, instinctually moving closer to Trent.
“His behavior became more erratic.I didn’t know what he was doing anymore.He never hurt me physically, but his mood swings and anger dominated our relationship.”
Harper felt relieved to get it all out there.There was something about sitting on a quiet beach with Trent that made it easier to say.“Then he passed a tipping point.We became more like roommates, and fraught roommates at that.
“I’m not sure how many women he cheated on me with.In the span of thirty minutes, my whole life changed,” she continued quietly.“It’s hard to figure out where to go from there.Trusting someone is impossible.”
How had the person who had left a trail of anagram clues to her Christmas gift throughout their condo one year turned into a psychopath?It still didn’t seem real.
Fleeting memories of deep-dish pizza and beer, a walk along Navy Pier, and of talking until the early hours of the morning brought a sad smile to her face.They’d been good together once.The summer she’d caught that awful stomach bug that had knocked her down, he’d cleaned up when she was sick, held her up as she tried to shower, and washed the bedding every day so she’d have nice, clean sheets to fall into.The day he took her to the Chicago Newberry Library and kissed her, telling her it would be the perfect place for their wedding.
Awareness of Trent’s strong body alongside hers brought her back to the present.“If the person you loved, who was supposed to have your back…” She laughed sadly at her ironic choice of words.“If you can’t trust that one person, where do you go from there?”
The uninterrupted view of the constellations was majestic, their brilliance amplified in a cloudless sky the color of black ink.The slow crescendo of waves the perfect soundtrack to the incredibly romantic setting but here she was, reliving her past.
“Anyway,” she said, dropping her gaze to the sand around her feet, “he’s eligible for parole after only four years because he completed some courses.There’s a hearing.And they want me to attend, to try and articulate to a group of people how badly he has fucked up my life—when I can barely get my own head around it.”
Trent rubbed her shoulder softly.“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to ever see him again.There’s an out clause.I can write a letter, an impact statement, so I don’t have to go in person, but revisiting it hurts all over again.It feels like I’m getting sucked back in every time I try to break free.”
He kissed the top of her head.“‘The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.’Dante.”He laughed.“Not to imply that you are a thing, of course.You must be pretty damn perfect, Harper.”
Harper let go of the breath she was holding.She’d been expecting the usual platitudes.Those simple, yet highly unexpected sentences meant more than any she had heard before.To think how she had misjudged Trent just because of his ink, dismissing tattoo artists as uneducated before she’d ever met one.Teaching 101—never judge a book by its cover but that was exactly what she had done.A ripple of embarrassment threaded through her.
She turned to look into his eyes, which were as dark as the night sky.
“You really are a Dante nut, aren’t you?”
“Roll it out when I need to sound clever, which doesn’t happen too often.Usually I stick to metal lyrics, and I’m pretty sure I can’t think of an appropriate one at the moment.Didn’t think you’d appreciate being likened to a fast machine who kept her engine clean—even if I ended by saying you were the best damn woman I’d ever seen.”He shrugged his shoulders.
“AC/DC?”Harper laughed.“So, anyway, that’s why I’m a mess.You’re the first, you know.”
“First what?”
“The first person I’ve kissed since then.”Embarrassing or not, she might as well put it all out there.She scooped sand into her hand, and watched it sift through her fingers.
“I’ve been all over the place today, not that I want you to think I’m an emotional wreck.”Tears threatened, but she pushed on.“I say I want to move on, but then when the chance comes, I freeze.I know it’s going to be difficult.I just don’t know why you would want to make that kind of effort.”
“Want to know what I see?”Trent said close to her ear.
She turned to look at him.“A crazy head case?”
He shook his head, and spoke with a quiet firmness.“I see a woman who made it through whatever she had to do to put him away.I see a woman who created a new life for herself somewhere else so she could feel safe.I see a woman who is getting past this one step at a time, doing the best she can, and who, with each step, reclaims a little bit of herself.”
