Enough

Do you feel like a man when you push her around?

Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?

-- "Face Down" The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

I heard my cell phone ring. But I was still hung over from the previous night with Lawyered and his fiancée, and the phone was alllllllll the way in the other room. I figured it was just Schmoozer trying to make plans for the night anyway. I let it go to voicemail.

A couple of hours later, I finally checked my phone. I didn't recognize the number. I listened to the voicemail. It was S' step-mom. I hadn't heard from her since January of this year when I avoided her calls. It had probably been a year before that when we last spoke.

She was calling because she had news; I knew that. The question was, did I want to hear it? My mother had received her Karma and I wanted to know mine. I was oddly unemotional. I could have deleted the message and walked away without a second thought. I couldn't have cared less what the news was.

I guess that means I'm finally over it. I read an article on forgiveness and it said that it takes most people about two years after the incident to be able to forgive. Like clockwork, it's been two years and a handful of months since I moved out while he was at work. I did it in secret for my own safety. He returned home to an empty apartment with nothing in it but a couch, because that was all that he owned.

I nothing him. I'm no longer angry. I'm no longer sad. I can't look back at the happy times of the relationship because they were all lies. From start to finish. The only lingering feeling I have towards the entire situation is forgiving myself.

In the hot second I dated Statham, we were lying in bed naked. Despite being an athlete and in very good shape, he wasn't comfortable being exposed. Even though his body as a man was better than mine as a woman. He didn't like it when my fingertips ran across his flesh because it made him feel self-conscious.

"What's this scar?" I asked pointing to his upper arm. There was a very deep, very purple scar running from his armpit down the inside of his arm.

"It's a stretch mark from when I used to be fat," he responded, shifting his weight in unease.

I knew he used to be heavier. He had shown me pictures. To me, he never looked fat; he just didn't look like him. But the scar was a physical toll to symbolize the emotional one his weight took on him.

And that's how I feel. I have a very deep, very purple scar on my heart from when I used to be abused. It's no longer about S anymore. It's about me.

I returned his step-mom's call. Honestly, the only reason I did it is because the blog has been a little dry lately. I also empathize with the step-mom's position. I was able to leave the situation and make a clean break from him. She can't. She's married to the problem. She doesn't work and she spends her days in solitude as she waits for her husband to return home. She doesn't have a lot of people she can turn to so she can deal with the situation. That's why I think she calls me.

S was arrested again. For beating up his newest girlfriend. I know, the Internet just took a collective inhale of shock. He has hurt every single one of his girlfriends since me. He spent the 72 hours in lockup and was released. Just like last time.

"You know, I think there is a pattern," she told me. "He either loses his girlfriend or his job within the same week."

I snorted. Was that not obvious? After I left him, he showed up to work drunk/high and was fired. I can also assume that means he isn't working anymore either.

"And at a family gathering and he stole his father's wedding ring."

"Mmm-hmm." This isn't news. He pawned my shit too.

"We think he's back to drinking and doing drugs."

"He never stopped," I replied.

And while we were talking, he called her on the other line. She played me the message so I could commiserate with her. However, I was pissed off at her insensitivity to play me the voice of the person who had hurt me. She had saw it happen first-hand.

There was one night we were at their house for dinner. S wasn't supposed to be drinking, but he poured himself a glass of wine. No one wanted to start a fight with him, so everyone let him be. He got drunk and said awful things to me. And of course, because he was my boyfriend, he had to get in my car and ride back to the apartment.

We were a few miles outside of her house when we started shouting at each other. Then he pulled my emergency brake while I was driving down the street, causing me to fishtail in another lane. I screamed. He then grabbed me by the throat and began choking me against the driver's side window while I was still driving. I swerved into another lane. I was frightened. I frantically honked the horn, hoping someone would see my erratic driving and honking and call the police. He lunged at the wheel.

After he let go of me I stopped the car in the middle of the road, shaking and crying.

"I need to get out of here," I mumbled.

As I opened the driver's side door, he opened his and ran around to my side and grabbed my car keys. I didn't care. I didn't care. I left my car and my keys and my purse in the middle of the road and began running.

This was before I took up running, but I ran the entire distance to their house faster than every 5k I've ever completed. I rang their bell and beat on their door in complete hysterics.

They didn't need to go look for him. He drove my car like a bat out of hell back to the house. They tried to console me, telling me he's pulled that maneuver with a previous girlfriend. They scolded him. Then they told us it was time to go and they sent him home with me. A selfish part of them didn't want me to leave him, because as long as I was with him, he was my problem, not theirs.

When I heard his voice on her answering machine, I felt nothing. Whatever. It's just a voice. One I don't know.

Face down in the dirt, she said,

'This doesn't hurt.' She said,

'I've finally had enough.'