Her body freezes, like an animal ready to run. Her nails dig into my skin. But she looks me in the eye, her gaze steady and almost cold. I see teardrops still clinging to her long lashes.
“I trust you” she whispers, her accent caressing the words. I feel like she’s almost talking to herself, I don’t move and I don’t reply. “I think I trust you.” I look away, I can’t bare the raw, tear-sodden emotion in her voice. I feel a familiar mixture of fear and guilt start to eat away inside my chest. I don’t want to know to know how he hurt her, but somehow I feel like I need to know. I need to hear her say those words.
“Say it.” I tell her quietly. I think of every time she’s flinched away from my touch, and I can tell that she’s thinking the same thing. She bites her lips.
“I can’t”
“You can, you’re strong.” Maybe she can’t be strong, maybe I need to be strong for her...
“No-”
“It’s okay-”
“I’m sorry” another fat tear rolls down her cheek. I run my hand through her hair, brushing it away from her face. It’s so soft it feels like silk. “If I say it, that makes it true. I can’t even think about it...”
“I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have asked”
“I trust you, I do” tears choke her
“Do you?”
“Yes” she sounds more confident now.
“You shouldn’t”
“Why?” her mouth opens a fraction, making a tiny, perfect pout. If I kissed her, she’d taste of salty tears.
I don’t look at her eyes; I watch her lips as I say “I’m not a good person”
“Kim, don’t ever say that, you’re perfect, you know that, don’t you?” she takes my face in her hands and looks at me
I smile sadly. “You don’t even know me”
She looks shocked “I know you’re here, you stayed with me, you didn’t leave me. You made me trust you.”
“Maybe I’m just a manipulative *Female Dog*” I try and keep my voice light and casual, but it doesn’t work.
“You don’t look like a *Female Dog*”
“What do I look like then?”
“Beautiful” she whispers and a smile flickers across her lips. Our faces are barely inches away and her lips part. Her breath smells of mint and cherries and tears. I close my eyes. And look away.
“He hit me” she said, so quietly that I thought I might have imagined it.
“What?”
“He hit me...” she repeats, and her voice shakes.
I look at her “Cheryl...” what do I say to her? What can I say to her?
She looks down, and her hands pull at the thin blue football shirt, screwing up the fabric.“I love him so much Kimberley. B-but, I just couldn’t...” she’s crying again now, and I watch the tears fall “I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t bare it” she sobs into the pillow. “The way he would look at me, it was like I didn’t even know him anymore. His eyes, oh god, they would be so cold.”
“Shh, shh I know babes...” what else could I say to her?
“And he’d say...he’d say that he hated me, that h-he wished that he never m-married me...” she holds my hand tight, and I can hardly bare to look at her. How could he hurt her? How could anyone do that to something so beautiful? I feel sick. “Then he’d hit me, here” she gently touches her chest. “or I’d be on the floor, and he’d kick us”
I closed my eyes and imagined her on the white marble floor downstairs, her body cold, far too thin and bruising, her perfect skin soiled by purple bruises. Her dark hair would spill in curls across the marble and a pool of sickly, sticky dark blood would collect...Of cause he never hit her face, he was too clever for that. He’d hit her where no-one would see the bruises, so no-one could question him. “Say something” she says, and I hear a pleading note in her voice
“You’re okay” I say. I realise that she’s shaking, and her skin is covered in goose bumps, so I hold her tighter “He won’t hurt you anymore. Not ever, ever again.”
“I love him. I never stopped loving him.”
“I believe you”
“I was just so afraid. So scared.”
“I know” I feel her breath, her skin on mine. She lifts her top and shows me the old shadows of bruises curling across her easily visible ribs.
“They’re getting better” she says. I want to reach out and touch them, but I don’t.
“They’ll heal, in time babes. Soon, you won’t even be able to see them.” I tell her.
“Up here it won’t” she closes her eyes and points to her head
“That’ll take longer. But youll get there” I promise her.
I just wish that I could believe it.
