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But I hated him. He would make comments about what she was wearing, how cheap it looked, how she spackled on makeup. When he came over, he expected us to entertain him, do a whole song and dance. He’d get annoyed if we didn’t have plans for dinner, or the drinks he liked in the fridge. And my mom was never smart enough. She used improper grammar, pronounced words wrong. Her accent was embarrassing. She didn’t go to college, and he’d joke she was no more educated than his students. My mom would laugh, but I knew better.
He tried doing it to me, too—picked apart what I was reading, told me I wasn’t witty because I was quiet. Soon, the last place I wanted to be was home. I had the pageants, which was good. Practicing meant a lot of time away. And then I started cheering, which Heller High took very seriously.
JAMIE:It being East Texas and all.
SHAY:So that was another escape. And to fill the rest of the time, I went to your house.
JAMIE:Wait. That’s why you came over so much?
SHAY:It saved me. But I couldn’t avoid him at school. Before him, English was my favorite subject.
JAMIE:Yeah. When I picture you, I picture your nose in a book.
SHAY:He could tell I hated him, and he kept trying to needle me in class. He graded my papers harsher than anyone else’s. Called on me to answer questions and then tore apart what I said, in front of everyone. It was humiliating.
JAMIE:That day in class we were talking aboutThe Thousand and One Nights, I knew you’d read it and had plenty to say, because we’d done our homework together and you wouldn’t shut up about Scheherazade and murderous kings. But when Trevors asked you a question, you went mute. No matter what he said, you wouldn’t answer.
SHAY:He sent me to the principal’s office. I got my first detention.
JAMIE:I remember being so confused about why you were being stubborn. Why not just say something and avoid trouble?
SHAY:I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. One night sophomore year, my mom came home while I was cleaning up after dinner. She tried to sneak past me to the stairs, but I had this feeling, so I followed her. When I saw her face, I swear to god, part of me wasn’t surprised.
Her nose and mouth were bloody. You could see where she’d tried to wash it away, but her skin was pink and streaky, so it looked even worse. She had a fresh black eye.
JAMIE:Hehither?
SHAY:I know that’s how I should’ve reacted. But she’d been dating him for a year—a whole year of escalation and excuses. She stood there in the living room, looking at me with tears in her eyes, and I could’ve comforted her. I could’ve done what she’d never done for me and reversed the cycle. But instead, I said, “I told you a million times to break up with him.”
She started crying. She lifted her arms, like I would hug her, but all I felt was this…repulsion. I said, “You work at a domestic violence shelter, Mom. How could you let this happen?”
She said, “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. He just—”
That’s when I charged her and said, “Tell me you’re not making excuses for him. I knew you were weak, but I didn’t realize you were actually pathetic.”
JAMIE:Shay.
SHAY:She said, “I’m not making excuses. It’s over between us. I’m just saying… I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t make it up in my head. Hedidlove me.”
She looked so fragile. Just skin and bones. And I thought: What if he’d seriously hurt her?Killedher? It happened to one of the women from the shelter. He held that power over us, and I hated him for it, but I hated her more for giving it to him. She was standing there bruised and crying, and all I could think was to shove her away.
JAMIE:Maybe being angry was the only way you could feel in control.
SHAY:I told her none of them had loved her. Not Mr. Trevors or my dad.
(Silence.)
I know. It stunned her, too.
JAMIE:Please tell me your mom stopped seeing him.
SHAY:She did. And junior year, we started AP English, so I didn’t have to see him at school anymore. Only sometimes, in the halls, I’d turn the corner and there he was, ice-cold and haughty as ever. Staring, but not saying a word.
And before you ask: yes, I see the connection between what Mr. Trevors did to my mom and what Don did to me. Part of me wishes I could tell her I know what it’s like now. But the truth is, she didn’t choose to be hit. She stopped once it started.I’mthe one who asked for it. I told her she was pathetic, and then I did something so much worse.
So that’s the rift. It’s all me. I’m the one who saw it coming with Mr. Trevors. I felt it with Don, too, after a while. I could’ve saved my mom when I was fifteen, and I could’ve saved Clem and Laurel in college. Instead, I left them to the wolves.
JAMIE:Shay, have you ever heard of repetition compulsion? It’s this theory that people who’ve experienced trauma have a strong desire to reenact it, over and over, to gain mastery over it. It seems counterintuitive, but the thinking is, if they can just get one more shot,thistime they’ll get it right. They reach for the same pain over and over, retraumatizing themselves, all the while convinced they’re putting an end to it.
