Page 96 of My Vows Are Sealed

My mind was going at a million miles an hour as Darla located her nightshirt and threw it back on. As much as we’d both needed that, it wasn’t nearly enough to calm me. I could have made love to her a hundred more times and it wouldn’t have gotten rid of the crushing dread that had settled in the pit of my stomach from the moment she told me that her father had threatened to kill her and her mother if they left him.

How was I supposed to function like this? How was I supposed to go to work and come home every day knowing that a man who beat his wife and daughter and had threatened to kill both of them if they ever left was walking around free, on the hunt for the woman I loved? I hadn’t wanted to let her leave my apartment to begin with, but now? I didn’t know how to let her stay here, even though I knew it was the safest thing for her. I couldn’t be here at Kate’s house every second of every day, and even though I knew Darla’s friends would fight just as hard as I would to protect her, they weren’t me. Keeping her safe wasmyjob.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispered, giving me a quick kiss before walking out of the room.

I tried to ignore the tightening in my chest as I sat up and dealt with the condom, dropping it in the trash can next to her bed. I really wished there was something in there to cover it with so it wasn’t just sitting there alone in the bag, advertising to the world – or at least her best friend’s mother – what had just gone down in this room, but there wasn’t.

Sighing, I grabbed my boxers and t-shirt and slipped back into them, and a minute later, Darla stepped back into the room.

God, she was perfection. No makeup, the huge shirt I’d given her hanging loosely from her petite frame, wild hair that she hadn’t bothered to comb. She was better than anything I could have conjured up in my wildest dreams, and somehow, she’d chosen to love me. How had I gotten this lucky?

“What’s with that look?” she mumbled as she crawled back into bed and curled up against me.

“I’m not allowed to appreciate the most beautiful woman in the world?”

She chuckled awkwardly and buried her face in my shoulder, and I tilted her face up so I could kiss her. She let out a soft moan that I felt all the way down to my bones, and I pulled her closer, needing every millimeter of distance between us to disappear.

“I love you,” I murmured. “So much. Thinking about anyone hurting you scares the shit out of me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dar.”

My voice broke at the end, and she gave me another kiss before grabbing what looked like an old shoebox – which I hadn’t even noticed until now – from the middle of the bed and crawling onto my lap. She laid her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing tight.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you either,” she whispered, like she was confessing her darkest secret. “Even though I hate that I dragged you into this mess.”

“You didn’t drag me into anything, baby,” I told her. “I jumped in willingly, because not having you in my life isn’t an option for me. You’re a part of me. You always have been, ever since I can remember. Everything might be up in the air right now, and we might not know how this is going to work out, but I have faith that it will. I have faith that God’s on our side and that He’s going to provide a way for us.”

“I have to believe that,” she sniffled quietly. “But I don’t know how.”

She ran her fingers along the worn edges of the shoebox lid and toyed with the half-dozen rubber bands that were keeping it shut, but didn’t make a move to open it.

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. My mom put it in the bottom of the duffel bag she brought me, under all my clothes, and told me not to open it until I was alone. She told me that she’s staying with him to try to keep me safe. My dad didn’t say anything about killing meifIleft, just about killing both of us ifshedid, so I think that she thinks if she stays with him, it’ll be enough to get him to stop looking. That’s what I got out of what she told me, anyway. She was so scared, Brendan.” Her voice broke, and a few tears started to trickle down her cheeks. “I’ve never seen her like that. How didn’t I know that he’s been hurting her too for all this time? How did I go so long believing that what he was doing was just normal discipline and that it was my fault because I’d disobeyed? How don’t I remember her taking me and trying to run and him dragging us back home and hurting me in front of her?”

“You were too young to remember it,” I reminded her. “And honestly, I’m glad for that, because is that the kind of memory you really want to hold onto for the rest of your life?”

“No, but hearing my mom tell me about it and having no memory of it…it’s like I have amnesia or something. Like someone’s telling me about a life I don’t remember living. That’s how I feel about my whole life now. It’s like, everything I thought I knew about my dad is wrong. He wasn’tjusthurting me. He was neverjusthurting me. But other than the day I left, I can’t remember a single time when I saw him hurt her. How is that possible?” she sniffled.

I squeezed her tight and brushed my lips against her forehead, wishing like hell that I knew what to say and how to help her through this. Really, I wished it was safe for me to suggest seeing if she could have a session or two with Marie. She loved and trusted Marie, and Marie was actually trained to deal with this. I wasn’t. Not really. She’d given me some pointers on how to approach it if Darla wanted to talk about any of this with me, but it was nothing I didn’t already know and hadn’t been doing for years anyway. That I just needed to listen andempathizewith her, even if I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to have this happen to me. And I needed to remind her that none of this was in any way, shape, or form her fault.

“I don’t know,” I said, combing my fingers through her hair. “I think a lot of times, especially when we’re young, we block out things that are too traumatic to deal with. I’ve seen that a lot with Nate. Like remember that day we ran into you and the gang at the Rhees’ store, after you guys sawTitanic?”

Darla nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Well, he remembers meeting Kate and Ash for the first time and drinking Ramune and hanging out with all of us that day, but he doesn’t remember hearing our parents yelling at each other about how he was a mistake and how he was the product of my mom’s affair. And he doesn’t remember them giving us the silent treatment when we got home that night. You probably did the same thing, a lot more than you realize. When something was too scary or didn’t make sense, you probably did your best to block it out. And I also think that your mom tried to shield you from as much of it as possible. Like running in the direction of their bedroom if she thought he might hurt her or telling him not to do it in front of you.”

Her eyes widened and started to tear up, and she covered a gasp with her hand as she nodded. “Oh, my God. I remember her rushing off to the bedroom when she interrupted him while he was yelling at me or hitting me with his belt. So many times. Why didn’t I realize he was hurting her when he followed her in there?”

“You didn’t want to think he was capable of it.” I kissed her hair. “It was probably easier to believe what he was telling you about it being discipline because you’d misbehaved than to accept the truth that he wasn’t what you thought he was. I mean, it’s hard formeto process the contradiction of the man who stands up at that pulpit every Sunday and Wednesday and acts like a man of God being the same man who was hurting you. The same man who dislocated your shoulder and broke your rib for the horrible crime of accepting a ride home from a school dance with a boy you’d known for your whole life, and the same man who would have…” I trailed off, not even wanting to think about what had almost happened to her less than a week ago. “But maybe whatever’s in that shoebox will help you make sense of it, at least a little. Why don’t you open it and find out? No matter what’s in there, I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

She swallowed hard, like she was trying not to cry, and then kissed me with a passion and desperation that terrified me. Or maybe it was because I was still scared shitless as it was, and being able to feel and taste her fear too just magnified it. I held her tight, slipping one of my hands under her shirt and pressing it against her lower back, and that made her tighten her hold on me. When she pulled away, gasping for breath, I started to move my hand, but she grabbed my arm.

“Keep your hand there,” she murmured, so quietly it was barely even audible. “I don’t know why, but it’s calming me down a little.”

I smiled as I adjusted her on my lap so I could reach her back easier. “Go on, baby. Open it.”

Taking a deep breath, she took the rubber bands off of the box and opened it, and the first thing we saw was an envelope addressed to her lying on top of a bunch of tissue paper. I felt her trembling a little as she picked up the envelope, pulled the unsealed flap out of the back, and retrieved two folded sheets of notebook paper.

As she unfolded and read the letter, tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks, and soon she was full-on sobbing. After several minutes, she held the papers out to me.

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