“Actually, I have an early surgery in the morning, so I’m heading to bed now,” he said. “But it’s alright. See you for lunch tomorrow?”
So smooth. Everything with him was so smooth, so easy. Simple, like Haley had said in group today. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Sleep tight.”
“You too, pretty girl,” he said. “And hey, don’t forget about those jeans.”
I only let out a half laugh, doing my damnedest to be sensitive to Delilah in her state. With my face toward the stove, she couldn’t see my blushing cheeks. “Hold up your end, and I’ll hold up mine.”
“Oh, I will.” He laughed, and I chuckled, and we got off the call.
“Was that Sebastian?” Delilah’s puffy eyes still glistened, but the redness receded.
“It was, and I’m sor?—”
“Don’t be.” She sniffled again, smiling. “Maybe one day, I’ll have what you guys do.”
I snorted. Not because there was anything wrong with him or our relationship. There was just a whole hell of a lot wrong with me. “It’s all fresh. But yeah. Things do get better. You wouldn’t recognize the girl I was when I got here. But back on topic. How did you guys meet?”
“His dad was friends with my dad. We kinda grew up together, I guess,” she said. “He’s older though. When I was in third grade, he left for college. He came back when I was fifteen. We just reconnected, you know? I was older and more mature. He didn’t see me as a little kid anymore.”
If he left for college when she was in third grade, he was nine or ten years older than her. It worried me that she saw herself as mature at fifteen.
Then again, when I was fifteen, so did I.
“That must’ve made leaving harder.” Full mugs in hand, I returned to the sofa. “If your families were close, I mean.”
“It did, yeah. That was the crazy thing.” She closed both hands around her mug, staring at the contents for a few heartbeats. “It was early on in our relationship when he hit me for the first time. And I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t want anyone to think poorly of him. But when I couldn’t take it anymore, and I finally told my dad, he didn’t really care.”
“It wasn’t that he didn’t believe you?”
“No, he believed me. He just didn’t think it was all that big of a deal. He said he thought I could defend myself.”
“A few of my friends said the same thing when I told them. Wasn’t a good feeling.” Juggling my cocoa, I cozied up beneath a throw blanket. “It’s so funny, because in society, one of the worstthings you can be is a woman beater. But when you actually tell someone that your man is beating you, they think there’s no way you can be a part of the statistic.”
“He wasn’t entirely wrong though. I did defend myself a lot of the time.” Delilah lifted her legs onto the sofa, crossed them lotus style, and tucked her cup in the center. “He was a big guy, but he usually backed down after I hit him too. That’s probably why I took it for as long as I did.”
Like Rhiannon had said on Delilah’s first day, that’s why we were all here. None of us were perfect victims. Very few perfect victims existed. Almost everyone who experienced domestic violence defended themselves eventually. That’s why it took so many of us so long to even acknowledge we were in that situation.
“Why did you decide to leave?” I asked.
A hard swallow. Delilah had a hard time meeting my gaze. “He didn’t back down that last time. He shoved me so hard that my head went through the wall. That was the worst pain I ever felt. I danced ballet for years. I know what pain feels like. But it was just so different. I couldn’t see straight, I was sick to my stomach, I couldn’t eventhink, and then I had to lie in bed beside him afterward because I had nowhere else to go.”
I knew that pain too. “The disorientation of a concussion can be terrifying. Especially if you don’t go to a hospital to get assurance that you’re gonna be okay.”
“And I definitely didn’t,” she murmured, still staring at the cocoa. The snow out the window behind her fell heavier and harder now. “I went to my dad’s the next day and asked him if I could stay with him, and he said no. That I needed to work it out with Evan.”
“That’s when you called the shelter?”
A nod. “All the local ones were full, so they got me in touch with Rhiannon. I feel a lot better here.”
I could tell. It sure was ironic that this conversation started with her saying that there were good times, yet she’d only spoken about the bad.
“But?” I asked.
“But… I guess I’m just lonely. And I feel like he has the right to know about the pregnancy. If the roles were reversed, I would want to know. Not because I want to go back to him, but…” Gritting her teeth, Delilah shook her head. “I don’t know.”
That cold look in her eyes told me more than her words. “Because you want this to hurt him the way it’s hurting you.”
Slumping her shoulders, she met my gaze. “Does that make me a horrible person?”
