Page 54 of August
“Okay. Well, maybe don’t stay for the full three weeks unless you want to, but you’d be able to spend time with the kids, and you’d have privacy in the guest house. You’d get to see them for their full breaks and not have to worry about them driving back and forth or deciding not to come to see you at all because a friend is having a party they don’t want to miss or something.”
“I don’t know, Gwen. It’s giving him what he wants,” she replied.
“So? If you get what you want and the kids benefit in the process, does it matter? Maybe that’s the best outcome, even: you and the kids are happier, and he has to see that.”
“What about Myra?”
“Whatabouther?”
“Well, it’s not aboutherspecifically. It might not work out with us, but I’m kind of hoping I will have a girlfriend someday soon, and I’d want to be with her on the holidays or at least around them.”
“So? Bring her there.”
“I can’t. He told me I have to park in the back, and I’m not allowed to bring women there because he doesn’t want the kids to be exposed to that. Those are the rules of me staying there.”
“He saidwhat?” Gwen asked as she stood up and instantly began pacing. “I’ll fucking kill him. What is stuck so far up his ass that he thinks the world revolves around him? How did my parents make him and then makeme, too? Annabelle is pretentious and has her moments, but even she is not this bad, andthey’re twins. They share, like, most of their DNA, right? I’m a little too pissed off right now to remember how twins work. Fuck him, though. I’ll call him right now and tell him to go fuck himself. The world isn’t his to own.Youare not his to own. He can’t use the kids as a weapon to get what he wants, which is, apparently, control over you.”
“You forgot how twins work?” Elisa asked, trying to make light of the situation.
“Fraternal ones, yeah,” Gwen said. “I’m calling his ass.”
“No, you’re not,” Elisa replied as Gwen pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket. “It won’t do any good. He’d just tell you to stay out of it.”
“He blames me,” Gwen stated, calming down a little.
“Huh?”
“For you leaving.” She sat back down next to Elisa. “He thinks I persuaded you to do it, convinced you that you were gay somehow because that, in his twisted mind, is how being gay works. You and I became friends more than just relatives, and you knew that I was gay, so you came out to me, and he thinks I made you gay or, at least, gave you the idea to leave him to explore your gayness.”
“You had nothing to do with that. I mean, I’ll admit that seeing you so happy in a relationship back thendidhelp me see what I wanted, but that’s it, and that’s not your fault.”
“I know,” Gwen replied, pressing a hand to her chest. “I think, deep down, he knows it, too, but that would be him admitting things to himself that he’ll probably never admit. He’s been given everything he’s ever wanted. I mean, he even got you because his mommy convinced you to marry him, not work, and just take care of him and the kids when they were little. She literally gave you to him.”
“That’s not exactly how–”
“I don’t mean that to make it sound like he owned you, Elisa, or that you had no choice in the matter, but she put you in a position where you didn’t have much of an alternative if you wanted the kids to grow up with their father. And he took it that way; that you were his and that you were handed to him.” Gwen sighed. “I know you think that he never really liked you and that it was just sex to him, and then there were the kids, but Idothink hedidlike you. I’m not sure it was ever love, but I think he liked you enough to ask you out and go out with you a few times. I don’t know about the sex part, but youwerehis first. It’s not like he slept around with every girl before you. So, I think he liked you, and when hegotyou, he felt like everything was as it should be. He got to stay in school. He got the wife and kids and the white picket fencesurrounding a fancy house. He got the career. Then, he got to cheat. He got a wife who essentially gave him permission to sleep around, and that’s the fantasy for a lot of dudes, I think. He had you at home to manage responsibilities while he could do whatever he wanted.” Gwen took a deep breath. “But then, you had the urge to finally be happy, to have your own life, and that doesn’t gel with his fantasy, the ideal he’s got in his mind for how his life is supposed to work. Elisa, you don’t have to stay with him. I’m sorry I even suggested that. I didn’t know. I thought you could just have your own personal hotel whenever you wanted it, and you’d get to rub your new life in his face, and the kids would benefit, but I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”
Elisa had tears in her eyes because Gwen was right. She hadn’t thought to put all of that together herself, but Gwen had known Archie for a lot longer than she had. They were six years apart, but they had still grown up in the same house, with the same parents, and had been taught the same things.
“It’s okay,” she said as she wiped her eyes.
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry he’s doing this to you. You don’t deserve it, and I wish I could smack him out of it somehow and get him to realize how wrong he is about everything. I just don’t think that would work.”
“It won’t, no. It’s hard to remember that far back after everything, but I don’t think he was this bad when we first met. It was short-lived because I found out I was pregnant, but hewasnice to me in the beginning, I think. That’s why I decided to stay.”
“I’m sure he was. But a lot of abusers are.”
Elisa’s eyes widened, and she said, “He never–”
“Not physically, maybe. But, Elisa, in just about every other way.” Gwen nodded.
Elisa swallowed and replied, “I’ve never… thought of it like that before.”
Gwen took her hand, squeezed it in Elisa’s lap, and said softly, “I’m here. You know that, right?”
Elisa nodded.
CHAPTER 19
