I didn’t tell Alice about the restraining order. Admitting it would mean admitting it happened. And as my mother said, it’s best to forget it ever did. She called it ‘a lapse in judgement’, saying I was stressed, with my uni finals coming up.
“It was just an accident,” Eleanor said at the time, when I was just a shell of a person for the first few days after the wedding. The hospital was cold at night, but when she came to visit, she never took off her sunglasses. Luckily, I was discharged a week later.
Not like you cared. Or even knew about it.
My mind kept going back to Samuel’s wedding, thinking about what made you do what you did. To say what you did. Maybe you were just scared of looking like a fool in front of your mates. Or maybe it was a power play, like your father taught you.
So many maybes.
You clearly didn’t think we belonged together. That was a mistake. To this day, I think you chose wrong. I know you chose wrong. Didn’t you see it, Daniel? How we were meant to be together? We could have been free, like you wanted. But together.
On the day you left, I kept telling myself you were wrong. That you didn’t know what you were doing. And so I’d continued as if nothing had happened. Calling you like I always did in the mornings. It was our routine. Me asking what you had for breakfast, what plans you had for the day.
“Lisa, you need to stop calling me,” you said after a week. “I told you. We need space apart from each other.”
I didn’t care. You were clearly still brainwashed by your mates. They didn’t understand, and you seemed to have lost all perspective.
And then you just stopped answering my calls. So I went to your house.
You didn’t like that either. In fact, you were pretty rude. You even pushed me away one evening, your breath reeking of beer.
You never apologised to me for that. Or for anything, for that matter. And I guess a part of me still hates you for it.
I didn’t tell my parents about the breakup. And from what I heard, you didn’t tell yours either. Because how could you? We were the perfect pair. The pretty couple at garden parties. If your parents knew you’d replaced me with binge drinking sessions with the boys, what would they think?
So when Samuel’s wedding rolled around, I figured you’d had your fun. You’d come to your senses and be ready to go back to how we were.
But you weren’t.
Instead, you looked at me in horror when you saw me. I had put so much effort into looking good for the wedding. I’d bought a red dress—your favourite colour on me. But you didn’t seem to care. You screamed insults at me, as the rest of the guests stood frozen, their eyes wide and their champagne glasses paused halfway to their mouths.
To this day, your words still ring clear in my mind. You’re a lunatic. You fat, crazy bitch! Don’t you listen? You need help. Just leave me alone.
I don’t know if you noticed, but I clutched the champagne glass so hard that it broke in my hand. Blood ran freely down my arm and dripped on the floor, matching my crimson dress. Little did I know it would start a whole new series of events involving my little razor.
The pain felt strangely good.
It was like something snapped. You never called me fat. It was a word reserved for the chubby girls. With Eleanor’s help, I dressed my extra pounds away. You said you loved my body. You called me curvy, said you loved to cuddle me.
You lied.
So I walked out of the wedding and got into a taxi, bloody hand and all. All I could think about was sleep. I just wanted to sleep. The house was empty, my parents out at some luncheon, so I walked up the stairs to Eleanor’s room. In her drawer, I found the Diazepam she took every night. I tipped the whole bottle into my mouth.
The pills didn’t make me sleepy, at first. Instead, I was buzzing. The events of the day were too loud in my head. So I walked back downstairs and took one of my father’s bottles of whisky from the drinks cabinet. I remember the TV being on in the background. Images moving soundlessly across the screen. But all that sounded in my head were your words as I took large swigs from the bottle.
Fat, crazy bitch. Fat, crazy bitch.
The next thing I remember was the fluorescent lights in the hospital. I had the worst headache I ever had, and spent most of the day vomiting noisily into a bedpan. Apparently, Mary, our housekeeper, had found me on the floor and managed to make me vomit. When my parents got home, they dragged me into the car and took me to the hospital. I don’t remember a thing.
A week later, the restraining order came.
“This is ridiculous!”
My father never yelled, and he rarely turned red, either. But there he was, crimson-faced in the living room, his voice booming as Eleanor and I sat on the couch, me still in my pyjamas. I’d been summoned to our front door, the letter delivered into my hand by a man with acne wearing an ill-fitting suit.
“You need to call Bill,” my mother told my father, trying to keep her voice from getting shrill. “Clear all of this up.”
But your father didn’t budge. Apparently, the love your parents had for me was as fake as yours. The restraining order stayed and with it, a stain of shame that spread throughout our circle.
“They’re overreacting,” Eleanor said. “But Lisa, next time—”
“There won’t be a next time. Pick a better bloke! Or at least keep yourself in check,” my father yelled again. “We’ll never live this down.”
You crossed a line, Daniel. You brought the law into our failed relationship. I crossed the line, too. Somewhere deep inside, something unhinged, removing the buffer that was there to protect me from bad decisions. It’s my fault my parents don’t trust me. If it had to happen again, I don’t think I’d survive. Even thinking of it now makes me sick.
Which is why I can’t tell Alice about any of this. I can’t open that wound again and show her that streak of crazy. Even if she is my counsellor.
Because if I open all this up, history might repeat itself. And there’s too much at stake here. It’s not just my reputation on the line—or my family’s. It’s my sanity.