The threat of my family’s lives could.
When times were better, like just then, he handed me his credit card and told me to do things for myself. That way, he could show me off to his family and mine with how well he took care of me. He would joke with them that I loved him for his money, but he and I knew differently. And I knew that if he handed me his credit card and I didn’t have anything to show for it at the end of the day, I would pay for it in other ways.
When times were bad, the jokes about credit cards and buying me off were something I longed for, because it was then that I got my monster. It was then that my husband would tell me in detail the ways he would kill my family in front of me if I ever left him or told anyone what happened in our home. I hadn’t believed him at first. I’d been terrified of him—no, beyond terrified. Terror couldn’t begin to explain the feeling that coursed through my body when I first came face-to-face with my monster, but I had thought he would come after me if I left . . . never them.
I’d planned for two months over a way to leave him, leave everything. It wasn’t until my little sister was still here when he got home one night—something I knew wasn’t allowed—and he came back into the living room with a gun in his hand and his lifeless eyes fixed on her, that I understood his threats were very real.
My sister never saw the gun. I’d been able to come up with a reason for needing her to leave before she could understand the underlying panic in my words or see the detached look in Collin’s eyes. But according to Collin, I still needed to pay. I’d waited in the bedroom for him all night, trembling, but he’d never come after me. It wasn’t until the next morning that I received my punishment. I’d walked into the kitchen to find him sitting at the table in his clothes from the night before, eating breakfast and drinking coffee like any normal morning . . . except our dog was dead on top of the table.
He’d told everyone that she’d been hit by a car, and as an apology a few days later, had allowed me to buy a new kitchen table. Thankfully he had never put me through the torture of making me buy another pet.
So I’d waited until that summer when my family was on vacation in California before finally attempting to leave. I had thought if they were out of state I could leave and give them enough warning, especially since I’d never let it slip to Collin where they were going, or that they were even going, period. I hadn’t known my parents had disclosed everything to him, since they hoped Collin would be able to get time off from work to fly us down.
I’d barely even made it into Portland, Oregon, before I was pulled over and arrested for “driving while intoxicated.” It didn’t matter that it was late morning, that I wasn’t given any form of field sobriety test, or that the officer didn’t bother to put me in a holding cell once we arrived at the station. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been given the privilege of using the phone—not that I would have called Collin anyway. He still showed up at the Portland police station less than three hours later to pick me up; all of the charges were miraculously dropped.
That night Collin made me sit on the couch with my phone in front of me, and told me I wasn’t to move until I’d received “the call.” I didn’t understand what call he was talking about since he sat across the room from me the entire night.
Then my phone rang.
It was my younger sister crying and telling me that the beach house they’d been staying in had caught fire. They had all made it out fine, but half of the house had been destroyed, and the cause was later determined to be arson. They never found who did it, but I hadn’t thought they would. Collin had been able to get an officer from Portland to fake my intoxication; why would he hire someone in California who was so careless as to get caught?
I hadn’t tried to leave Collin again.
After getting up from the kitchen table, I moved slowly through the house, making sure everything was still clean from the day before. Once the clothes in the bedroom were picked up, and the bed was made, I texted my younger sister, Hadley, and headed into the bathroom to take a shower.
I hated our shower. It was big; too big. You could comfortably fit ten people in there. Collin had one of those rain shower systems put in so the entire thing was heated and could be put to use. All it did for me was make it harder to push memories of Knox aside, especially after dreaming about him—which was nearly every night.
Our first kiss had been in the rain. We’d danced in the rain. And it’d been raining the last time I’d spoken to him. Everything about rain reminded me of him, reminded me of what I’d lost.
Summer 2008—Seattle
“BUT DO I look okay for the concert?” I asked my older sister, Hayley. “You keep skipping that last part!”
She rolled her eyes after pulling into a parking spot. “I’m saying you look hot; that’s all that should matter.”
“I’ve never been to a concert; it could totally matter!”
“This can’t even technically be considered a concert. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. There will be people coming and going, and just hanging out . . . it’s just chill. You’re fine, I swear.”
I flipped down the visor and checked my makeup in the mirror one more time before stepping out of the car with her.
She sent me an approving smile as I rounded the front of her car to join her. “Ready?”
“Obviously,” I said, holding my arms out.
“You’re such a brat,” she said with a laugh. “Come on.”
Wrapping an arm around my neck, she pulled me across the parking lot and over a large lawn to a building I would’ve sworn was abandoned, by the looks of it. But it was a local hangout, as well as the place to go to indie concerts. Mom never wanted me coming out here, but somehow Hayley had managed to get her to agree tonight. Usually wherever Hayley was, I wasn’t far behind.
She wasn’t just my sister; she was my best friend. Her friends were mine, her curfew was also mine, and this was our last summer together before she moved across the country for school. I didn’t know what I was going to do without her; our other sister was too young for me to hang out with yet—and I’d never even had friends my age. My parents always called me an “old soul,” whatever that meant. All I knew was that I never fit in unless I was with Hayley, and she was leaving me.
“Look who decided to show!” Hayley’s boyfriend, Neil, called out as we reached the building. “It’s Little Little Low Low.”