Memories can be the death of hope. Each time you think you have the strength to step into the light, one comes along to remind you how often you failed at that in the past.
And I have. Many times.
Once you open the door to one, the other memories that were waiting in the wings come rushing through with it. A montage. Like a movie showing rapid flashbacks, they bombard.
Every slap, each punch. The foot at my throat when he finally knocked me down. All the foul names. The angry sex that teetered the line of descriptions I’m not yet ready to face.
The things I hated. The ones I thought I deserved. The few I enjoyed.
The daisy petal shivers under my trembling fingertips. We’re more alike than I thought. Fragile, pretty things. Look, but don’t touch, for we break too easily and take so long to grow back.
I pull back.
I don’t want her to break. She’s not mine. I’m not him. There’s nothing in me that craves another’s harm.
“Where does it come from?”
“What?” Juliet says, looking up from her phone.
“Where do you think it comes from? Their need to hurt.”
“Oh, Louisa,” she says, reaching out to twine her fingers with my own. My fingernails are chipped and worn. They look awful next to her perfectly manicured set. “It’s nothing you did. You know that, right?”
“No, Jules. It’s quite literally everything I did.”
“Nothing you did, or ever could have done, deserved the treatment you got,” she says, sternly. Near anger, now. “I don’t know why so many men are like that, why they need to assert control, or dominance. I suspect there are a lot of reasons. Mommy issues, daddy issues, past abuse of their own, general sociopathy. Whatever his reason, it wasn’t you.”
“When you say it, it sounds true.”
“Because it is.” The server comes back to drop off our food. “Thank you.”
“Anything else, for now?”
“No, I think this gets us started,” I tell her, watching as she lowers the tray to her side and rubs her swollen belly. “What’s your name?”
“Miley.”
“Thanks so much, Miley.”
“You’re welcome.” She saunters off with a smile.
“That’s what I thought my life would be like, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
I take a bite of the chocolate cake, and I moan in pleasure.
Juliet laughs. “Right? This is the best carrot cake I’ve ever had.”
“I mean, I didn’t have career aspirations as a kid,” I tell her, moving my fork to her plate and picking up a piece covered in cream cheese frosting. “Working a good, honest, blue-collar job is all I ever thought I’d do. When did you know what you wanted to do?”
“All I knew was that I wanted out of Stowaway. When the initial offer from the University of Portland came through, I remember staring at their list of academics and feeling so overwhelmed that I almost closed my eyes and pointed to a program. I had no clue what I wanted to do,” she says, copying me and stealing a piece of my cake. “Communications sounded like the best bet, because it gave me several options that were appealing. Mostly ones that let me be in some kind of spotlight, which I adore.”
“That’s where we were complete opposites then, because I never wanted that. I was the consummate wallflower growing up.”
“And then you became a supermodel.”
“Stop calling me that,” I say, laughing and reaching for a sip of her shake. “Holy shit, that’s good. I can’t remember the last time I had butterscotch anything.”
