Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Renee
I'm so emotional that I can barely sleep, and when I do, I sleep way too late and wake up with bright winter sunlight coming through my window. I know I've screwed up my sleep schedule already, but I really needed to sleep without dreaming.
When I get to my phone, after a bit of coffee, I have a missed call from my mom and three text messages. They're all about the divorce lawyer, so I get out of bed, shower, and rush through getting ready. The second meeting is almost as bad as the first. My mom looks tired with her lips in a thin line.
I keep thinking…she’s not going to go through with it. I’m back and forth with hope and hopelessness. Everything inside feels empty when I look at her. Her black eye is only a rim of darkness now. But she looks worse off now than she did when I first saw her.
“Do you want me to talk to Aunt Laura about coming with you?” I ask when it's over.
She shakes her head. “She already has to live with me while I'm dealing with this. I don't want her to have to see all the dirty details.”
“They're not dirty details, Mom. They're your life.”
My mom gives me a look, but she doesn't say anything else.
“I wish I did better by you,” she nearly whispers as her voice breaks in the lobby. She stops herself from crying and all I can do is hug her harder.
It all happens so fast, yet it feels like every second drags on. All the while every memory of when I could or should have said or done something, like call the cops, plays in the back of my mind. I was only a kid. But I knew it wasn’t normal. I knew she needed help I couldn’t give her.
“I love you, Mom,” is all I can say. I don’t have words for any of this. I only have pain and I don’t want it, I don’t want to give it to anyone else either.
She hugs me goodbye on the sidewalk outside the lawyer's office and we go our separate ways.
Back home I clean my apartment, then check my bank balances, and take a bath. I have a drugstore face mask to use afterward in an attempt at “self-care.”
I end up crying halfway through it and ruining the mask. It almost ruins the rest of the evening, too. I'm drowning in all my emotions but especially the anger. Anger at myself, my mother, and most of all a man who won’t ever see consequences for what he’s done. After I wash the mask off and sit with a cool cloth over my eyes, my face doesn't look much better.
My phone pings and I stare at it, like I should be angry at it too.
Griffin: How are things today?
Renee: Okay
With a deep breath I wonder if I should write anything else, but I don’t want to. It’s like a dam building up when all I want it to do is drain. I think of how I told my mom that her life isn't made up of dirty details, and I feel like a hypocrite.
For the second night in a row, I toss and turn, thinking about everything I could have changed along the way. I miss Griffin so much that I fall asleep way too late again and sleep through my alarm.
Luckily my shift at the bar doesn't start first thing, so I have time to shower and do my makeup. I need it badly. Especially the concealer.
I'm a ball of nerves on the way to the bar. If Griffin didn’t know about my emotional state, I wouldn’t be nervous. I could put on my smile and pretend this was my way out. That all those tips will fill that jar and I could use it to buy all my problems away.
But Griffin does know and that makes the smile harder to pull off.
I meant it when I said that there are some things I don't talk about.
I know he meant it when he said he would listen.
But he just can't understand how knowing those things will take over everything else. He'll always look at me differently, and that’s not what I want out of my life, or out of his.
Although he’s already looking at me differently, and I hate that too. I’m not handling this well, I know that. But that’s why I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t know how to…fuck. I don’t know how to do this. How to deal with all of this without doing it all wrong. I’m trying, but every time I start to deal with it, I just remember everything and then cry all over again.
Twisting my hands on the steering wheel, I prepare myself to just shut it all down. I can do that and it’s always been enough before.