I shake my head. “Not that one, but I have another note that I’m certain he left recently,” I reply, reaching into my bag. I push it across the table toward him, and he plucks it between thumb and forefinger, frowning as he stares at it.
“This is it?”
I nod.
“This is just a sketch.”
“With his initial on it,” I reply, tapping the paper where it’s signed with a T. “I don’t know anyone else who uses that initial, so?—”
“Could just be a piece of paper that you got stuck to your shoe while you were out,” he replies bluntly. “Plenty of people do street art, doodling on napkins or whatever?—”
“It was pushed under my door when I came home,” I tell him, doing everything in my power to keep my voice steady, even though all I want to do is tell him off for being such an asshole. It’s like he doesn’t even care—like he doesn’t believe me at all.
He cocks an eyebrow, and pushes it back toward me. “It’s not enough for us to do anything with,” he replies. “But I can make a note of it, if you want.”
“Please do,” I reply. “I want it on file that I came in here to talk about this, in case something happens in the future.”
“It—”
He stops himself in his tracks. I sense that he wants to tell me I’m just being paranoid and that I have nothing to worry about, but he thinks better of it before he comes out with the words explicitly.
“Fine.”
He takes the note and carries it to another room, where I hope to God he is actually doing something with it and not just tossing it to the back of the evidence locker to be entirely forgotten. Whenhe returns, he holds open the door for me, and gestures for me to go.
“That’s all we need from you.”
I almost want to remind him that he’s not the one who gets to decide that—that I’m the one who’s going through something here, and he doesn’t have the right to brush me off or tell me when we’re done here.
But pissing him off is only going to make things worse, and I know it. I force a grateful smile onto my face and make my way out the door, praying that this is the end of it, praying that this is the last time I have to set foot in a place like this.
But I get the horrible feeling it won’t be.
I make it out onto the street before a rush of discomfort courses through me, forcing me to sink down on one of the steps next to the station. I close my eyes, trying to keep the shadows from swirling around my vision, but I can’t help it. Talking about him like that, even acknowledging any of what happened when we were together, it’s…it’s still more than I can take. More than I ever wanted to.
God, how could I have been sostupid?That’s the question that keeps bothering me the most. Doesn’t matter how many times I remind myself that plenty of smart women get caught up in abusive relationships, that it’s nothing to do with your intellectual capacity and everything to do with the man carrying out that abuse, I still can’t get over how I let him snake his way into every corner of my existence.
I fell for his lies when he told me that I could move in and he would support me through college. I had nowhere to go, fresh out of the foster care system, and he was a shining light in themiddle of it. I allowed him to convince me that he was just worried about me, and that was why he didn’t want me staying out late, or seeing my friends, or leaving the apartment at all, if I could avoid it. I twisted myself into knots trying to please him, playing housewife on top of the demanding study schedule that I’d signed up for until there was no room for both.
It was easy for him to nudge me just a little further, to tell me that I didn’t belong at college at all if it was causing me all that stress, and that I would be better off just staying home and taking care of the apartment for him.
I let him do all of that. I let him take control of me, to close the walls in until whatever life I’d had outside of this was gone. And now, I have to contend with him believing that he still has that kind of power over me, except I have my kids to think about in the midst of it too.
I don’t know if I can live like this, with the weight of it hanging over my head, but I don’t see what other choice I have.
“Are you alright?”
A woman’s concerned voice cuts through the panic in my head, and I look up, face streaked with tears, to find an older woman with a gray bob watching me with obvious worry.
“I—I’m fine,” I reply as I straighten up, dusting off the crud that’s clinging to my jeans. “I just—I need to get to my bus, that’s all…”
“You want me to walk you there?” she offers kindly. And all at once, I feel another surge of emotion course through me. There’s something about someone going out of their way to be so kind to me in the midst of this that’s somehow harder for me to take than the rejection by the cops. I expected that, to some extent—I’m used to being let down by people, ignored, brushed off. Butbeing treated like I’m worth something? That’s not exactly easy for me to wrap my head around. I smile, hoping I don’t look too crazy with the tears.
“Thank you,” I reply, as she offers me an arm. “I’d love that.”
14
MARTIN
