18
Tomorrow
It was still early when Mari got to her room, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, and the Treatment Workbook for Survivors of Domestic Abuse in the other. She took off her shoes, poured herself a drink—paused, then poured it a little stiffer—and began to read.
On the other side of the wall, Jack was quiet. She wondered if he’d gone to sleep already, or if he was over there feeling self-conscious about his gift. She hoped not.
By the second chapter, she’d forgotten all about him. By the third, she was reading as fast as she could, her fingers starting to go numb where she gripped the pages.
It was all there, laid out like a map of every year of her adult life. The honeymoon phase, when their connection had been positively electric and she thought no one had ever understood her like Brad did. The slow buildup of angry arguments that moved to criticism, then intimidation, and then violence. The way he always had some excuse why he didn’t like this friend or that friend of hers, reasons why she needed to cancel plans. Why he wanted her to spend all her time at home, just with him. Why, after her car accident, he never wanted her to go back to work, because he wanted to take care of her.
She had thought she didn’t have friends anymore because she was kind of boring, and because she always seemed to upset people. But here in this book, she could see how Brad would set up situations for her to fail, then blow up at her when she inevitably did. How, after she and Brad moved, her friends used to say they’d called, but Brad swore they hadn’t, and she’d believed him and thought they must have been lying.
In chapter seven, she saw how his genuine remorse and fear that she’d leave him would lead to his apologizing and being so painfully sweet. Just like he’d been back when they first got together. How that would make her feel guilty and ungrateful for being angry with him.
Suddenly, her whole life made sense. Everything that had felt confusing and shameful was laid out in this book. Bullet points one after another because it had never been that her luck had gone bad: everything traced back to things Brad had done to her. Ways he’d manipulated her and isolated her and hurt her because of what was wrong inside him.
The book knew everything because it wasn’t just their marriage, it was a pattern that happened to other people. No different than if she had diabetes and she’d finally gotten a diagnosis that explained every strange thing her body had been doing.
It was a revelation, and at the same time, it was deeply, harrowingly humiliating.
How had she become such a cliché that this book could explain her whole marriage without the authors ever having met her?
It wasn’t as if she’d been following a manual, or even that Brad had. They’d just been groping along the best they knew how in an imperfect world. She knew neither of them had meant to end up here on that day so long ago in the courthouse when they promised to love and honor each other.
She poured another whiskey, thinking about it. Staring at the dent in the wall where so many people had opened the motel door just a little too hard. There were other people, just like her. So many that books were written about them, for them. So many people, ashamed of what their lives had become and all thinking they were alone.
The whiskey burned her throat, and tears slipped unnoticed down her cheeks. But when she blinked, the wall in front of her came back into focus, and she remembered that Jack was on the other side.
It had happened to him, too. He’d recognized things about her, because he’d been through the same. It pierced her straight in the heart to think that he’d been hurt, back when he was helpless and small. He’d had no one to bring him a book to explain what was happening to him.
She wondered if he’d eaten the pizza before he went to sleep. She hoped he had.
Out of respect for the fact that he’d given her the book, she began to read again, and that’s how she found chapter nine.
Because of the manipulations of your abuser, you will begin to doubt your own instincts. Anything that is healthy or in your best interest will trigger doubt because for so long, your abuser taught you that none of that was allowed. Now, what’s right will feel wrong.
The book dropped into her lap as memories overwhelmed her. And they weren’t of Brad.
“You’re a good man.” It’s what she told Jack.
Neither of them had been able to believe it when she said it, because for so long, it had been beaten into them that they were stupid, and careless, and didn’t deserve any better than the hell they were living in. That day, neither of them had read chapter nine, “Self-Sabotage.”
Mari closed the book, capped the whiskey, and set her alarm clock for very, very early.
The glowing numbers 4:45 were the first thing he registered, before he heard another soft knock on the door and remembered what had woken him in the first place. Jack threw off his blankets and staggered to his feet. He was fully dressed in wrinkled clothes, his head that particular kind of heavy and fuzzy that told him he’d been drinking. No nausea or headache, though—the water and pizza Mari had left him had taken care of that. Embarrassment crawled through him at the thought that she’d been so kind while he’d been such a mess.
He shoved a hand back through his hair and caught a thumb on the rubber band dangling from his half-unraveled bundle of hair. With a curse, he yanked it free and finger-combed his hair once or twice more to get the worst of the knots out. It fell over his bleary eyes, and he knew he must look like boot-kicked shit, but he didn’t dare take any longer to open the door—just in case it was Mari.
He didn’t want her to think he didn’t want to see her.
“Yeah, hey, hi,” he said as he pulled the door open. Stuttering because it was her: blue eyes as clear as truth and silver-highlighted hair shining in the light above his door.
“How are you feeling?” she said, her voice pitched so soft and low that even if he’d had a pounding hangover, it wouldn’t have hurt his ears.
“Hey, listen, I’m sorry about last night,” he rushed out. There was a good damn chance she’d come here to tell him she never wanted to see him again. If it was the last thing he ever got to say to her, he needed it to get said before she walked away. “It was pushy as shit, giving you that book and whatever else I said last night, I’m sorry for it. I’m a jerk when I’m drunk.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
He was already starting in on more apologizing, but that stopped him, confusion freezing his tongue.
“When most men get drunk, they get cocky, or mean. You were . . . sweet.” She took a big breath. “Jack, would you like to go out with me?”
He stared at her.
“On a date,” she clarified. “That kind of going out.”
Hey, you want this? It had been Leroy’s favorite game, to dangle whatever Jack wanted most, to promise it was hidden somewhere, and that if he could find it, he could have it for good. Jack was good at finding things. He learned to follow the prints his brother’s shoes made in the dirt of the forest, or even the scuffs in the dust of the kitchen floor, so he could figure out where the prize was hidden.
Of course, what he found wasn’t always what was promised. Sometimes it was a spider, or a snake. A Polaroid of Leroy’s butt. One very memorable time, he’d found nothing at all, but Leroy had followed him out into the forest and swiped his pants, running away laughing that Jack would have to walk home bare-assed or not at all.
But no matter what game Leroy ended with, first—always first—Jack had to admit he wanted something.
Jack blinked away the memories because Mari’s face was starting to fall while he just stood there, processing her question. He tried to swallow but his dry throat stuck hard, so he simply nodded. Slowly, as if that would keep the ax from falling now that he’d set the old game in motion.
Hey, you want this?
He nearly flinched, but no hand reached out to smack him. Instead, she smiled. Just a tiny bit at first, but when his mouth twitched a small curve in response, hers softened even further. They stood for a long moment, the question asked and answered but neither of them willing to part just yet.
Jack coughed to clear his throat and swiped some of his scraggling hair out of his face. “Tonight?”
Her eyes widened. Shit, that was too pushy.
“Or tomorrow. Next week’s fine. Or this weekend,” he blurted, watching her face after every option, trying to decide what she wanted him to say.
“Maybe . . . tomorrow?” she asked. “I’d love to go tonight but I need time to dig up something to wear.”
To wear? Ah, fuck, what was he going to wear on a date? All he had was work shit and maybe a T-shirt.
“Tomorrow, yeah,” he said, before she could think he was turning her down. He’d figure out the clothes thing, even if he had to drive all the way to LA. He worked a lot and spent very little. He had plenty to cover some clothes, even if he factored in whoever he’d have to bribe to tell him what the hell kinda pants and shirt women liked these days.
Mari touched the doorframe of his room, her fingers curling softly as she smiled. Goose bumps rippled all under his slept-in clothes, and he had to pull his gaze away from her hand, yank his mind away from wishing it was him she was laying her hand on.
“I, uh . . .” He wanted to say something nice. Something to get her to smile and make her understand he was happy that she’d asked him. Jack did not, however, know what that might be. “Tomorrow,” he said stupidly. “Yup.”
Mari’s eyes sparkled, crinkling at the edges as her smile grew. “Tomorrow,” she agreed.
It was Jack’s new favorite word.