* * *
Week six with Ken:
Ken is a liar.
He hit Nina again.
He apologized again.
She accepted again.
I’m furious.
Again.
* * *
Week seven with Ken:
Nina didn’t refill her prescription. She takes pills daily to balance her bipolar disorder. Yeah, did I mention that? She’s bipolar. Diagnosed when she was a teenager. The medication works. I argued loudly for the refill. She ignored me. When she stops taking the meds she plummets. I think she does it to punish herself because she doesn’t think she’s worthy. This is a bad sign.
* * *
Week eight with Ken:
Nina’s depression is a dictator. It changes her, molds her into what it wants her to be.
It also allows Ken to mold her into whathewants her to be.
* * *
Week nine with Ken:
Nina hasn’t talked to her friends in weeks. She hasn’t been out of the house for weeks.
* * *
Week twelve with Ken:
Nina has cried all day thinking about Toby. She hasn’t seen or talked to him since that night she took Ken to meet him. The night that everything changed.
When Ken walks in the door at seven o’clock, she’s still in bed in her pajamas. There will be hell to pay when dinner isn’t on the table, but she’s too tired of life to even care. I’m still chanting,Leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, but she tells me it doesn’t matter because it’s all going to end soon anyway.
By “it’s all going to end,” she meansshe’sgoing to end. I get that. I’ve been in this spot with her before. She’s not one to mess around with empty threats. The last time she filled her belly full of pain pills. The only reason she survived is because her mom found her and called 911. Stomach pumped inside out, she recovered under psychiatric evaluation and was released to her mother and Toby. She was seventeen. Toby was two. Her mother was a train wreck.
“Nina!” Ken yells from the living room. The sound deadens when his footfalls still on the hardwood inside their bedroom.
She looks at him through blurry eyes and before he can start in on her, we both notice how different his eyes look. They’re glazed over. He’s high, but he doesn’t smell like pot. She’s always known about the pot. This is something different. For weeks she’s chased away suspicions that he might be dealing drugs, but she didn’t realize he dipped into his supply.
She’s braced for the worst, the beatings are daily now. She’s covered in bruises.
So when he climbs in bed and pulls her into his chest, she stills rigidly like a frightened animal being stalked like prey.
Stroking her hair gently, he says, “I love you, Nina. You know that, right?” When she doesn’t answer, he doesn’t notice and goes on with his petting. “You’ve been so good lately, Nina.So good.” The only thing scarier than the cruel Ken Nina has come to expect, is nice Ken.
Different gets scarier every day. Ken is different.
Chapter Twenty-One
