Page 18 of Nave
“It was worth it.”
“Yeah. She was the only thing getting me out of bed most days.”
“Can I ask you something I’ve wondered for years?”
I watched him dig in the bag to find Edith’s leash, clipping it to her collar, then putting her down to sniff around.
“Why did I stay?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced past him, looking into the darkest part of the backyard and sucking in a deep breath.
“Don’t you think that if I were able to leave, I would have?”
“I had my suspicions,” he admitted. “But I didn’t know if you just stayed because you were scared of being on your own, of having to find your own way, or if it was something… more sinister than that?”
“It didn’t start out that way,” I admitted. “I mean, it happened in phases. If he’d gone full-on controlling monster right at first, he’d never have gotten me into that glass house.”
“Was he always… that clean?”
“I don’t think he showed it to anyone at first. I mean, he was very clean and so was his office. He was a little obsessed with hand sanitizer and insisted on everything being paper or plastic because washing dishes didn’t get them clean enough. But it wasn’t like… what you saw.” And all the things he didn’t see.
“Wait. It sounds like you worked for him.”
“I did,” I confirmed. “I was a temp at his office. Until he decided that he needed me to work for him full-time. And I’d been so desperate for solid employment with good pay that I’d let myself ignore some red flags even in those early days.”
“Whatever happened, it’s not your fault that he was a manipulative and controlling fuck.”
He didn’t even know the half of it.
“I’m not taking on the responsibility of his sick nature. But I can see how often I squashed down my own gut feelings for the promise of comfort and stability.
“It was only three months after working for him that we started dating. Another six weeks before I moved in with him. Before I stopped going anywhere without him. When I agreed to enable tracking on my phone and gave him my passwords. I submitted to all hisrequestsfor how to dress, how to bathe, how to eat.
“And each time I gave into him, the walls closed in tighter and tighter. Until I agreed to move into the new glass house.”
I’d been so naively excited at first. So charmed by the views all around, by the little bunnies, deer, turkey, and songbirds that were all around.
“That’s when you really got locked down.”
“Yeah. At first, I let myself believe that all the cameras were just for safety. Especially because we were out in the middle of nowhere and the cops would take forever to get to us if something happened. But then the cameras went up inside.”
“Did you think of leaving then?”
“I hate to admit this, but not at first. It was when the demands got higher and the diet control and everything like that got stricter that I tried to leave.”
“Tried.”
“Tried. I got about an hour into the woods before he found me.”
“What did he do?”
“Dragged me back.”
My mind flashed back to the bruises I’d had for weeks after.
Ben hadn’t been violent, per se. He didn’t beat me. But he grabbed. He pulled.
