by Paula Cox
After a few minutes, the kitchen is destroyed. I come to my senses slowly, and then return to the bedroom.
Emily stands near the opposite wall, fear etched into her features. She’s scared of me, I think numbly.
“Let me tell you something,” I say, chest trembling like the prologue to an earthquake. “There’s no way in hell you’re going to that bakery again. Look at you, Emily. I’ll die before I let you go back. Do you hear me? I’ll fucking die. Over. My. Dead. Body. You’re not going back there ever again. I can’t believe you’re protecting that piece of shit!”
I pace into the living room and throw myself on the couch.
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
My job is the only tiny shred of independence I’ve ever known. Sure, I have to give Patrick a large chunk of my paycheck, and sure, I can’t spend the rest of it on books or decorations or nice clothes or even a holiday because Patrick would explode in rage, but there’s something wonderful about going to work, alone, and having to face the challenges of the day, alone. It’s the one thing that’s ever made me feel like a real person.
And he thinks he can just take that away, I think, digging my fingernails into my knees. I sit hunched up on the edge of the bed, feeling a second wave of anger and resentment and confusion pass over me. He can’t just tell me what to do, I think, hands getting tighter. My fingers prick the fabric of my pants, but I don’t care. I bleed, but I don’t care. Does Jude really think he can just order me not to work?
And yet, a voice whispers, Patrick will find you again. If he had the guts to do it once, he’ll do it a second time. Who knows, maybe this time he’ll bring a gun, a knife. Maybe this time he’ll end it.
“No!”
I jump and go into the living room. Jude is sitting on the couch, head buried in his hands. I’m about to scream at him—something, I don’t know what—when I look over his shoulder and see the kitchen. I walk past him, poke my head around the wall partition.
“Careful,” he says. “There’s glass.”
“Like you care!” I snap back.
I feel mean but, oddly, I don’t feel mean about being mean. This is the first time in my life I’ve been in an argument with a man without feeling the need to hold back, to make myself small and mouse-like. With Patrick, I always let him win, let his deranged perspective become the norm. But I don’t have to with Jude. I can finally let out some of that years-old rage. Maybe, a background part of my mind muses, that’s why you’re getting so angry, because you’ve never really been angry before . . .
I ignore the thought and walk gently into the kitchen. The floor is covered in glass and shrapnel pieces of wood are littered everywhere, huge chunks of cupboard and sideboard. The oven is all but destroyed. Cutlery and trays lay strewn across the floor.
I return to the living room and stand over the couch, looking down at the back of Jude’s head, at the tattoos which creep up his neck. “I’m going back to work,” I say.
Without turning, he snaps, “You’re not.”
“I am.”
“Patrick will find you again. He’ll hurt you. Now, unless you give me your blessing to kill him—”
When he says those words—those words which should bring me joy—some twisted, beaten, submissive part of me recoils like a struck viper. Then it rears up, making itself big and dangerous. It spits, and acid-like anger courses through me. My brother! It roars. He wants to kill my big brother! That absurd protective urge inside of me is driven by something deeper than reason.
“You won’t kill him!” I hear myself scream. A vicious scream. A scream which cuts through the air like a sword.
Jude jumps up, spins, faces me. His face is as twisted as my insides feel. “Why the fuck are you protecting him?” he barks. “Why, Emily? Just explain it to me. The man hit you your whole life, and now you stand here protecting him. Humiliating yourself.”
We stare at each other over the couch like two people about to duel, arms at our sides, chests rising and falling almost in tandem, anger shooting from our eyes and clashing in the center of the room.
“He’s my brother,” I say, voice quaking. I try and restrain my anger, but it feels like a wild dog on a loose leash, pulling harder each moment. It’s made worse by the fact that Jude has a point, a point I could accept if Patrick were not the only family I’d ever known. “You can’t talk about killing my brother and think that’s normal, Jude. Maybe that’s just a sign of how messed up you are.”
Jude steps forward until he’s as close to me as he can get without walking around the couch. He stares down at me with murderer’s eyes. “I will kill any man who hurts you. Patrick came to the bakery and he kicked the shit out of you. Patrick, a man twice your size, beat you to a pulp. You’re standing there like some fucking battered wife defending him. You need to get a grip. You need to realize that he’s not your friend. He’s never been your friend. He’s your enemy.”
I take a step back. His argument makes sense. Of course it makes sense. But sense has very little to do with family. I think of Jude pushing a blade into Patrick’s chest, or perhaps shooting him, or strangling him, or however he does it. I don’t feel relieved, as perhaps I should. I feel guilty. The world in general agrees that family is important. You hear it all the time. And he has protected me over the years, in his way. But he beat you! But he stopped other kids from beating me! He sorted out the apartment! He makes a bigger deal about that than he needs to! It’s just signing a tenancy agreement! How hard can it be! But how many times has he told me that without him I’d be helpless?
Thoughts, whirring, spinning but never settling.
“Don’t talk to me about family,” I snarl. “You let your family die and you did nothing.”
No! No! No!
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I can hardly believe I said them. I want to take them back. I start to walk around the couch, but then Jude leaps over the couch and charges bull-like into the kitchen. He smashes the wall with his fists, blood staining the wallpaper. He head-butts it. He elbows it. He turns in a circle, frantic, eyes scanning for something else to break.
“Jude,” I say, but my voice is quiet beneath the sound of his violence. “Jude.”
I creep to the kitchen partition. “Jude.”
“Jude.”
“Jude.”
“Jude.”
After around five minutes of destruction—every single thing in the kitchen is snapped and shattered, the walls are full of holes and little flecks of blood are painted over everything—Jude collapses to his knees. He brings his fists to his face and looks at the scabs and the grazes coldly.
“Jude.”
His gaze snaps to me like a startled animal, like he’s only just remembered I’m here. “What?” he growls.
“I’m . . .”
“Don’t,” he interrupts. “I don’t want to hear it. All I want to hear from you is two things. One, you’re not going back to work. Two, you’ll stop protecting your brother.”
The hurt is plain on his face, well-hidden but definitely there. I can’t believe I said something so cruel. But even now the anger is surging through me. Anger like I’ve never felt. I guess it’s the anger of somebody who has never been allowed to be emotional before. Suddenly, Jude is not just Jude. He’s everybody I’ve ever met who’s put me down, made me feel small, made me feel powerless. He’s Patrick. He’s the kids at the orphanage. He’s the cruel life which took my parents from me before I knew them.
“You don’t own me.”
He shakes his head slowly. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“I never asked for your protection.”
“You didn’t need to! That’s the fucking point!” He launches himself to his feet. Blood flies across the room in droplets, landing in the chaos.
I step back reflexively. “Are you going to hit me now?”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.” He grimaces. He pauses, and then says: “I just want you safe. Can�
�t you understand that?”
“Safe, or under lock and key? Safe, or property?”
He groans, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs. “Safe, dammit!”
“But your safe, Jude, means giving up the only tiny piece of independence I’ve ever had. Plus, what’s Mrs. Montgomery supposed to do when I just suddenly don’t turn up one day?”
“Call her. Text her. She’ll understand. You told me the people at the bakery sense something’s up with you and your brother anyway. She’s a good woman, from what you told me. She’ll keep your job for you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to put her in that position.”
“We’re going around in circles now,” he says tightly. He walks back into the living room. Without even thinking about it, I back away to the other side of the room, near the couch. He stares at me flatly. “Just tell me you won’t go back to work.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Fuck!” He thumps his chest. “Can’t you see I’m just doing what I think is right?”
“Maybe your right is wrong,” I mutter.
Jude rolls his eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me!” I snap, anger making every little thing into a giant event. “I’m not doing what you say and that’s that.”
I march into the bathroom and lock the door behind me before he can react. I hear him on the other side of the door, breathing heavily. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking a shower. Or is that against the rules now, too?”
“You sound like a spoiled brat,” he says bitterly.
“You sound like a controlling freak,” I spit back.
“Emily . . .”
“I’m getting in the shower now.”
In truth, I only came in here to get away from him. He scares me, though I don’t think he’d actually direct his anger at me. I walk to the mirror and look at my face. Jude’s right. It’s awful. But is any battered face so awful that it should be met with murder? People can change, and Patrick’s not an asshole all the time. I have memories of him—few, admittedly—being a nice man, a good brother. I remember once when I was a girl he read me bedtime stories every night for a month. I remember a few trips to the park with him when he bought me ice cream and pushed me on the swings. I remember . . .
You remember the sugar-coated version. Don’t forget that in between the stories he beat you. Don’t forget that he never respected you.
I strip naked. It’s only when I’m peeling off my clothes I realize that my body is covered in bruises, just like my face. A purple welt across my belly, a yellowish blossom on my shoulder, two fist-sized marks on my forearms from where I tried to protect myself.
I go to the shower and turn it on. Water blasts. Steam rises. The room grows moist.
“Emily,” Jude says, voice barely audible over the shower. “Emily. Please. Goddamn it. I’ve never been this close to a woman. Any other woman said what you just did about my parents, I’d never talk to them again. I’d cut them out of my life. But I’ve already fucking forgiven you for it. Do you realize how strange that is for me?”
He sounds hurt. I want to go out there and hold him, make him feel better, but there’s a stubborn streak in me tonight and despite my desire, I can’t shake it.
I step into the shower, wincing in pain as the water drips over my bruised and bloody body.
“Emily.”
I wince again, this time at the sound of his voice.
Confusion grips me. What should I do? If he really just wants me safe . . .
But my independence . . .
But I’m covered in bruises. My entire body is in agony . . .
But Patrick is my brother . . .
Ah! Why can’t things just be simple!
Chapter Seventeen
Jude
“Emily,” I say, and my voice comes out sounding like somebody else. Like a man who’s not in control, a man who gives a damn, a man who’s not easygoing when it comes to his attitude toward women. With a mixed sense of resentment and surprise, I realize my voice sounds like a man who cares, really cares, about the woman on the other side of this door.
My mind is thrown back three years, when I fell in love for the first time with Anna. But now I think of it, was it ever really love, or were we both just trying to numb something inside of us? Anna partied like hell; Anna was taken away by her parents. I let her be taken away. I wonder, if it was Emily who was being snatched away, would I back down so easily? The answer is simple: no. I thought I loved Anna, that wild, reckless woman who by the end of our relationship was little more than a drugged-up, liquored-up wreck. For the first time, I understand that I didn’t love her, not at all. If Anna was on the other side of this door, I wouldn’t linger. I would leave. That’s the difference.
So I love Emily, I think. It comes to me numbly, with little emotion. It comes to me like a revelation I’ve known all along but just haven’t admitted. I love her. That’s why I want to protect her. That’s why I forgave her just now for throwing my parents in my face. If Anna had done that . . .
My first love was not a love at all. My first love is on the other side of this door. Suddenly, I ache for her. Physically ache. The ache I feel for her makes the various pulsing points of pain throughout my body seem small. Damn, but I want this fucking woman.
“Emily.”
“What?” she calls over the gushing shower.
“Let’s leave Patrick to one side for now. Let’s just talk about going back to work.”
“What about it?” Her voice softens. She adjusts the shower pressure so I can hear her more clearly.
“Just tell me you won’t go back to work for a little while. That’s it. Just a little while.”
I’m pleading. I never would’ve pleaded with Anna, not for any damn thing. I never would’ve stooped so low. Is this what it feels like to value somebody more than yourself? Fuck, it’s weird.
“How long?”
“I don’t know, just long enough...” I trail off. Just long enough for me to make it so you never have to be scared again.
“How long is long enough?”
This woman threw your parents into your face! This woman insulted you! Who are you, Jude? Who are you becoming?
“A few days, a few weeks. Just long enough.”
She pauses. I imagine how she must look right now, stark-naked, hot as hell even with the bruises. Despite the situation, my cock hardens, gets harder than steel and harder still. I let out a groan from deep in my throat. Passion, fire-hot, scorching, passion I’d never dream a man like me could feel, fills me up. I clench my fists, stretching the skin of my knuckles, making the scabs and cuts pulse.
“A few days,” she says. “Maybe for a few days.”
“Okay. Good.” I take a deep breath.
“A few days,” she repeats. “And if I decide I want to go back, I will! You have to understand that, Jude. I’m not a puppy, being bossed around, led all over the place like I don’t have a mind of my own. I’ve lived my whole life being told I don’t have a mind of my own. I’ve lived my whole life in fear. I don’t...” Her voice rises in pitch, as though surprised at what she’s about say, as though it never occurred to her as a possibility. “I don’t want to live in fear anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” I say, thinking: That’s something. She’ll stay away from work. That’ll have to be enough for tonight. I can’t go on with this argument. It’s going to kill me. It’s true. For a man like me, a man who never gives himself to rage like this, it’s exhausting. I feel drained, spent, as though all the energy has been vacuumed out of me.
“It seems we’ve reached an impasse,” Emily says.
“Yeah.” I sigh. Thank God.
“Jude.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything about your family. It was wrong of me. I was . . . I’ve never been in a real argument before. I don’t know what came over me. It was like there was another person in me, talking with my lips.
I . . . I feel like a mean bitch.”
“Don’t,” I say. “Just don’t. It’s okay. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“It’s strange to hear you apologize.” She sounds like she’s smiling, but it sounds like a bittersweet smile. We must be close; I’ve never been able to detect smiles through doors before. “When I first met you, I thought you were a goddamn ice man. I thought you didn’t feel a thing.”
“And now?”
“Now I know you feel more than most people, but you just push it deep down and try and hide it.”
