CHAPTER TWO
1398 Words
Anna Pov
The first time Trevor hit me, it was over burnt toast.
I know how stupid that sounds. How small but that was the thing about abuse. It never needed a good reason.
"What is this?" he asked, staring at the plate I set in front of him.
"Toast. I might have left it in too long."
"Might have?" He picked up the blackened bread and threw it across the kitchen. It hit the wall and crumbled to pieces. "This is garbage, Anna. You can't even make toast without screwing it up."
"I'm sorry. I'll make more."
"No." He stood up fast enough that his chair scraped against the floor. "You know what your problem is? You don't take anything seriously. You think you can just half ass everything because I'll clean up your mistakes."
"That's not true."
"Don't talk back to me." He moved closer. "I work twelve hour days to give you this life. The least you can do is make decent breakfast."
"Trevor, it's just toast."
His hand connected with my face before I even saw it coming. The slap echoed in the quiet kitchen, my cheek exploded with pain. I stumbled backward and caught myself on the counter.
We both froze. His hand was still raised, my face was throbbing. Neither of us moved for what felt like forever.
"Anna," he said. His voice changed to a softer, almost scared tone. "I didn't mean to do that."
I touched my cheek. It was hot, probably already turning red.
"You hit me," I whispered.
"I know, i know. I'm so sorry." He came toward me but I backed away. "Anna, please. I'm under so much stress at work, the board is pressuring me about the merger. I haven't slept in three days. I just snapped."
"You hit me over toast."
"I know it's not an excuse. I know I messed up." He reached for me again. This time I let him. "It won't happen again. I swear. I'm so sorry."
He held me while I cried. He apologized over and over, he promised it was a one time thing.
I believed him because I wanted to. Because admitting what just happened meant admitting I had made a huge mistake leaving Jimmy for this.
The second time he hit me was three weeks later. I had bought the wrong brand of coffee.
The third time was because I wore red lipstick and he said it made me look like a p********e.
The fourth time was because I did not answer his call fast enough.
By the tenth time, I stopped counting.
"You need to leave him," Samantha said six months into the abuse. We were having lunch at a cafe near her office. "Anna, this is not normal. This is not love."
"You don't understand. He's under a lot of pressure."
"So? That doesn't give him the right to hit you." She grabbed my hand across the table. "You're making excuses for him."
"I'm not."
"You are. You've been doing it since this started. He's stressed, he had a bad day. He didn't mean it, those are all excuses."
I pulled my hand away. "He loves me. Sometimes love is hard."
"Love is not supposed to hurt, Anna."
"Easy for you to say. You've never been in a serious relationship."
She flinched like I had slapped her. "That's not fair."
"Neither is you judging me when you don't know what it's like."
We ate the rest of lunch in silence. When we said goodbye, there was a distance between us that had not been there before.
But her words stuck with me. Maybe she was right, maybe I needed to talk to Trevor. Really talk to him about how his behavior was affecting me.
That night I waited until after dinner when he seemed relaxed. "Trevor, can we talk?"
"About what?"
"About us. About how things have been lately."
His expression hardened. "What about it?"
"The fighting. The anger, the way you treat me sometimes." I took a breath. "It hurts. I need you to stop."
"Stop what exactly?"
"Hitting me, yelling at me. Treating me like I'm worthless."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he stood up and walked to the window. "You think I like being this way? You think I enjoy it?"
"I don't know."
"I don't. But you push me to it, Anna. You make me so angry I can't control myself." He turned to face me. "If you would just listen. If you would just do what I ask without arguing or messing up, none of this would happen."
"So it's my fault?"
"I'm saying we both have things to work on." He came back to the couch and sat next to me. "I'll try to be better. But you need to try too. Deal?"
It was not the apology I wanted but it was something. "Deal."
For two weeks, things improved. He did not hit me or yell. I thought maybe the conversation had actually worked.
Then he started doing something worse.
Instead of hitting me, he started playing with my mind. He would tell me I said things I never said. He would move my belongings and then act confused when I could not find them. He would make plans and then deny we ever made them.
"I never said we were going to your mother's house," he said when I brought up the visit we had planned.
"Yes, you did. Last Tuesday, you said we would go this weekend."
"I think you're remembering wrong."
"I'm not. You specifically said…"
"Anna." He used that patient voice that made me feel crazy. "I think you need to get more sleep. You've been forgetting things a lot lately."
"I'm not forgetting. You said we would go."
"Okay. If you say so." He smiled but it did not reach his eyes. "But maybe you should see a doctor. Memory problems at your age aren't normal."
After that conversation, I started questioning everything. Had we made those plans? Had I imagined it? Was something wrong with my brain?
He did it with everything. Money I spent that he swore I did not spend. Conversations I remembered that he said never happened. Promises he made that he claimed I made up.
"You're too sensitive," he told me when I got upset about something he said. "I was joking. Can't you take a joke?"
"That didn't sound like a joke."
"Well, it was. You're just looking for reasons to be mad at me."
I started writing things down to prove I was not crazy but when I showed him my notes, he said I was being paranoid.
"This is concerning, Anna. Making up conversations and writing them down like they're real? That's not healthy."
"I didn't make them up."
"Then why don't I remember any of this?"
I had no answer for that. So I started doubting myself even more.
The abuse changed from physical to mental but it was just as damaging. Maybe worse because there were no bruises to prove it was happening. Just my sanity slowly crumbling under the weight of his manipulation.
I stopped eating, i stopped sleeping well, started having panic attacks in the middle of the night.
Samantha noticed.
"You need to leave him," she said again. We were back at the same cafe. "Anna, look at yourself. You're falling apart."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're depressed. You're anxious. You look like you haven't slept in weeks." She leaned forward. "This man is destroying you."
"He's trying. We're both trying to make it work."
"It's not working. And it never will. Men like him don't change."
"You don't know him like I do."
"I know what I see. And what I see is my best friend disappearing into someone I don't recognize." She grabbed both my hands. "Please, leave him. You can stay with me. We'll figure it out together."
I wanted to say yes, i wanted to grab her offer and run. But fear kept me frozen.
"What if he comes after me?" I asked quietly.
"We'll get a restraining order."
"What if that's not enough? What if he hurts me for leaving?"
"What if he kills you for staying?"
The words hung in the air between us. Heavy. True.
If love needed this much endurance, then maybe I had misunderstood what love was.
- Writer
