I paused and waited for a response but all I got was his fists, white knuckles that were white hot against his freezing red hands. "He drugged me too... on days that he had court late. If I was drugged when he was gone, then he didn’t need to worry about any mayhem I caused." I let the words linger when darkness shrouded his face.
"What?" He whispered his voice not willing to cooperate with the rage inside.
"He drugged me, he used to buy Chlorazapam from the dealers on the streets that dealt in pharmaceuticals and drug me with it when I would try and leave.”
I clear my throat and try to explain myself.“The other night, I.. I was dreaming, usually the dreams when he would use it were really vivid. I had a nightmare that you were with that girl from a while back, Brit and that you kept telling me to wake up because he was there. I felt the prick in my arm and then I felt it all over my body. When I talked to you later that night, I was still in the mindset of that dream and confused by memories and how I was so desperate to talk to you but scared too. It’s why I always get mad when you’re gone…when you’re here the fear vanishes and I can breathe.”
Shamus looked at me then and I could see the rage simmering just under his pain. Pain at everything I had hidden from him. "Why didn’t you tell me Cassa?"
"I'm ashamed Shamus, I hate bringing the people I love into this nightmare." I threw myself against his body, begging him to just...love me. "I can’t watch you turn into Mike, I won’t have you tell me to go to therapists and call the Parole board and PO's every day." I covered my face in his shirt as my tears flowed as heavy as the whipping rain.
"Cassa." He pulled back from my embrace to see my face. "I want you to fight, but I need to be fighting with you. I won’t make you hide and I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to as long as your safe. But you can’t hide shit like this from me." He was still so angry. He threw his arms in the air and spun back on his heels, furious because he needed the truth of things I was terrified to admit. "I can’t even hold your hand in public Cassa. I have cameras around me at all times and I can’t show the world the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with because I am scared it may anger her Ex and he kills us both." He stormed away walking to the end of the dock, to get away from me? I didn’t know.
"This is my life too Cassa. I had every right to know he broke you and is still breaking you from behind a cell!”
Oh fuck, it’s like this whole thing just keeps getting worse.
I choked on my tears, the retched feeling of all my secrets being laid bare, watching him break apart from the deception of it all and having no idea how bad it all really was. "I'm sorry Shame. I don’t know how to explain this, but he…." I was near hyperventilating. "He, he.. he g-g-g-g-got out…-"
He was at my side in five long strides. "Chill baby…" He tried sounding calm I know he did, but with that I had essentially infuriated him. Watching him try soothing the truth from me, when the truth was igniting a fury in him I never knew existed was too much. I knew I would look back on this moment and find a small grain of peace, because I wasn’t scared of Shame. Not even a little.
I couldn’t talk, I just nodded my head and flinched when he flew his arms in the air and roared in frustration. "I can’t fucking fix this!" He kicked the wall of the boathouse at the end of the dock, repeatedly and with every kick I was consumed with anguish at what I was turning him into.
Carrie had been right, but I think I always knew she was. Shame, like Chad, wanted the control to fix the nightmare. What Shamus had to deal with though, that Chad didn’t, was the fact he was wanting to fix the parts of my life that were broken.
Shattered.
Destroyed.
Ruined.
I could only cry and I hated that I was reduced to nothing more but tears. I had lost. Lost Shamus, lost the respect of the ones I love the most and sadly I had lost the fight a long fucking time ago. I hated this feeling, I hated that I had kept this from him. Looking at him I figured it would only get worse if I didn’t just spill it all already. "When you left me Shamus… I was consumed with the pain. That sort of pain was something Cory could never achieve with me. He knew when we met that I was jaded and hurting. I was his target because my weakness was so visible. Throughout our marriage and courtship, he wanted, needed for me to love him the same. I think he always knew that I never could. I had no choice in the matter Shamus.”
There was a sudden rush of old buried hurt and anger at repeating the parts I have never shared with a soul, not even Noah. I grip at the sides of my sopping wet jacket and scream at him in my own anger now.“I had no choice in you leaving me. I had no choice in how deep you hurt me Shamus! I tried to be happy. I tried going out with the girls and to concerts. I tried so fucking hard to gain that shattered piece of myself back.”
I grip the tattered piece of paper I brought with me this morning. I had written a poem that went through me like blood in my veins, because it was the words I felt at his leaving me. The words of my hurt and sorrow and pain, bled through as I roar in my own outrage.
“By the time he started to hit me Shamus I was too lost in the anguish to give a fuck. I decided long before he butchered me that I would accept this fate and live it.” I step closer until we are inches from one another, even through the anger I can feel the sexual draw rolling from him toward me in waves. It takes everything inside of me to not touch him.
We are fierce when our bodies make the choice for us. We always have been. When he was hurting I would please him, when I was angry he would fuck it out of me. Not this time. No fucking way.
“I settled Shamus. I couldn’t have you and I didn’t dare to go looking for someone better than the one who left me behind like an afterthought. Every time he hit me, gripped my hair, spitin my face, called me worthless or kicked me until I was unconscious it was your face I dreamed of one day rescuing me. You were never a knight in shining armor, you were my bad ass rocker with tats and skill and loved me through every breath.”
My tears are hot as they spill from my eyes against freezing cold cheeks, a bitter reminder of the hot pain inside. “When I would wake up it was that thought that dug the knife deeper. A constant reminder of the fact you fucking left me!” I scream the last part and push him as hard as I can, my hands beating against his chest in anger.
I am instantly terrified by my own reaction, but my body is still in over drive as I continue to hit him. I feel the steel grip of his fingers as he grips first one wrist and then the other, stopping the assault.
I cannot believe I have hit another person. I had fought back in the day against any fangirl dumb enough to go after Shamus, but I had never touched a person I love. I am disgusted at myself.
I yank my hands free of his grip and fall to my knees as I cry into my hands.
“So you figured, hey let me get my fucking ass kicked daily just because you couldn’t get over me?” He roars unaffected by my tears. “Excuse me while I try to forgive myself for fucking your life up beyond all fucking god damned measure!” He kicks the wall again and I can’t even muster the anger to fight him and his sarcastic bullshit. “I didn’t need the secrets or the lies Cassa. I need the truth. I don’t give a fuck about the past anymore because we both are too fucked up to try and fix our mistakes. But I fucking deserved to know that the whole mother fucking time I was gone on stupid useless PR bullshit, that mother fucker has been out. I don’t know this fucking dude Sass. I don’t know crazy on that level and I sure as fuck don’t know if he has been watching you when I am gone, waiting to fucking kill you.”
He storms toward me and drops to his knees before me, gripping my shoulders until I am looking at his face, blurred by my tears.“Do you fucking get this? Do you get the fucking danger of those type of secrets?”
“Don’t talk to me about what I don’t get Shamus. You have no clue what I have tried to fight against and protect.”
“Well make sure you run and tell Noah, but don’t tell me, the man who would fucking die for you. Don’t tell me shit right!”
