Page 58 of I Need You to Read This
“Shut up or I will do it right now. I’ll be right back. I just have to get some things.”
Her chest burns as she squirms and fights with all the strength she has in her, thrashing her legs out but coming up against nothing but air.
Dear Constance,
I made a plan like you told me to. I almost left in time. Mentally I had already packed a bag. In my mind I was walking down the side of the highway, nearly at the bus stop. But physically I was still there in his apartment, my limbs heavy and tired, my brain in a fog. I looked at the clock. I still had six hours until he came home for the day.
I looked around. What do you take with you to start over? I went into our bedroom and looked around at the stark gray duvet cover, the sleek white bedside tables, the artful alarm clock without any numbers made from a cylinder of concrete. Nothing soft or comforting in sight. I don’t know now how I was so impressed by it. It should have been a warning. It was so clearly a reflection of who he is, calculated and cold without a single soft place to nestle your way into.
I walked around the apartment and realized that nothing in the whole place represented me. It was only Brian. I had basically disappeared. I found a few of my things, clothes tucked into drawers, a set of pens. I took a bottle of water from the refrigerator. I tucked them all into my tote bag. There was only one more stop to make before the bus and it was a long walk into town from here. I stopped in front of a mirror in the entryway. My arms looked thin through the sleeves of my sweatshirt. You are inside there, I thought. My eyes were dark with fear and lack of sleep. I pulled my hood up. I didn’t need people seeing me on the walk. Okay, you have to go now. You have to run.
I picked up the bag and turned to the door just as the handle began to turn. I watched in total shock as the door swung open. Brian smiled when he saw me, taking in my bag, my sweatshirt. He must have known right away but he didn’t react, not at first.
“You’re heading out?” he asked. I imagined rushing past him, running down the stairs and onto the road, flagging down whoever I could. But the staircase behind him was empty. Thegrasses next to the road rippled in the wind. There was no one to help. And even if there was, who would they believe? A young girl in emotional distress or a man wearing a pressed pair of khakis and a work shirt? In Wickfield? I already knew the answer.
“You’re home early,” I said.
“Yeah, I wanted to make sure I stopped you from doing anything stupid.” How had he known? He was moving in on me and I stumbled backward, toward the living room.
“What is this?” he said, holding up a white envelope. The ground dropped out. He knew.
“How did you get that?”
“Buddy of mine in the condo office has access to the mailboxes. I told him to let me know if he saw anything come through that I should be aware of.”
He seemed surprisingly calm, and for a moment I thought that I’d misread the whole thing. That it was going to be okay.
But instinctively, my hands jerked up, trying to protect my throat. I stood there quivering, my eyes darting from his eyes—calm and blue—to the door. I allowed myself to imagine turning the lock and slipping outside before he jerked my attention back to him.
“You thought you were going to make a fool of me?” he said through gritted teeth. Not a question, an accusation. “What if people found out that you were writing to her?” I didn’t tell him that it wasn’t the first time, that I’d written twenty, maybe thirty letters to Dear Constance before the one he’d intercepted. “What if they knew it was me? That would ruin my life, don’t you understand?”
“No one would have known.” My voice revolted, trembling despite my attempts to keep it steady. “It’s an advice column. It’s anonymous.”
His big blue eyes were confused. The way he couldn’t understand made him even angrier. “Well, they sure as hell aren’t going to now.” He turned his back to me, going into the kitchen and rummaging around in a drawer.
“Brian?” Fear had already gripped my insides. The not knowing what he was going to do made my body hum with fear.
Then he did something unexpected. He came back to me and put a hand gently on my shoulder. “You’ve been depressed,” he said. “So terrible to hear that.” He took hold of my hand almost tenderly.
“No, only a little bit,” I said. A small smile spread across his face as he turned my palm up. For a blissful moment I thought he was going to let it all go.
“I’ll make it look like a suicide,” he said in a way that sounded like he’d just come up with the idea, but I could tell he hadn’t. I knew that he’d been practicing saying the words to me for a while, and now that they were finally out, he was relishing them.
I let out a weird, strangled laugh. “No one would believe that.” I was having trouble comprehending what he was saying. It couldn’t be real.
“Oh no?” He turned my wrist over, his eyes traveling to the vulnerable pale flesh swimming with blue veins. “You’ve withdrawn from all of your friends. Your mom thinks you’re ‘pretty depressed.’?” He made air quotes with his free hand. I remembered then the last conversation I’d had with my mom and my heart shattered. “I think they would.”
I tried to twist away, but that only made him grip my arm harder. I lost my balance and fell hard into the wall, gasping loudly as I fought for breath. He looked down at me, slumped over still struggling to stand, and he smiled. He was happy to be in control. You had tried to save me, Constance, but I had waited too long. I should have left when I had the chance. I realized then that my hesitation had cost me everything.
It wasn’t as easy as he expected. I fought for my life, squirming and twisting until he held the knife under my chin and told me to stop. Until then I still couldn’t believe he wanted to hurt me, to really hurt me. After all, this was a man who had gently gazed into my eyes a hundred times, who had met my mother, whoI’d shared the closest bond I’d ever known with. What was it he said that first night? I thought about the way he pulled me close to him in bed, his voice low and comforting. “Do you know how much I love you? I want to protect you from anything bad that could happen to you.”
The words rang in my ears as he looped an arm over my neck and dragged me toward the hall, an X-Acto knife in one hand. He extended and retracted the blade with his thumb as he marched me into the bathroom. Inside, he flung me into the shower, flicking the water on. I held up my hands to protect my eyes from the spray. Not hesitating, he brought the knife across my wrists, one quick slice, superficial at first. I gasped at the bright blood. He turned the spray of the water toward me, drenching my clothes. I pulled away, but he gripped my arm and this time the knife came down at an angle. I screamed, trying to stay up, to fight back, but the glass was slick behind me, and I lost my balance. I screamed again, kicking and flailing, watching my blood turn pink in the shower basin. His jaw was set in that familiar way as he came at me. I pulled myself up and reached an arm to the nozzle of the shower, spraying it on him. “You stupid bitch,” he yelled, waving the knife blindly. I shoved past him out of the shower and tried to run, but his hand closed around a fistful of my hair, jerking me violently back. I landed on the floor next to the shower. Out of the water all the pain was sharper. My wrists were a mess of blood now that I was no longer under the shower, and it pumped out onto the white bathmat bright deep red.
I finally went still, too weak to stand. He watched me as I lay there. The love of my life. Isn’t that what I called him to you once, Constance? I am never to be trusted again with my own heart.
He had to set the stage to make this look like it was my fault. The ultimate gaslighting finale to this nightmare he’d created. My vision was getting blurry around the edges, but I could see him crouching down, wiping the handle of the X-Acto knife. My pulse was getting weak now. He leaned over me, and for the first timeI saw right through him. By hurting me he had fully released me. He was weak and stupid and very afraid because inside he knew he was a husk of a person.
I let my eyes flutter shut. I thought at that moment only of the words you wrote. The response that was printed in theHeraldfor the whole world to see but was a secret I’d kept hidden, folded up and tucked in my little lockbox. I didn’t need it anymore. I had it memorized. I repeated the words you wrote over and over like a prayer, flashing in front of the red of my eyelids. “I want you to make a list of places you have always wanted to go… somewhere he has no connection to whatsoever.”
