Day 13
I think I probably went a little over the top with this part of Melissa's story. I'll probably go back through and dramatically reduce what happens to her. But for now it's what I needed to do to get the story going.
We walk silently to the car. The ominous sound of the door locking against the shrieking wind frightens me. And still he’s silent. He sits there for a minute, engine off just shaking. I watch him wondering what to do, what I’ve done or if it’s even me that’s made him angry. I reach out to touch him and he slaps my hand away.
“You bitch,” he hisses barely audible.
“Excuse me?”
“I just got off the phone with Aaron. Know what he called to tell me? That you’ve been sleeping around.”
“Well he’s wrong--” but Tyler’s raised hand is enough to cut me off.
“He says that he just heard intimate details about you and Evan.”
“Evan, defensive back, Evan?”
“That’s the one,” he looks even more pissed since I seem to know what he’s talking about.
“Tyler, I’ve never been with anyone else but you. You were my first and my only. He must have been talking about some other Melissa.”
“Nope, you.” He turns and stares at me his face as hard as stone.
When I get nervous I start to smile a lot. It doesn’t usually help matters because people think that I’m either laughing at them or that I’m just really happy. I’m not sure why I do it but I do. And I can feel my lips shaping into a smile now.
“You think this is funny bitch?”
“No, no of course not.” I try to stop smiling but it’s simply uncontrollable. “Tyler, he’s lying. He must be. I never slept with-” Tyler punches me hard in the mouth.
“Stop lying. You’re a slut!”
“No, Tyler, please,” I beg for his mercy but he lands another blow this time to my chest and it knocks the air right out of me.
Then he turns and starts the car like nothing’s wrong. “The car is not the place for this conversation,” he tells me.
My blood runs cold when he says that. Why can’t we have the conversation here? We’re in private. No one can hear us. And then it hits me, he can’t hit me as well in the car. “Tyler, I want to go home,” I blurt out.
“You want to go home? But our romantic evening isn’t done,” he spits sarcastically. “My parents aren’t home. They’re out celebrating the day of love themselves so we’ll have the house to ourselves. We’ll finish everything there.
How can I argue with that? He’s the one driving the car. He’s the one in control of the situation. I sit back in my seat and try not to cry because he’s not changing today. Maybe tomorrow but he’s not changing today.
We pull into his garage and I climb out of the car already numb. I know what’s coming, no matter how much I try to deny it I know what’s coming. He leads the way into the house and I follow unthinking behind him. He shuts the door and almost immediately starts yelling about whatever this liar told him. Why do people go out of their way to make trouble for me?
I’m not listening to what he’s saying, I’m already distanced into my own little world when he starts hitting me. He punches my cheek hard and my head flies into the wall just behind me. I can feel blood pooling, bruises already beginning to form. He pummels my chest next and when I can’t take it anymore I collapse to the ground gasping for air.
Then he starts kicking me hard in the ribs. He’s never kicked me before, only ever used his hands to hurt me. “Tell me the truth and I’ll stop,” he screams.
“I didn’t do it!” I shout. He’s kicking me so hard I feel like I might vomit. I roll over onto my stomach to try to protect that area but putting my body weight on the area doesn’t help any. “Tyler, please stop. I’m telling the truth.”
“I believe my friends over you, you cheating slut.” Then since my ribs are no longer exposed he kicks me square between the eyes and I black out.
February 15th, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
I wake up with the worst headache I’ve ever had. “Tyler,” I try to say but there is something wrong with my lips and they won’t move. “Tyler,” I try again but no dice. It’s not just my head that hurts, it’s my whole body; my arms, my chest, my legs, my back. Everything.
I roll my head to the side and see my mom sitting in the chair beside me holding my hand and crying. She’s nervously singing a lullaby that she used to sing to Tess and I when we were babies. I move my hand slightly since apparently my lips aren’t working.
Mom jumps to attention right away. “Melissa, oh my God, thank God, you’re okay. She squeezes my hand. I want to ask her what happened but my lips still aren’t moving. Thankfully she seems to understand, that or she just figures I’d want to know. “You’re in the hospital. Tyler really did a number on you this time.”
I panic and my eyes get wide. Mom once again interprets the subtle cues correctly.
“Honey, you were so bad he admitted to the whole thing. He had to call an ambulance to come and get you. The police currently have him in jail I think and so long as you testify they can keep him there.”
I shake my head violently trying to come up with a way to tell her that I don’t want him in jail I want him here holding my hand. This time she misinterprets the sign.
“Don’t worry honey, I know you’re in pain. I’ll go get a nurse.” Then she runs out of the room.
I start to cry in frustration. How could things have gone anymore wrong? He said he’d change. He hadn’t exactly promised but I thought that the bracelet was supposed to be a sign of him changing… The bracelet! I frantically raise my left arm into the air to make sure that it’s still on my wrist. It is.
I try to breathe a deep sigh of relief but this makes my chest hurt so much that tears flood my eyes.
Mom returns just a few minutes later with a nurse. She checks some of the machines beeping around me and then asks if I’m doing okay.
I shake my head rather violently. Tears spring into my eyes. Pain radiates from my chest and stomach up to my head. It’s difficult for me to even see I’m in so much pain.
“Here,” the nurse says turning to pull a pencil and pen out of the drawer. “We had to wire your jaw shut. Poor thing, you broke it in two places so it’s going to have to stay wired shut for a while.
“He really did a number on you. We had to do surgery last night to fix your lung. He broke three of your ribs and one of them punctured you left lung. Your Mom sat in the waiting room for four hours waiting for you to come out of surgery and then quite a few more waiting for you to wake up.”
This nurse is annoying me with her cheerfulness. She continues to talk as I grab the pencil and scrawl I want Tyler.
The nurse looks at my mom nervously because she’s just burst into tears.
“He puts you in the hospital and you still want to see him?” my Mom cries.
I nod. It was an accident.
“It was no bloody fucking accident!” my mom screams jumping up from the chair she’s been sitting in. I’m not sure why she decided to throw bloody in there. If this were any other situation I probably would have laughed at her but she’s about to throw a fit. She turns to the nurse, “can you leave us for a minute? I need to talk some sense into my daughter.”
The nurse graciously bows out of the room.
Mom turns to me. Tears are already streaking her face. “Melissa, please,” she comes back to the side of the bed and grabs my hand. “Have some sense. You don’t’ want to see him. Didn’t you hear the nurse say what he did to you? And I’m afraid to even get you a mirror because of all the bruises on your face. One of the doctors said you might need plastic surgery to repair your face.”
But I don’t care. I love Tyler and I’m scared right now and I want him next to me. So I circle the statement on the drawing pad.
Mom starts becoming hysterical. “Melissa, please!”
I shake my head. Mom, I love him.
“How can you? Melissa if you could see what he’s done to you…” she trails off to see what I’m writing.
We’re getting married Mom.
She looks at me in disbelief. I guess Dad never told her that I said that about a week ago.
“Still?”
Okay, so maybe he did and she thought that I’d just call the engagement off since he put me in the hospital. I struggle for words to explain why I’d still want to marry him. But I can’t put it into words. It’s simply a feeling. I know that he’s right for me. And he will change. It might take a while but he will change.
“Melissa, next time you might end up dead,” she says quietly, clutching at my hand.
Tears jump to my eyes. He’d never kill me.
“You said before that he doesn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sure he wouldn’t mean to kill you either,” my mom responds quietly hugging my hand close to her face. “Please, Melissa, you need to tell him to leave you alone. I’d love to do it for you but you know he won’t listen to me.”
But he gave me the bracelet. He said he was going to change.
“What bracelet?”
I reach over with my right hand and touch the locket charm.
She looks at it closely for a second. “So he can just buy you jewelry promising to change and you think he really will? Real men don’t hit the woman they love, Melissa. Ever.”
I shrug her away then. I don’t want to hear any of this. Tyler is a real man.
She shakes her head sadly. “No man would hurt my baby,” she says. Then she breaks into silent sobs.
The nurse comes in and offers me more pain medication. It quickly makes me fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
February 21st, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
“Welcome home!” Tess shouts greeting me at the door with a giant hug. I have to keep myself from yelping she squeezes so hard that my very sore ribs seem to move from where they were wired in place. I guess normally they just kind of let them float free but with the damage done to my lung they decided it would be better to keep them secured in one place.
The hospital let me leave with strict instructions that I was not to participate in any strenuous activities, including stairs so I’ll be sleeping on the couch for the next couple of weeks. That also means the end of cheer season for me. I’m not too awfully disappointed. Basketball season is really not as exciting anyway so I’m not gonna miss out on much.
Dad watches silently as I walk slowly into the house. He didn’t come visit me in the hospital at all. Tess didn’t either but I think that’s because Mom didn’t want her to see me so banged up.
In the hospital some police officers came and asked me questions and asked if I wanted to press charges. I told them there was no need. One of the officers tried using the same line my mom did, that next time I might be dead but it didn’t have the shock value the officer had hoped for since I’d already heard it.
Tyler never visited me in the hospital but I suspect that’s because Mom wouldn’t let him. She was by my side almost the entire time I was there leaving only at night to go home and make sure Tess was taken care of. But she was always there by the time I woke up the next morning.
I grab the pen and paper form mom’s hand and write, Hi Tess. I missed you.
“I missed you too! When I had nightmares there was no one to cuddle up next to.”
“You doing okay?” Dad finally asks as I sit down on the couch.
I nod. Better.
“Tyler is never allowed in this house again do you understand?” he barks.
I sigh. Not this already. Mom and I already talked. He won’t come over anymore.
“And you are not to go over there.”
I know. I’m not going to argue with him. How could I when I write so slowly compared to speaking? But even if my jaw weren’t wired shut I still wouldn’t argue. This was scary for them and me. I believe that Tyler can change but they don’t so I understand why they’re so upset that I still want to marry him.
“Someone’s here to visit!” my mom chirps just as the door bell rings. She races Tess to go answer it. In walks Emily, my ex- best friend from cheer.
“Hey, Melissa, how are you holding up?” she comes and sits right next to me like we’re still best friends. Emily’s the one who got really concerned about Tyler’s behavior and tried talking to me about it. It turned into a horrific fight though and we haven’t spoken since.
Glad to be out of the hospital.
“I bet,” she says with a laugh. “Am I allowed to hug you or will that hurt you too much?”
Right now, more than anything in the world I want a hug from Emily. I open my arms and we embrace for a very long time.
“I’m so sorry I gave up on you baby,” she tells me. “I was just so worried.”
I nod in understanding. We just sit there holding each other for a while and it’s nice to feel her arms around me again. This is my best friend coming to the rescue when I need her most.
“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
When we finally pull away from each other I write it better not. She laughs and hugs me again.
“I promise. Never again.”
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