Page 37 of Already At Risk
“We arranged a time next week for his deposition. A few days after yours.”
“You’re not going to go easy on him, are you?”
I shook my head with a low chuckle and then met her gaze, needing her to know how fucking seriously I took this.
“Sunny, I know I seem like a nice guy. But when it comes to my job, I am not the man people want to see walk in the room. I’m probably thelastopposing counsel they want to run into.”
Natalie’s eyes blazed, just a tad, at my confidence. I thought for a second I might be seeing things, but then she breathed, “I almost wish I could see that.” She shook her head, interrupting our heated eye contact. “But I also want to be as far away from Korey as possible, at literally all times.”
“Natalie…” I started, hating how anxious I was to ask this question. “Did he ever do anything to harm you or Chloe?”
She pressed her lips together, and the fact that she didn’t have an automatic answer made my stomach drop. It was going to take everything in me not to fucking kill this guy the minute I walked into the same room as him.
“Physically?” She dropped her eyes to her cardigan, picking at a fuzz on it before turning her attention back to her crocheting. “No, he didn’t. But he…”
I could barely breathe, waiting for her to go on. But at the same time, I knew I couldn’t push her.
“We don’t have to talk about it, not if you don’t want to.”
“No. I’m just…I’m trying to get better at naming it for what it was. It still feels…I don’t know. Even when I was leaving him, I didn’t see it entirely for what it was. Like I said before, the cheating had been the catalyst for me, and it wasn’t until after, until the fog was lifted and I finally began to process everything, that I began to fully realize…” She straightened her shoulders, lifted her head. “I was emotionally abused by Korey Abrams for almost a decade. And Chloe was undoubtedly impacted by that.”
God, I admired her strength.
But I hated that she needed to carry it day in and day out…because of him.
Ihatedhim.
My jaw clenched, but somehow, I kept my voice gentle. “Do you mind explaining how?”
Natalie returned to inspecting the yarn in her hands.
“Early in our relationship, he started cutting me off from my family. Because of medical school, I didn’t have a lot of free time, so if I wanted to use it to travel back home, he would make me feel guilty. At the time, I thought it was valid. Of course I should prioritize spending time with him.”
I nodded along, wanting to be supportive. Natalie’s hands moved while she spoke, looping yarn, twisting it, pulling it, arranging it in perfect rows. I stared in awe at her dexterity, at how little she seemed to be thinking about what she was doing, all her focus on her words. Which was where my focus should be, too.
“My parents tried to come visit me instead, but he’d come up with excuses about why they shouldn’t, why it wasn’t a good time. And then it wasn’t just trips or travel butanysort of plans. He always needed to know what I was doing, and if I didn’t tell him, he’d make me feel awful, like I was purposefully excluding him, like I was being deceitful. He started tracking my location, obsessing over it. I couldn’t even run an errand after work without being questioned.
So at a certain point, I just stopped…making plans. I didn’t see other people. I didn’t talk to other people. I didn’t do anything. And, of course, it was then, when I felt entirely alone, that he started cheating on me. He’d come home from work later and later. Sometimes never at all. That was usually better because when he did come home, he was…” She drifted off, her voice growing small. “Awful.”
“Natalie,” I rasped when it seemed like she was done talking. And then all I could think of to say was, “I’m so sorry.”
She just shrugged, like she’d gotten over it. But I was sure that wasn’t the case. Surviving years of that kind of emotional whiplash wasn’t something that disappeared from your reality so quickly.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said softly. “I know it’s probably not easy to recount some of these things.”
“Yeah,” Natalie breathed, acknowledging the truth of my words. “It’s not, but it’s gotten better. My therapist has encouraged me to speak about it. And to not downplay what he did, even though that’s still my instinct to do. All the things I used to say weren’t a big deal…were. Theyare.”
“They are,” I agreed. “I know recognizing that must be hard, butnoneof what you described is okay, Natalie. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but I have to say it anyway. The way he treated you isdespicable. And I’m so glad therapy has helped you process it.” I hesitated but then decided to admit, “It’s not the same, but therapy has helped me, too. After my dad’s death.”
Natalie swallowed hard, looking up. “Do you still go?”
“It’s been a while,” I acknowledged. “But I try to do check-ins when I need it.”
She nodded, dropping her gaze to the yarn again. “It’s been good for me. I don’t know if I would have made it through the divorce and the first custody battle without it. Leaving was easy compared to the months that followed, when it seemed like Korey wasn’t going to let me go. Letusgo. For a while, I was…scared.” She pursed her lips together. “And lonely. My family rallied, of course, but no one reallyunderstood. My parents divorced not too long ago, but it was amicable. They still love each other, in their own way. Their experience was nothing like mine. But it’s gotten a lot better. It keeps getting easier.Though, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be rid of Korey completely.”
God, I fucking hoped so. The good news was that Korey was moving; yes, he was using that as a part of his custody claim, but I was using it as hope that he’d move out of their lives for good. We just had to win this thing.
“How did the two of you meet?” I asked, wondering how she’d ended up with such a manipulative ass to begin with. “You and Korey?”
