Chapter 14
Grayson
I get home from my lunch with North completely energized. I have a date with a great woman tomorrow, I watched a friend make complete fools of those idiots in the Brotherhood (note to self, gotta text the boys about that after I’m done), and North gave me the confidence I need to keep going with my writing. Readers ask me all the time where my ideas come from—I think that’s a standard question all authors have had to answer throughout their careers, and we all roll our eyes a little bit when we hear it. It’s an honest question, but it’s almost impossible to answer. Sure, sometimes we take inspiration from real events, or things that happen to us, but more often than not we have no idea where these stories come from. Sometimes I wish I did. If it were a place I’d visit there often, and borrow from the idea bank. But creativity is a mystery.
Sometimes when I’m blocked, it’s not really that I’m blocked, it’s more like I have ideas locked up, and I need someone or something to just unlock the door so that everything can come flowing out of me. That happened to me today. North unlocked the door, and now my ideas are crashing through, flowing onto the pages of my files. I don’t know where this one came from, but it’s what I have inside of me right now. I take out my computer and start typing.
Ava
. . .was ready to leave this life behind.
Enough was enough.
She decided that she’d spent enough time under his thumb. Enough time as the victim. Just. . .just enough already. Hours hand turned to days. Days to weeks. Weeks to months. Looking back it seemed like an eternity since she’d been free of his particular brand of control. His techniques for keeping her submissive were numerous—asking to check her phone constantly, insisting on having the passwords to all of her social media accounts, and telling her that the friends she’d had since college were just using her. Each one of those didn’t seem a big deal as they were happening, but strung together over time they’d led her to a type of prison she felt there was no escape from.
How did I get here, she wondered? It all started out like a normal relationship. An innocent meeting, some great first dates, some hot honeymoon-phase sex. All the normal things. But his control had come on like a cancer—it’s symptoms easily dismissible or mistakable for things that it wasn’t. She’d told herself every bullshit story that let her stay in denial: he’s just protective because he loves me. That was her favorite myth. Even when her mom, sisters, and best friend all told her she was lying to herself she refused to believe them. Called them jealous. Called them petty. Relationships that had existed for years fractured like some many pieces of glass, and before she knew it his control over her life was quietly complete. Then he showed his true face.
He knew her aversion to violence, how it took away any bravery or confidence she had within her and reduced her to an anxious mess. He knew all of her weaknesses and he exploited them. He didn’t actually need to put his hands on her, he just had to make her believe that he would. A throw glass against a wall, a raised voice, a slam of a fist—all were just tools in the toolbox so that she’d stay with him forever, too afraid to ever walk out the door.
But, as with any dictator, Robert had gone a step too far. He’d pushed her just past her breaking point, and it happened yesterday. As Ava packed her bags she thought of that memory, still fresh in her mind, of him grabbing the knife and holding it against her throat. The whole event started as a normal dinner—at least as ‘normal’ as anything ever got in their relationship. Pasta, wine, some conversation over a cold, undressed dinner table. Robert worked in manual labor, so when he returned home on most nights he was tired, irritable, and dirty. He’s slowly trained Ava to have his dinner ready when he walked in the door, predictably, at 6:30pm every night. She’d boiled the water, got his favorite wine, and had his dinner plated and hot by the time his key turned in the lock. Dinner was going as expected, as it always did, only she made one fatal error—she’d neglected to but more Parmesan cheese.
Despite his blue-collar background, Robert enjoyed the finer things in life. He loved pasta, and he loved freshly shaven Parmesan and Romano cheese (in the perfect combination) placed on top of his plate of pasta, followed by three precise twists of a fine course pepper grinder over the top. This was Tuesday dinner—every Tuesday, with no deviation. Ava had learned quickly that deviation had consequences, harsh consequences, only on Tuesday night she’d slipped. Earlier in the day she’d received terrible news that her grandmother—88 years old—a woman who she hadn’t visited in the hospital for almost three months now because of Robert, was in critical condition. The stress had thrown her off her game, and she forgot to go to the store to buy another block of Parmesan cheese. She was about to pay for it.
Where is it, he asked, sitting down to his steaming plate of pasta, perfectly timed to be slid in front of him after he changed and took his nightly 15 minute shower. Ava panicked when he inquired, which he did without missing a beat, as soon as he looked down at his plate. Because the whole thing slipped her mind, and she was taken off guard by the question, she couldn’t think of anything to do but panic. And panic she did. Her fight-or-flight response kicked into full gear as she watched the expression on his face transform from the exhaustion and mild annoyance that was typical, into a maniacal, menacing look that frightened her to the core.
Her first thought was to give into the feeling of flight and simply run away. There was no fight in her yet—the idea of standing up to him, either verbally or physically, was simply out of the question. He’d broken her down past the point of resistance long ago, and as she stood there with an undefined plan of running away, she had an odd moment of self reflection. I can’t fight back, she thought. He broke me. I used to be a fighter. Now I’m just his doll. Will I ever get to fight again?
She didn’t have time for another thought before the knife was at her throat. It was a butter knife, yes, but she was pretty sure that with enough force it could force her skin open—and Robert could generate a lot of force when he was angry. That night was bad, even for him. But more than the knife and more than the fear was the speed at which he got across the table. He was on her in no time, moving her entire body across the room like it was weightless. First she felt the impact of the wall against her back, followed by the cold sensation of the knife against her throat. But, more than that, it was the rage in his eyes that frightened her the most.
“Never again.” were the only words he spoke to her. She nodded in agreement, of course, and then she rushed to the grocery store to get him the cheese. Several people asked her what was the matter as she cried her way, disheveled, through the grocery store isles. As she’d come to do as a matter of habit, she gave her usual rehearsed speech. I’m fine, she’d say, Nothing’s wrong, but thanks for asking. No, I don’t need a tissue, but thank you. She’d said those words to more people than she could count—usually after Robert lost his temper. She tried to cry herself out before leaving the house, but tonight she had no choice but to get him what he wanted.
After paying for the cheese she headed for her car, still shaken by everything that had happened, and horrified that she had to walk back into that apartment again. But what choice did she have? She was deep in thought when she saw him. Ava wasn’t the type of woman to stare at a guy—usually they weren’t stare-worthy, but this man, whoever he was, caught her attention like no other. He was getting out of his car, alone, and the first thing that caught her eye was his height. He was tall, but not lanky. He was perfectly proportioned, and it was clear from the fit of his clothes that he was in shape. He had brown hair, and a confidence that was exuded even in the most pedestrian of movements.
Ava caught herself starting, her car keys in hand, and the strange man noticed it also. When he met her gaze he smiled back, and Ava was done. His smile made him even more good looking, and Ava forgot all of the troubles that awaited her at home. She smiled back, awkwardly, as the man closed his car and approached. He had to pass her to get into the store, so she looked away and opened her car door to not seem like a weirdo. She knew how red her eyes were, and she’d thrown on some clothes quickly to get out of the house. Her hair was a mess and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but despite all that she felt happy when the man looked at her.
She was about to sit down when he spoke to her. She didn’t expect him to talk to her, but when he spoke, she was taken by how deep and commanding his tone was. She felt a strong hand on her shoulder which she also didn’t expect. The firmness of his grip didn’t scare her, nor did the fact that a complete stranger was touching her in the parking lot of a grocery store. That would have been a normal reaction, but it wasn’t Ava’s. Instead she just looked—first at his hand and then into his crystal blue eyes. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t quite place it. Nonetheless she found herself wanting to hear his voice. She didn’t have to wait long.
He spoke only once, and only one sentence. Sometimes that’s all it takes to change you life forever.
“You should never let anyone do this to you ever again.”
She didn’t have time to process what his words meant, or how he knew, or anything else. He was gone, as quickly as he’d appeared. Ava was stunned into passive silence. All she could do was turn around, but he was gone by then. She didn’t know who he was or why he said those words, but they’d gotten inside of her.
As she drove the few blocks home she thought of a another set of words—the ones that were spoken by Robert right as he put the knife to her throat. Only this time the voice saying the words wasn’t Robert’s voice—it was the strange man’s. As she pulled up in front of her place they echoed again and again.
“Never again,” she thought. “Never again.”