Ana Robbins
It was such a simple comment. So obvious. Almost rhetorical in its mundanity. “You see the way he treats you, right?”
Of course I knew how he treated me. I was there, wasn’t I? I said yeah, yeah, I know, and we dropped it. I knew what was up…right?
But then I started looking. My subconscious mind drove my observations, and it steered me into obstacles I had ignored the smacking pain of. Lying about where he’s going, skipping work any day he could. Telling me I’m worthless and “the cause of all his problems.” Threatening to kill my cat just because it didn’t like him. The drugs. The temper. The insults. And that was just week one.
I started to examine him and us closer at the start of week two. This time, it was his physical actions that came into focus. Not holding any door open for me. Forgetting to unlock my side of the car every time. Turning away from me whenever we sat together. Not looking at me when either of us spoke. Not engaging me in anything. Completely ignoring me until he needed food, sex, or a shoulder. I started feeling…a little gross.
Week three. What’s the quote from that Shakespeare sonnet? “Love is not love?” Yeah. That. The binding connection, the need I used to feel for him was beginning to chip away. Starting a new medication, he said that if it worked to quiet the voices in his head, then he would stop doing all non-prescribed drugs. That’s…good, right? Right…I fell in love with the real him, surely! Not some glass-eyed, pseudo-intellectual…oh, who am I kidding. The first DAY on this new medication and off the drugs told me everything I needed to know. Without the drugs, he was more crude, more cruel, more crap than ever before. Instead of using sly wordplay or the façade of a joke, he just straight out insulted me throughout the night in front of two of our friends. His eyes were clear and glassy at the same time. I was seeing the real him, the part of him he liked. I was too shocked to cry, too in pain to go numb. I existed in a stasis between the two.
Week four. The talking to others began. I started letting little comments about my own unhappiness slip out. Friends at the gay club heard about some of the insults; a coworker found out I was not satisfied. My best friend heard that I was thinking about other options for living arrangements. Some of his friends began to press me as to why I put up with him, and I would finally tell them that I didn’t want to anymore.
One night, standing outside on my porch with his best friend, he looked at me in earnest and asked what I was going to do.
“I need to leave. I hate myself. I need to go back to school. I’m tired, I’m cold, I’m miserable. I’m sick of being around people who hate me. I need to break away from my mother. I need to get the fuck out of dodge.” When I came to, I was crying in the arms of this person I barely knew, planning my escape.
At the one month anniversary, I was in a car with a total of two boxes of belongings, my cat, and every fear I ever carried. I told myself I was done, that nothing could change my mind. But I stared at my phone in the passenger’s seat. One text. That’s all I wanted. One text asking me to stay, to turn around, to come home. One statement of him reaching out to hold onto me. I thank every lucky star that had ever seen fit to shine on me that he never sent that text. Instead, a flood of insults and hate came rushing into my poor device, practically shaking its battery loose. “You were never strong enough to be someone’s wife, anyway.” “You have no life without me.” “How much of my shit did you steal?” “Where’s my black socks?” “You left a fuckin shirt behind.” “This is all your fault.”
I waited in vain for one, just one mention of love or longing or sadness at my sudden absence. The manipulation that had kept me there now allowed me to stay on a direct course in the opposite direction.