My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I couldn’t help but pull it out and look again. I told myself I needed to read them to “stay one step ahead” but maybe I was just a glutton for punishment.
My stomach twisted into knots. Chris was threatening to kill himself if I didn’t come back. The message was graphic, conjuring up images that made my eyes sting yet again.
As self-centered as Chris was, I didn’t want to see harm come to him. I took a few deep breaths, forcing myself to remember the articles I read when I researched a plan to leave. Many domestic violence websites said abusers threatened to commit suicide as a way to manipulate.
He just wants me back.
Still. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. I couldn’t shake the mental image his text painted. I held my hand against my rib cage as my heart clenched so hard, I wondered if it stopped beating for a few moments.
How could he think a death would make me happy?
I texted him back:I’m going to call the police to come check on you if you keep threatening to kill yourself.
With that, a string of frantic text messages and calls flew in. Angry, mean, spiteful.
Chris:Go ahead and call the police.
Chris:I’ll tell them you abducted our kid.
I slammed the phone face down on the plywood floor beside me. One way or another, someone was going to try to take my son. Chris kept me very familiar with a list of ways I was unfit for Kacey. Those reasons, and many more I’d added to the list, filed through my head at lightning speed. Someone was going to eventually see how I’d mishandled things. Realize how little I had to give a child. And then what would I do?
I wanted to fly away. Wrap my one treasure in bubble wrap and disappear forever.
My vision blurred as I pulled the razor knife over a thin layer of tape on a box labeled “law books,” frantic to occupy my anxious mind. Searing pain ripped through my left hand, and I jerked it back with a small cry. I blinked a few times in order to see clearly. Blood was spilling over the top of the box. On instinct, I wrapped it in my t-shirt. I cut it good.
Jack’s voice was muted by the maze of boxes and layers of insulation all around. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I yelled back. “Got my hand with the razor.”
“You bleeding?”
I squinted at the pad of my thumb. The quiver in my voice couldn’t be hidden. “Yes, pretty bad.”
“Hang on.” Jack quickly disappeared down the attic steps, and I was left alone, sniffling and huffing, doing my absolute best to clear my face with the sleeves of my shoulders. But, the cut turned on a faucet. All of the stress of the last few days, all of the emotional turmoil, all of the problems in my life, all ofthe questions…the stupid razor had cut much deeper than my skin.
My heart was bleeding and crying, too.
Jack’s footsteps ascending the ladder amped up my efforts. I lifted my collar and pressed it against my wet lashes and cheeks. If I was trying to hide the fact I was crying, I was going to fail miserably.
He came around the Christmas tree with a first aid kit. So like Jack. I’d have just run some cold water over it and called it a day. But he loved procedure.
He pulled a box up beside me and sat on it. “Here, let me see.”
I let go of my t-shirt and held my hand out for him. He took it, bending close to see in the dim lighting. “Yikes”—he shook his head and laid my hand face up in his lap—“that looks rough.”
I was embarrassed for throwing a wrench in our work time. “I’m sorry. I was rushing.”
He tore open a couple gauze and an antiseptic wipe. “Don’t apologize. Could’ve happened to anyone, especially with the bad lighting in here.”
I caught his familiar smell again and my heart plummeted. Was there nowhere I could go without my heart taking a beating? I turned my head away from him, hoping to gather in a deep breath of the stale insulation and cardboard instead.
My phone buzzed on the plywood. I startled.
Jack glanced at me. “That thing has been going off all morning.”
The crimson washing over my face burned. “Yeah.”
“Your ex can’t take a hint?” He gently dabbed the wipe onto the cut.
