Living With the Choices We Make (Domestic Violence / Abuse) ✔️

25 - He Will Never Change

 This chapter is dedicated to _ChloChlo11_. Thanks for your reads and votes.

25 - He Will Never Change  

I pour half a bottle of water down my throat to help fight back the tears. Talking about this now makes me feel so stupid, so weak. I mean - what must this man think of me? Normal women leave, they don't just stick around and get beaten up some more. There must be something seriously wrong with me.

Doc fidgets with the top of his own water bottle without paying attention to my distress and I wonder if it is just for show. He must think I am the dumbest person around and trying not to offend me.

"I know it was a big mistake to go back to him," I mutter. "So feel free to lecture me."

He finally wins the battle with his bottle and takes a few sips. "I don't lecture, Rena. It's the first thing you learn when you start out in this profession – you don't lecture, you don't judge. And in your case, I can actually follow your reasoning so even if it was my place, no words of critique."

I am surprised by his statement. "Maybe you can enlighten me because I don't understand my actions."

"Well, I don't want to sound like some righteous adult but the first thing you need to remember is that you weren't even seventeen at the time. You were raised in a single family home which wasn't the most stable, suffered from severe abandonment issues all your life and didn't have any experience with men other than Brent."

I smile at his futile effort to boost my confidence, he still doesn't have me convinced. There are plenty of other girls in the same shoes who do not fall in love with an abuser and end up killing him.

He takes a few more swallows before continuing. "You were backed into a corner – faced with the prospect of being kicked out of school which may have been the only constant in your life and become homeless on top of that. It is something we call existential fear which limited your options. Coupled with the guilt for blaming yourself for Brent's suicide attempt and your belief that you disappointed pretty much everyone else in your life, going back to him was really the only option in your mind."

Except for what should have been the logical choice which everyone hinted to all along. "I should have just gone back to my dad." There – I finally admitted it but back then, my stubbornness had gotten the better of me.

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing," he points out. "We all have made choices we wish we could take back and walk a different path."

I snort, sure that his shortcomings must be trivial in comparison to mine.  "Yeah, like wearing a different outfit to school so that people wouldn't make fun of you. I mean, give me one example where you really screwed up and maybe I'll believe you."

He clicks his tongue, this 'I don't like to talk about me' look on his face but to my amazement, he fesses up without further resistance. "I was arrested when I was seventeen for shoplifting. Could have cost me my career but I got lucky."

I am dying to find out more. "What happened?"

He scratches his head, seemingly embarrassed. I chuckle silently - who would have thought that the good doc was a bad boy after all.

"There was this group of guys I wanted desperately to hang out with," he explains. "I thought they were really cool. Committing these types of minor crimes were part of their initiation ritual. I should have just walked away but thought I could get away with it."

Poor doc – I could picture him all nervous in a shop, trying to hide his mischiefs and getting caught by a security guard. It must have been hilarious and I am fighting to keep a straight face. "Did you go to jail?" Now that would be priceless.