Chapter 26
Farrah
I drifted in and out of sleep. The first weeks after Jim had left me, sleeping was all I had done. It was an escape. When I slept, I could run away from everything that had gone wrong.
Now, I was right back where I’d started and I hated myself for it. I’d spent a year and a half away from Jim. I had gone to therapy for what he’d done to me and I thought I’d come such a long way from the broken woman Jim had walked out on.
And now that he was back, so was I. Despite all the work I’d done, I’d slipped right back to the mess I’d been. One afternoon face to face with Jim had proven to me that I hadn’t beaten anything at all.
Lee wanted to know what was going on. I guess he deserved to know. If this was the woman he was choosing to be with he had the right to know what he was dealing with. But I was ashamed to tell him. I was scared that when he found out what had happened, what my past looked like, he would decide that I wasn’t the woman he wanted, after all. Who wanted someone with so much baggage? Who wanted to be with someone who was this broken?
The night dragged on slowly. I knew that Jim wouldn’t find me here. The cabin was hidden in the forest and even though Jim had clearly been following me for the past year and a half, keeping tabs of my life when I had thought I was free of him, I knew he didn’t know where I was tonight.
I couldn’t believe he’d found out I was pregnant and that the doctors had spoken to him about everything. I still didn’t know how he’d found out where I was. Maybe it wasn’t that hard to do. When someone really wanted to find something out, how hard could it be? All he had to do was to pose as a client and email me for me to tell him where I was.
Maybe it was what had happened.
Fear clutched at me and I breathed through it. I couldn’t stop living my life so that Jim wouldn’t find me. When I had been with him, nothing about my life had been my own. When Lee had punched Jim he had threatened to report him for harassment. Maybe that was something I had to do, anyway. There was something wrong with Jim and I was terrified that he wouldn’t ever stop trying to get to me. For as long as I had this baby, the baby Jim had wanted but had never gotten, I was scared he would try to get me to come back to him.
There was no way I would be able to give him this child. I couldn’t raise a child in the life I would have with Jim. It would be wrong of me to subject an innocent child to the prison that would be.
I heard a truck pull up and when I glanced at the clock, it was past two. I knew it was Lee. It was the time the pub usually closed. He wouldn’t have stayed to banter and have another drink like he would have if I had been there. He was back to be with me.
Lee was the kindest and best of men. He cared of me in a way I had never been cared for, and he had let me believe I was worth loving again.
When Lee came in, he stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed with me. He glanced at the food I hadn’t eaten before he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. I curled into him.
Lee had been my safe space since that first night we had spent together in my motel room. He had been nothing but kind and caring toward me and he had made me feel like I was worth his time and affection. I had started being bold because Dr. Boyer had suggested it was a way I could defeat my demons. Being bold had driven me into Lee’s arms, but he was the one that had done the rest. Being bold had only allowed me to meet Lee. He had been the one to help me through the hardest times.
If I told him about my past now, he would have to decide if I was still the woman he wanted to try for a relationship with. But Lee had been so great about everything else. He hadn’t turned me away when I had come to tell him I was pregnant. He hadn’t blamed me when he had learned about my medical history. He hadn’t made me feel like I had ruined his life. Instead, he had welcomed me with open arms and not only respected the responsibility of being a father but had chosen to be more than that. He had chosen to be with me because he had wanted to make it work.
He still did.
The least I could do was to try. I wanted to make it work, too. The only way we were going to do this was if I told him everything, so he could know what he was letting himself in for. If he still wanted to be with me after that, maybe we could really make something of it.
I took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Lee held onto me, stroking my back. He didn’t push for anything. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. He only held onto me as if he had known all along that this was exactly what I needed.
And because he wasn’t saying anything, I did.
“When you meet someone, you don’t dump your messy past on them right away,” I said. “I thought I had dealt with everything that happened with Jim enough to have moved on. I didn’t think I needed to talk to you about it because it was in the past and I had moved on. I never dreamed he would show up.”
I took a deep breath. Lee stayed quiet, giving me the space and the time I needed to find the right words and verbalize them.
“I met Jim when I was twenty-six. He was a great guy. He was charming and funny and interesting, and he liked me. It was a compliment. I was a different person back then, a person with a life. I was someone with a personality and interests.”
It was hard to think back to those times. It was hard to look at the person I had been and to reflect on everything I had given up for someone who hadn’t deserved it.
“At first, our relationship was great. Jim had been the model boyfriend and my friends all told me how lucky I was. But slowly, things started to change. Jim always said he wanted a family so badly. I was young and in love, and because I had been struggling since I was sixteen and had been told it would be hard to have kids, it was something I wanted to try. I wanted to give Jim a baby. I wanted to prove the doctors wrong. And with Jim being as great as he’d been, I believed we could have a happy family.”
I paused but Lee only listened. We lay in the dark together and in the safety of Lee’s arms, I peeled the layers back one by one.
“It was harder to get pregnant than I’d thought it would be. Jim had all kinds of ideas about how we could make it easier. It was better not to hang out with my friends when they went drinking or dancing, because we were trying for a baby. He wanted me to give up certain foods to prepare my body. Because I already had issues, it made sense to try harder than the average couple. I don’t know how he did it. At first, it was just a few small things that I had to give up, and I didn’t mind making the changes. You sacrifice things for the sake of your relationship and having a family, right? But over time, Jim started getting worse. He would follow me when I went out, challenge me on where I went and why. He would tell me what to eat and when, and when I didn’t do what he said, he would say it was my fault I wasn’t pregnant yet. After a while, he started controlling what I wore, too. I couldn’t be provocative for other men when he wanted me. When I was supposed to be only his.”
I shuddered. It was hard to talk about it. The only person I had told about this was Dr. Boyer, my therapist.
“As time passed, Jim had become so controlling I couldn’t live my life anymore. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without him except work. Slowly, my friends stopped trying until I lost them altogether. I started believing that I was wrong, that I was lacking, that it was my fault for not being pregnant yet. His demands on my body were intense. The longer it took to get pregnant, the more often we had to have sex. Even if I didn’t want it.”
I swallowed hard, trying to deal with the memories.
“After almost four years of trying, Jim gave up. He told me he was sick and tired of wasting his time on me when I was just fucking up his life. He said if I wasn’t going to do my part, I didn’t deserve any of it and he kicked me out. Suddenly, after being completely controlled like that for years, I was out on the street with nowhere to go and no idea who I even was any more.”
“He put you out?” Lee asked, speaking for the first time.
I nodded. “It was already dark and it was raining. Luckily I had a little cash. Jim had controlled my income, too. He took all the money we had put aside to save for the baby. He took everything I’d earned with my photography. All I had was the money in my pocket. But was enough to pay for a shitty hotel room for a couple nights. I changed my payroll account at work and the next payday was close enough that I could get a bit of cash for a deposit. I got a new apartment and managed to get myself through those first few weeks. I’m not sure how I did it, looking back now. I had trouble making the smallest decision, he had second guessed and nitpicked me to the point that I was completely unsure of everything.”
“You’re very strong,” Lee said.
“Not strong enough,” I said. “After a couple of months, I was on the verge of a breakdown. The pressure of suddenly being afloat with no confidence, no tools, was too much. I found Dr. Boyer, a therapist that dealt with these things. I didn’t want to admit defeat, but Jim had gotten into my mind so much that I wasn’t able to shake him myself. Slowly, Dr. Boyer helped me, addressing one thing at a time. I started making changes like doing my own photography instead of working for the company, like finding hobbies again, like eating what I wanted. It’s harder than you think.”
“I can’t begin to imagine what you must have been through,” Lee said.
“One of the last steps Dr. Boyer had in her program was to be bold. To get out there, be bold and try things I’d never tried before. It was what brought me to you.”
Lee smiled. “That was the best thing that ever could have happened.”
I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I had thought that after I told Lee everything, he wouldn’t want me anymore. Instead, he still said that being with me was the best thing that could have happened.
I started crying. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. All the pain and sorrow, all the anger and shame that I had been harboring for over a year spilled out. I sobbed uncontrollably. Lee pulled me against him, making soothing sounds, telling me it was going to be alright. Maybe it would be, one day. But right now, I was falling apart.
But Lee was here to help me pick up the pieces. While he was holding me and I cried against his chest, I started to think that if he was still on my side, I could get through this.
And if he still wanted me, maybe I wasn’t so bad, after all.