And now I’m going to see him again. I know it will set me back. Maybe even right back to square one. But I have to do this. I have to talk to him and tell him what’s going on.
I unlock my front door, pausing to look for Dozer like I do every day. When I see that he isn’t in front of the door, I push it open to step inside. It’s as I’m closing it that I feel the niggle of someone’s presence behind me. But not soon enough.
I’m turning to face him, door still ajar, when Calvin grabs my upper arms and backs me into the living room, slamming the door shut behind us.
I struggle to free myself from his grip, but his fingers are like iron shackles. A bolt of fear flashes through me. Among the memories of his punches and kicks and slaps, I’d forgotten how easily he could overpower me. But it’s all coming back to me now. Too fresh, too clear.
I reach for bravery. I reach for boldness. I reach for tough. I don’t want him to see that he can still rattle me. Even though he can.
“What are you doing here? Get the hell out of my house!”
On his face is a sneer. “What? Change your mind so soon?”
“Change my mind? About what?”
“About seeing me again.”
Sweet God! I’d told the Senator I’d do it, but I didn’t say when. No arrangements were made. And certainly none for this soon. It has only been a day, for God’s sake!
“What’s the matter? Kat got your tongue?” he asks, using my old name.
“No, I . . . I, uh, just wasn’t expecting you this soon. And certainly not here.”
“What’s the matter, Kat? Afraid to have me so close to your bed?”
His leer coupled with the smell of alcohol on his breath gives me a surge of adrenaline. My heart thunders and every subtle nuance of this moment is carving itself indelibly into my brain.
“Hardly. You disgust me!” I hiss in a burst of bold and brave honesty.
His expression turns furious and he grabs me by my upper arms. “So he’s so much better than me, is that it? That piece-of-shit fighter. Where is he now? If he’s so much better than me, where is he? Why am I here with you when he’s not?” A dart of fear pierces me. He was always much worse, much more forceful and unpredictable when he was drinking.
I keep my calm, at least outwardly. “You’re drunk, Calvin. You need to leave.”
“So anxious to get me out of here. Why? Is he coming? Will he be warming up that pussy tonight?”
His temper flares and his fingers bite into my arms, making painful indentations.
“Let me go, Calvin. I’m not kidding.” Part of me wants to cower in the face of his anger, the memories flooding me like salt water flooding a hole in the sand. But another part of me, a tough and slightly reckless part, wants to face him, wants to stand up in his face and scream that I’m not afraid of him anymore.
He stares down into my face and I see the battle waging. Stay or go. Lash out or calm down. Stay and fight or walk away. I see his pupils swell and I know which way the tide is turning.
The muscles along his jawline flex as he grits his teeth. He jerks me up close to his face so that I can feel the heat of his temper. And I do. I feel it. And I know what’s coming.
“I tried to forget you after the fire. I thought it would burn you out of my blood. And for a while it did. But when I saw you again . . . with him . . . Damn you for making me feel this way again! Damn. You.”
Before I can respond, Calvin straightens his arms and sends me flying across the entryway, a tangle of flailing limbs.
I look up to see him pushing the unbuttoned sleeves of his dress shirt up his forearms, like he’s preparing to get messy. I know that gesture. I remember it like I remember the bone-jarring ache of being punched in the ribs. Or kicked in the back of the head.
Courage flees me. Calm abandons me. And terror, pure terror turns my blood to ice in my veins. After a time, I knew Calvin had a bad temper and that he was prone to violence, but never would I have suspected that he might set me on fire. Yet he did. That’s when I realized that I had no idea the depths to which his mental illness extended. He could be capable of anything. Even murder.
With speed uncommon in someone as lanky as Calvin, he lunges for me before I can react, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and pulling me to my feet to sling me across the dining room table. I go skittering along the top before I crash down onto the chair at the end and topple it to the floor, the edge of the seat cracking against my hip. I gasp in pain, my fear nearly blinding me as I scramble to get my bearings.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to punish you, Kat. For leaving me. For making me hurt you. For spreading those legs for someone else. You’re mine, Kat. You always will be.”
My addled mind spins with solutions and scenarios, for any possible way out of this without getting myself killed. He set me on fire last time. I can’t give him the chance to hurt me again.
I stall until I can find a way, find something with which to defend myself. “I didn’t think you’d want me with all my scars,” I tell him. I swallow past the balloon of fear that inflates in my throat and I scoot into a sitting position.
Calvin frowns. I’m not sure what to make of it. Is he confused by my tactic? Disgusted by the mention of my disfigurement?
“I thought you knew how much I loved you. Yes, I hate the scars, but I’ll pay for plastic surgery to get rid of them, and you’ll be my beautiful Kat again. At least for a little while.”
For a little while? That sounds . . . ominous.
Absently, I push scraps of the broken chair out of the way so that I can find my balance and make my way to my feet. I pause as my eyes settle on one of the splintered legs. For a few seconds, I zone out of the present as I stare at it, as I think of the implications of it. As I look at it, I drift into a strange place of calm.
The jagged wooden end holds my attention, almost as though it’s beckoning me. Calvin’s angry voice is nothing more than a distant backdrop to the peculiar trance I’ve stumbled into. In this peaceful world, I don’t distinguish between Kat, Kathryn or Katie. I don’t live a life as splintered as the chair leg I’m gazing at. I’m simply a girl who’s tired of hiding, who’s tired of being hurt. Who’s tired of only surviving. I am a woman who needs to stand up. To fight back. To get the missing part of myself back. To be whole again.
In the fuzzy recesses of my mind, I realize that if I don’t stand up now, if I don’t start to live now, I never will. Just like Rogan said, I’ll die a little more each day.
Fight to survive. Fight to live.
I’ve fought to survive. For years now, I’ve survived. But I need more. It’s time to fight to live.
It’s time to live.
My movements have a slow, surreal quality to them at first, almost dreamlike. I reach for the makeshift stake. I curl my trembling fingers around it. I use my free hand for balance. I come carefully to my feet. And I face Calvin.
Although fear is still with me, it’s muted by this strange calm and, somehow, I’m bolstered by the feel of the cool wood of the chair leg against my palm. I flex my fingers around it, rubbing the sharp tip against my thigh as I study Calvin.
“If you leave me again, it’ll only be worse, Kat. I didn’t think I could hate you as much as I loved you, but I was wrong. You made me see that. God, you were such a bitch! What you did to me . . .”
I tilt my head as I watch him. His face is bloodred as he rants, a single vein standing out like a thick rope right in the center of his forehead. I wonder briefly that it doesn’t burst and send him face-first onto my floor to drown in his own blood. I actually smile at the vision.
Calvin stops talking. I notice only because his lips cease to move. All I hear is the beat of my own heart, pounding in my ears.
I see spit on his chin. I focus on it for a few seconds, oddly fascinated by the foamy little drop. I notice only in the most absent of ways that it begins to get closer. It’s that minute detail that shakes me from my thrall.