Abuse To Love

Have you ever felt that you are just not good enough? Or that you are at the bottom of a hole that you just can't get out of? This is how he made me feel, how he treated me. Like I was scum on the bottom of his shoe. I choose to stay and I don't know why. I want to leave but cannot seem to get the courage to.  He always says the right things to pull me back in, to bring that love that I have for him back to the surface. Those feelings from when we first met, the butterflies, the safe warm feelings. However deep down I know he is a monster, that is who Tommy Banks is, a monster who feeds on the weak. However, he is also my husband of 5 years. We dated for a few months before getting married. I was young and dumb, made the decision way too fast. I was 18 when we got married. I thought I had found the love of my life.  “Kelsey!” I hear him bellow from downstairs which makes me jump pulling me from my thoughts. “Where the hell are my keys!” He yells up the stairs.  “On the counter in the kitchen!” I yell back. I hear him banging around downstairs as he grabs his keys and slams the door on the way out. This morning did not go well, I overslept and had not made his lunch for the day or laid his clothes out for him. I awoke to him ripping me out of bed by my hair and screaming at me because he was now going to be late to work. He was a well known plastic surgeon in the area, his work was beautiful and you could hardly tell his patients had ever seen him.  Him being late to surgery was never a good start to the day, I knew I would need to make sure to make his favorite dinner tonight to not suffer anymore consequences. I slid out from under our black silk sheets in my dark blue silk nightgown and headed to the bathroom to shower. As I look at myself in the mirror all I see is a coward with frizzy hair. My dark brown hair frizzed out from him yanking me from bed. My dark blue nightgown hugging my breasts and curves. He picked this out for me, he likes when I wear his favorite color.  My eyes travel to my arms where bruises cover my wrists from him yanking me around last night because I had forgotten to do the dishes before he got home from work. I let the nightgown fall to the floor and I turn the shower on and wait for it to warm up. I scrub myself like I am scrubbing away scum, because that is what I am, scum who cannot do anything right. I wash my hair and get out of the shower putting it up in a towel. I walk out of the bedroom and into our walk-in closet and find a long sleeve blouse to cover the bruises on my arms so I can go to the grocery store. As I am trying to put my cream colored shorts on with my black blouse I trip and fall to the floor banging my head on the dresser on my way down.  I feel a stinging sensation in the middle of my forehead and something warm dripping down my face. I get up and run to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I have about a one inch long gash down the center of my forehead. I get a warm washcloth to clean up the wound, and notice it is pretty deep.  “Shit.” I say under my breath, this will definitely need stitches. Which means I have to go to the emergency room. I begin to shake because I know what will happen if Tommy finds out I had to go in for stitches. I will have to ask them to not notify him, which is a slim chance considering he is one of the big shots at the hospital.  I finish getting dressed and place a big bandaid on the wound to keep it from running down my face so I can drive. I get into my white Mazda sport and head down main street to the local hospital. I pull into the Saint Francis Hospital parking lot and look for a space in the crowded lot.  “Must be a busy day.” I think to myself. I finally found a parking spot in the back and park. As I walk into the large hospital I am greeted by the lovely front desk lady Gloria. She is such a sweet lady in her mid to late 60”s. She has 6 grandchildren and a great grandchild on the way. She looks up and smiles at me behind her blue glasses. Then her face turns concerned, “Oh dear! Mrs. Banks, what happened?” She asked.  “I had a bit of a fight with the dresser.” I say with a small smile.  “Let me ring your husband and have him come down to look at you.” She says.  “No!” I say a bit more rough than I intended. “I am sorry I didn't mean for it to come out that way. I just don't want to interrupt him, just have one of the nurses come and put a few stitches in.” “Are you sure Mrs. Banks? Your husband has a very delicate hand. There would be no scar.” She replies.  “No it is okay Gloria, one of the nurses can just fix me up.” She nods and calls to the back to let them know to come grab me right away.  A few moments later I am met by a young blond nurse who looks to be maybe in her late twenties early thirties. “Hello,” she says “My name is Jessica and I will be helping you today.” She takes me back to a private room. She gets my vitals and notices my bruises on my wrists. “Did this happen due to the fall as well?” she asks. “Yes, I say.” Not wanting to say much more about it. She nods and finishes getting my vitals.  “I am going to go get the doctor now.” She says. I try to tell her no but she is gone out of the room before the words leave my mouth. Twenty minutes later a young man comes into the room. He looks to be no more than thirty years old. He has jet black hair with gorgeous bright green eyes.  “Hello, my name is Jaxon Williams. I am a doctor here at the hospital. Now tell me more about this fall you had.” I clear my throat, giving me time to try and figure out how to explain the bruises on my wrists. “I was getting dressed and I tripped trying to put my shorts on. I hit my head on the dresser on my way down.”  He looks at me then my wrists, “How did you bruise your wrists? Was this from the fall as well?” He asked me.  I nod at him. He starts typing away on the computer.  “Well let me take a look and put a few stitches in if needed.”  He walks over to the cupboard across the room and grabs out a needle, a bottle of some sort, which I assumed was numbing medication, a syringe and a little pack that had a needle that looked like a fish hook with string attached to it.  “I am going to clean the area and then put some numbing medication in so you will feel a little pinch and a burn for a few seconds. I will let it numb up well before I put the sutures in.” I nod at him as he gets some gauze to clean my cut. As he begins to clean it I notice that he smells like my favorite cologne. It is the kind that my father used to wear before he passed away. I am pulled from my thoughts when I feel a sharp poke and a burning sensation as he injects the numbing medication into my cut. I hissed in pain, “Sorry,” he says,” the burning should not last for much longer.” After a few seconds the burning stops. He then reaches for the needle and thread to start closing up my cut.  “So where are you from?” he asks as he is tying the sutures in place.  “Cresent,” I replied. “I have family who live there,” he says. “My grandmother lives out there off lookout drive, and my sister lives near the local library.”  “It is a great town, nice and small, not many people. Really quiet too.” I say. “I grew up in Freemont just 40 minutes south of Cresent.”  I smile, “You guys were one of our rivals in school,” I say. He smirks, “yes we were, I recall we kicked your butts a few times in football.”  “That you did,” I replied, “But, we made up for it in basketball and volleyball.” I say with a smile on my face.  He laughs, shaking his head. “All done, I would leave these in for about 10 days and then come back to have them taken out.”  “It's okay I will just have my husband take them out. He is the head of the plastic surgery department here.” “Oh you are Dr. Banks wife? I wondered why the last name looked familiar. I wish the nurse would have told me, I would have paged him to come do this. He is very good at his job.” “I asked them not to, he has a big case today and I did not..” The door bursts open before I can finish my sentence and there stands a very pissed fuming Tommy. “What the hell happened?” He barks his eyes dark with anger.  “Sorry honey, I told them not to bother you.” I say to him in a meek scared voice. I think Jaxon noticed cause he stands up quickly to try and calm Tommy.  “I just finished putting five sutures in place to help close the cut Dr. Banks. She is doing just fine other than the cut and bruising around her wrists.” Tommy looks at me with anger in his eyes when he hears that he has seen my wrists. His face immediately changes to concern. “I am so happy you are okay sweetheart. When they told me you were down here in the emergency room I thought you had been in a wreck or something.”  I can tell he is lying, he is just trying to cover up the anger that he let slip out in front of someone. He probably thought I was in here alone when he barged in, I am going to pay for this later I just know it. I look over to see the look of concern on Jaxon’s face, “crap I think to myself, he has to suspect something. “No, no keep calm, you can't always assume people will catch on that quickly.” I think to myself.  Tommy looks at Jaxon, “don’t you have other patients to attend to?” he barks.  “Yes sir, sorry doctor.” He practically runs out of the room. I knew my husband was an important man here. However, I did not realize people feared him. I guess he isn't so different here than he is at home.  “What the hell happened,” he barks at me,”how could you be so stupid?” “I am sorry honey it was an accident.” I say to him. “Are you trying to ruin my career? Do I not do enough for you? Did you do this on purpose? To try and ruin everything for me! You know I am on an important case today!” He yells at me.  “N-no, I would never try to ruin anything for you, I was just..” “You were just what Kelsey! Being stupid as usual? What a surprise, this better not happen again or so help me god I will ruin you.” He storms out of the room, leaving me there eyes burning, trying to hold back tears.  Jaxon walks back in, “are you okay,” he asks. “I am fine.” I said, grabbing a tissue to blow my nose. “Did he do this to you?” I heard him ask from behind me.  “No,” I replied, “I tripped and fell at home while getting dressed just like I told you an hour ago.” “If there is something going on you can tell me, this is a safe place.”  I laughed in my head, “Yeah, because anything I say here is well protected,” I thought to myself. He has never cared about rules, he would easily find out. He is such a well known person here no one would touch him. Everyone is afraid of him. Even Jaxon, I could tell by the look on his face when Tommy told him to leave the room.  “No my husband takes good care of me, I was just clumsy and got hurt doing something simple.” I said, hoping he will drop the subject so I can leave.  “Okay,” he says, “here are your discharge papers.” He hands me a stapled piece of paper with instructions on it to clean my cut and not submerge it until the stitches come out.  “Thank you,” I replied as I walked out of the exam room. I waved goodbye to Gloria before I headed out to my car to head to the grocery store to pick up food for dinner. I definitely had to step up my cooking skills tonight to keep from getting punished for how today went. I just hope he has a good rest of the day so he isn’t too upset when he comes home.