Page 31 of Static

"I didn't know it then, but Trent was using cocaine. They found it in his system after they arrested him. It explains a lot. I couldn't reason with him," I explained. "It was like he was a completely different person. Even from the man I'd grown to dislike and divorced, he was just so different that night." Squeezing my hands together around the glass, I tried to stop them from shaking.

"Go on," she urged.

That made me realize I was sitting there in silence, reliving it in my head, not out loud. Clearing my throat, I continued. "He burst through my front door, kicked it in, and was in the kitchen before I knew what was going on. The kids were in the dining room and I had the door propped open. My house is one of the few in Tucson that doesn't have an open concept and the kitchen and dining room are walled off from one another. Thankfully, Sean grabbed Grace and they hid under the table."

I gave her a wry smile. "I only know that because Jordan told me. At the time, I was mostly sure he'd stormed right past them because of the time between the sound of him kicking in the door and him barging into my kitchen. I was holding my pan that I was using at the time." I thought about it. "Too bad it wasn't a knife."

"Would you have stabbed him?"

Anger surged through me. "Absolutely. Not right away. I asked him what he was doing. He was nearly incoherent. Raving like a lunatic. Accusing me of cheating on him. Saying he was going to lose his job because of me. Going off about my brother." I shook my head, still perplexed about the nonsense he'd spouted that night. "I think he was mixing up the past and present because of how high he was."

"It sounds that way," she murmured.

"I'd like to say, for the record," I told her, "that I never cheated on him. I don't even know where that one came from. Not that it's important."

"It is to you," she corrected. "So, it's important."

"We argued," I said, continuing. "I tried to get him to leave. I begged him to leave. There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do for my kids and I was so scared he was going to hurt them. I begged over and over for him to leave. I thought he might, at first." A cold sweat broke out on my skin. "Then something changed in his eyes." I focused in on the doctor. Though I'd been staring at her all I could see was Trent's angry face. Now I was seeing Dr. Donaldson again. Her face was a neutral mask as she listened to me, but I could see the sadness in her gaze. It made me feel somewhat better. She didn't give pity, just reassurance and comfort. "Have you ever seen someone's intentions in their eyes?"

"I have," she told me, a grim look appearing on her face. "I know exactly what you mean, Gwen."

Nodding, I dove back in. I needed to get this out now that I started. "He was going to kill me. I saw it there in those crazed, glassy eyes. Somehow, the man I'd once loved had turned into...a man who hated me. I wasn't going to wait for him to attack because I knew he was about to. He was tensing up," I explained. "I've seen enough fights, thanks to Gage, to recognize when someone is about to advance on another person." My brother had gotten into a lot of fights in high school. I'd watched nearly all of them, always helpless to do anything to stop it. Gage always won.

"I hit him as hard as I could with my frying pan. Bent the handle, that's how hard it connected. Too damn bad I wasn't using my cast iron that night." I gave a weak laugh. It was wiped away by the next memory. "I thought for a moment I'd knocked some sense into him. There was this dazed awareness on his face for half a second." I nodded my head, as though agreeing with myself that I hadn't just imagined it. "And then he hit me."

I was bouncing between looking at her face to gauge her reactions, and staring at her pumps. It was too hard to tell this story and look directly at her. Tilting my head at her shoes, I admitted. "I always wondered if I'd be able to take a punch and not get knocked out. I wasn't much for fighting in school, and there were only a few girl fights, but I remember seeing one where a girl got hit and her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she fell backward." I hit my fist in my palm. "Knocked out cold." My smile was feral even though I wasn't looking at Dr. Donaldson anymore. "I'm happy to say, I can take a punch. From a full grown man," I added.

"You were fighting for your life," she said. She kept the comments to a minimum, mostly letting me get the story out, but she was encouraging when I needed it.

"He hit me… I don't know how many times." I shrugged. "I lost count. It all just blended together after a while. My eye was swelling up, my lip was bleeding, and I had bruises all over me. I tried to fight back, and I got a few good hits in, but I had no hope against him. No weapon. I remember thinking, at least he's busy with me, so he wouldn't go after my babies."

I swallowed hard. Fear was a block of ice in my stomach. "At some point I fell under the onslaught. I must have passed out. Because the next thing I knew I was prying my eyes open and Jordan was there." I sighed, closing my eyes. Forcing myself to keep talking, I kept them shut. "She told me the kids were okay. And then Trent grabbed her by the hair." A tear tracked down my cheek. "I tried to help her. She was in trouble because she was helping me. But I couldn't get my body to move."

"From what I hear, your injuries were extensive," she told me.

"I should have gotten up off that floor and helped my friend," I said between gritted teeth. "All I did was pass out again. By the time I woke up I was in the hospital. Jordan and Gage filled in the blanks. Sean..." I broke off. "I think that's all I can do today." She opened her mouth to say something and I quickly told her, "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"That's alright, Gwen." Her voice was soft and soothing. "We made a lot of progress today. You can come back next week. Or whenever you're ready."

I nodded and stood, giving her a grateful smile. "I'll make an appointment."

"Please do," she urged me. "Just talking about it can help, but it's going to get worse before it gets better." She searched my face as she spoke. "You have nothing to be ashamed about. You held off a man for as long as you could. You tried to protect your kids. By the time help arrived, you were too far gone to help anyone else. It doesn't make you weak that you're struggling to resolve what happened. In fact, I'd like to give you a new perspective," she offered. When I nodded, she said, "You're incredibly strong to have gone through something like that and come out the other side."

"I don't know how well it's going," I admitted, shifting from foot to foot.

"Seems to me like you're holding things together."

"That's what you do. Right?"

"Not necessarily," she informed me. "Some people break apart. They lose themselves. Push everyone away. You're internalizing. If we can get you to stop doing that, make you see that none of this was your fault, you'll be back to yourself in no time. You're stronger than you think, Gwen. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise."

"Thank you." We shook hands again and I made my way outside. I stopped, turning my face up toward the sunlight. It wasn't nighttime. It was almost a year later. But the scent of meatloaf was all I could smell.

CHAPTER 13

Static

Gwen was avoiding me. Had been all day. I didn't force the issue. I watched her come home from wherever Ricochet had taken her and there was a sadness on her face that cracked my damn heart in two. Our eyes had locked for a brief moment before she looked away and went upstairs. So, if she needed a break, needed space, I'd give it to her. As much as I wanted to follow her, pull her onto my lap, and let her spill all her worries and hurts onto me so I could shoulder them for her, it wouldn't help right now. She didn't trust me enough to do something like that.

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