So I take a deep breath and quietly lead Nico to the couch.  He sits and pulls me on top of him, one leg on each side of his thighs, straddling him on his lap.  I can’t have this conversation while I’m this close.  I need distance.  I begin to lift onto one leg, attempting to reposition myself off of him, but Nico firms his grip on my hips.

I look up at him confused.   “I…I’m just moving…”

“I know what you’re doing.”

My face must show my confusion, because Nico doesn’t wait for me to respond.

“I want to talk right here.”

“Why?”  Truly, I’m confused by his action…refusing to allow me to put space between us.

“Because it’s harder for you to avoid me when I’m right in your face.”

And I thought I was doing such a good job of ducking our conversation.

I shut my eyes and take a long deep breath in.  When I open them, Nico’s watching me intently and it makes it that much harder.  But I need to do it.  I rip the Band-Aid off and show him my wounds.  The horrific wounds I’ve been carrying around, alone, for more than half of my life.

“My father was abusive.”  My words are low, but I’m steady.  I can do this.   I look down at Nico’s bare chest as I speak and find a tiny dot of a freckle just to the right of his belly button.  It’s so small I hadn’t noticed it before.  But now it’s all I can focus on.  My eyes are glued to it.  Nico’s hands on my hips grow tighter.  I’m not sure if he thinks I’m going to bolt or if he unconsciously does it in response to the start of my story, but either way somehow it helps me.  Just knowing he is holding me tight gives me the strength to continue.

“Not me.  Just my mother.  It went on for years.  Sometimes we would leave, but he would find us and everything would be okay for a little while.  But then it would start again.”  I rub my pointer finger over the little freckle, the slow back and forth motion soothes me.  When I was a kid and my father would start in on my mother, I would sit on my bed and rock.  Rock back and forth.  Somehow it calmed me.

Nico doesn’t say anything, he just keeps his strong hold on me and sits quietly.  Waiting and listening.  “It got bad.  One night he beat her so bad that she didn’t get out of bed for more than three weeks.  Her nose was broken and both eyes were so swollen shut that she would flinch when I would come into her bedroom, because she couldn’t be sure if it was me or if it was him.”   My voice cracks, but I don’t cry.  I just wish I could tell the story without reliving the picture in my head.    The few times I’ve told the story out loud, it’s always the same.  I’m back there and I’m narrating what I see in my head, giving the play-by-play, as if the little girl isn’t even me.

“On the twenty-third day, she got out of bed.   The bruises were starting to heal and her face was mostly grey and yellow.  The swelling had gone down too.  She stood in the kitchen and made me a can of soup.  It was Campbell’s.  Chicken and Rice.  She put it in the brown and white striped croc bowl that I loved to eat out of.  I remember thinking it was the best thing I ever ate.”

I quiet for a minute as I watch my mother and I sit at the table and eat soup together.  It plays out in my head as if it was really right in front of me.  She smiled at me and I smiled back.  It didn’t make things all better, but I remember thinking we were going to be okay.  I had a strange feeling of relief as we sat there and ate in silence.  For three weeks I must have been walking around with my shoulders feeling tense, but I didn’t realize it until I felt them ease as we finished our soup.

My shoulders relax a little.  Then I take a deep breath, knowing what would come next.  “Then he came home.  We were still sitting at the table, our soup bowls still in front of us when he stumbled in.  Drunk.  He was always drunk.  And angry.”

I close my eyes and fight back my tears.  I know what comes next, I’ve seen it in my head a thousand times, but each time it’s as hard to watch as the first.  It never gets any easier.  I’m not sure how long I sit there in silence, willing my tears away.  I don’t even realize I’ve stopped speaking and gone somewhere else until I hear Nico’s voice.

“You don’t have to, Elle.  Just let me hold you and forget the past.”  His voice is gentle and kind and caring and it takes every ounce of strength in my body not to give in and just let him hold me.  Take care of me and make it all go away.  But I can’t.  I need to rip the Band-Aid off.

My mind back in the present, I find the freckle and reclaim it as my focus, continuing with what I have to say.  What I need to say.  “He almost killed her that night.  He lifted her by her throat and crushed her windpipe.  She couldn’t breathe.  But that wasn’t good enough.  He wouldn’t stop.”  The tears start to flow from my eyes, but I won’t let them keep me from what I need to do.  “He wouldn’t stop.   He just hit her over and over again.  And she made this noise.  This horrible noise because she couldn’t breathe.  She was gasping for air, fighting with what little she had left.”  The tears turn into sobs and I feel my body trembling.

“Come here, Baby.”  Nico tries to pull me to him, but I won’t allow it.  I need to get it all out.

For the first time since I started speaking, I look up at Nico.  His eyes are pained and filled with unshed tears of his own as he watches me cry and listens to my story.  I take one more deep breath and look into his eyes when I speak, my words coming out quiet, but their meaning unmistakably clear.  “I killed him.  I knew where his gun was hidden and I shot him.”  Nico’s eyes widen, he wasn’t expecting what I told him.  “That’s why I know.”  My voice is barely a whisper.  “I know what you feel like.”

I cry until there are no more tears left.  I don’t know how much time passes, but Nico holds me tight until my body is wrenched of every last sob and tear.  And I let him.  For the first time in my life, I let someone else hold it, even if it’s just for a little while.  He holds the pain and the guilt and the burden, all of it.  And with the weight lifted from me, I fall asleep.  Sound asleep.

Nico

Elle shifts in her sleep and I tighten my grip.  She hasn’t budged in hours, not since she fell asleep in my arms.  I eased my back down onto the couch and laid her out on top of me while I held her.  My arms are numb from holding her so tight, but there is no way I’m letting go.  Not ever.

I thought I understood what it meant to feel pain, but I had no god damn clue until I saw her face.  Seeing her pain made anything I’ve went through pale in comparison.  Worse than a blow to the chest, the pain is physical and emotional.  The urge to hit something is almost unbearable.  How could any human being do that to a woman, no less in front of a little girl?  Forcing a twelve-year-old to defend her own mother at the cost of taking her own father’s life.  No, not her father’s life.  She took the life of a monster, who deserved it.  I only wish it was me.  Wish I could take it all away and let it be me who went through it, not Elle.

She looks so peaceful when she sleeps.  I’m pissed off at myself for not being there for her when it happened.  Deep down I know it’s irrational to hate myself for not protecting her when I hadn’t even met her yet…but it doesn’t make the feeling go away just because common sense tells me it’s impossible.

When I froze in the cage and beat myself up over it, this little angel reaches out to help me, knowing that it will only bring bad shit to the surface again for her.  And what do I do when she puts herself out there for me?  I basically turn my back on her.  I’m so fucking self-centered…so worried about myself that I make her retreat.  It must have taken everything she had to reach out and try to help me with what she bears herself.  I’m a total asshole.