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“Did he really hit you, Jessica?”
She doesn’t answer, only smiles a little smug smile that tells me the answer and I sigh.
“If you’re the victim of domestic abuse,” I say, “there are numbers to call. People to talk to about it. And leave him.”
“Travis—”
“Here.” I pull out my wallet and a card that I thrust at her. “Take this. If you’re a victim, call that number. Okay?”
She stares at it like I’ve slapped her in the face. “You don’t care.”
“I don’t believe you, and you’ve done and said nothing to make me think otherwise. But if I’m wrong, call the number. I’m the last person for you to turn to. Ever.”
“I didn’t call you about that.”
“I’d think me not answering would have told you I didn’t want to see you. And yet, here you are… following me.”
She huffs, her green eyes glittering with annoyance. “I just saw you. That’s all. This isn’t over.”
Jessica turns and crumples the card, dropping it at my feet as she stalks away.
It’s all a shit show. One I have no chance in hell of getting a handle on. A strange guilt keeps nipping at my ankles and I don’t know what to do with it.
Guilt over Jessica somehow cornering me in public. Guilt over not letting Brandi know immediately… but then again, how will I do that, exactly? It isn’t like rushing up to her and telling her makes me sound any different than if I don’t.
Then there’s guilt over hitting my brother. Guilt over wondering if what Jessica had said about my brother is true, even for a moment or two.
Just guilt.
The look in her eyes told me the truth. That, and the way she tossed the card at my feet like I’d insulted her. She’s lying, and all that does is hurt the people who are actually victims of domestic abuse.
The rest of it? The guilt and the feelings, and the fact that for even a second she got under my skin?
Yeah, shit show sums it all up.
Now I don’t know how to fix anything that’s going on with Brandi, and even my parents aren’t talking to me.
Our bed’s empty every night when I get home, and it doesn’t even smell like Brandi’s shampoo. If I didn’t think it would be too pathetic, I’d use it in the shower just to have that piece of her. All her clothes are missing from the closet, and when I found one of her sweaters behind the couch while I was stress cleaning the house, I almost sat down and cried right there.
How the hell did she become such a part of me that it hurts to have her gone? Not only that, but how did I miss that feeling embedding itself into my soul?
And now… now I think I just might lose her.
How the fuck do I get through that?
It’s beyond early the next morning when someone bangs on my door. I pull on jeans and a shirt and half stumble down the stairs. I covered a shift last night, because what else am I going to do? Sit at home? Lick my wounds even though I’m the one who did this? Act like a fucking lost child? Sit outside Brandi’s house all night?
None of that appeals. Those options are up with full-on stalking, begging, and digging my own heart out with a spoon. The shift was shit, the minutes passed like hours, and I ended up feeling just as bad as before.
Rubbing my eyes, I reach for the handle and it’s not until I’ve thrown the deadbolt open on the front door and the handle’s twisting in my hand that I’m thinking this might be the wrong thing to do.
It’s not Jessica.
Thank fuck.
“If I didn’t think Brandi’d kill me,” Maya says by way of greeting, her pretty face pure fire and storm, “I’d beat the shit out of you and Brian and all the rest of the so-called macho men who work at the department couldn’t stop me.”
A half smile wants to break free, not out of joy—where’s the joy in any of this? My wife walked out to get space and hasn’t come back—but a smile created out of the unexpected. Of course Brandi would have Maya in her corner, willing to go to war for her.
