Chapter 96

They both sit and begin to eat; the silence is awkward and tense, but no one attempts to initiate conversation. The nurse looks around timidly before deciding staring at her plate is the best option and lowers her head. Finally, feeling my irritation rise beyond control, I break the glass-like atmosphere with a sledgehammer.

“Why are you here?” I blurt out, with not so subtle venom.

“I … We needed to talk about things, Emma.” She lowers her lashes, attempting to be coy, maybe even feebleness, but it only angers me. Putting her fork down and crossing her hands on the table she leans toward me.

“About what exactly? The fact that you’re screwing the man who loves to beat both of us up and tried to rape your only child?” I spit, harshly, taking delight in the nurse’s gasp of shock and the color rising up her cheeks.

I guess she didn’t know after all.

“Yes … Emma, he’s gone … I know what I did, I see what I did.” She tries to reach for my hand, but I yank it out of reach. Her voice has that air of victim that I hate.

How many times have I heard this bullshit? How many times has she pushed men away after they hit one of us, only to have him crawl back into her bed days later?

“Too little, far too late, Mother! You think you can just show up here and smooth it all over? Do you even know what he did while you were lying in a hospital bed?” My voice is raised and agitated; I need to regain a little control in this if we are to have it out. I hate that she always makes me break this way.

“No …” Her weak tiny voice betrays her nervousness, she’s afraid I’m going to tell her he succeeded this time. I catch that moment of doubt, casting my mind back to the look on her face when she caught him trying to hurt me once before … The fear he would want me instead of her. It makes me sick to my stomach, which only helps fuel my rage.

“He attacked me!” I snarl. “He’s just the same evil man he was eight years ago, nothing has changed!”

“What?” her eyes widen in alarm “Did he…?” She can’t formulate the words, but I can read her like a book. All she wants to know is if he had sex with me. This isn’t about me or my getting hurt, it’s about her boyfriend cheating on her.

“No. He didn’t. He just wanted to prove his dominance over me, to scare me, and he did,” I yell at her, the twist in my gut deepening as her expression confirms my thoughts.

She’s relieved. Her boyfriend didn’t betray her. She’s happy. She never cared about me; it was always about her and her men. I just got in the way. I was collateral damage.

I start unravelling and lose my temper completely. Something inside of me snapping so very easily. It’s like a damn just implodes and the waters crash free. I have been holding this in for weeks and I just can’t do it anymore.

“Jake beat the shit out of him and I’m glad … he deserved it! I wish he’d killed him.” I break completely, screaming like a banshee, jumping to my feet, and sending the table into chaos as my body knocks it furiously. The bowls spill and glasses tip over, knocking drinks everywhere. I have no control over the way I react.

Her face pales in sudden realization of how Ray incurred his injuries and I catch the look as it clicks in her brain. The nurse tries to grab the cups to set them straight, without success, all the while her face flaming in terror at my outburst.

Yes, Momma! Jake did that to him … Jake beat him to a pulp for laying his hands on me … Someone who didn’t have any obligation to love or protect me. My boss! Not my mother … My mother never would’ve stood up for me in that way, never chosen me over her man.

The thought makes me want to lash out and beat her stupid face to a pulp the way Jake beat Ray.

“Why can’t you see what you do to me?” I screech again, tears flowing down my face, emotions getting the better of me. My voice hoarse with the effort of losing my shit.

“Emma … How is any of that my fault? Jake had no right to hurt Ray … He’s the reason Ray left!” She yells back at me, dropping her mask, voice filled with rage and accusation, poised like she wants to hit me. She’s on her feet trying to bring her small wiry frame to my height to scold me. The nurse stays seated, staring at her hands in her lap as though she wants to be anywhere but here. I have a tremor of pity for her, she wasn’t paid to get involved in the Anderson women drama or to witness any of this.

“Wait a minute … What?” My inner body lurches at her words as I click on what she said as I scramble to calm myself. “What do you mean he left? You said he was gone … You implied it was your choosing?” I fall still, that moment of pause in my hysteria as logic shakes me. My tears halt as numbness holds me steady.

I was so stupid to ever believe she’d make the decision on her own to send him away.

“He left. He came by looking like he’d been in a car wreck, told me it was over and left. I haven’t seen him since. You chased him out of my life … again!! I hope you’re happy this time, Emma,” she yells at me hatefully, unaware that she’s just incriminated herself with every word from that harsh mouth.

Is she so self-absorbed that she is deaf to what she is saying?

The rage inside me, teen Emma, is unable to hold herself back any longer. All the recent weeks of agony without Jake built up, breaking my ability to reign myself in. And I explode.

I lash out uncontrollably, snatching and throwing my plate of food at her blindly as tears overtake my vision, missing her head by an inch and smashing into the wall behind her with dramatic effect. Both woman squeal and jump in fright and I push the table hard onto its side, so it rolls over onto the floor, spilling everything else down with a horrendous crash. The fury and aggression that have been tethered too long are flowing out of me, unbridled.

“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING APARTMENT!!!” I scream devilishly at her, kicking away my chair ruthlessly so I hurt my foot, grabbing at my hair, almost ripping it out in frustration. I’m pacing, trying so hard to hold in the last ounces of control I thought I had conquered in my time here.

I haven’t been this way since the week before I left Chicago, so many years ago. When she pushed me to this stage of erupting and going insane and I ran away. I ran, to protect myself, and protect her, from this anger inside me that wants so badly to hurt her; to retaliate at her failings as a mother. I can’t run away now, nor do I want to. This is my home … my space and my life.

“Just fucking get out!” I screech again, only less insanely as my voice breaks hoarsely. This time the nurse hurriedly picks up their bags and pulls at my mother’s sleeve in a desperate attempt to remove her. She can see I am losing my sanity and have more than this to come.

“Emma …?” Her lip wobbles as she throws all into the victim role once more. That mask back in place once again.

“No! Enough! Just go!” I throw my arms up, wild and seething, looking insane. She needs to leave before I lash out directly at her. I know I’m more than capable of it. I’ve hit back before at men in the past, but I’ve never hit her even though right now I want to. Like a pulsing need inside of me. The need to punch her stupid head against something hard and knock sense into her.

I hate her so much! This is what she does to me.

They both turn and rush out mid panic, leaving me behind in my own chaos and rage. A moment of pause as the door crashes against the wall behind them and my desperation crumples over me. As soon as the door swings back and clicks closed again, I crumple to the floor, letting it all go in a devastating wail, tumbling out until my body has no energy left to make a sound.

* * *

I finally sit up and look around, taking stock of the mess I’ve made but I don’t care. I watch the food sliding down the light gray painted wall like a gaping wound. It feels right to sit here, surrounded by broken things and ugliness, like I belong here. I know soon I’ll get up and clean it all away, hiding the evidence of my break down. I’ll pull myself up, straighten my face and my clothes and go back to poised Emma before the morning. Haven’t I always?

This is what I do, this is what she taught me! That no matter what, I must contain all that is wrong with me and hide it away, show the world that I’m capable and strong… but still worthless.

No one gets to see vulnerable Emma, and no one, no one … gets to inflict more pain on me. By morning I’ll have filed it neatly into my internal black box and will have pasted on my professional smile, ready to face another day.

That’s who Emma is, who I am. She’s a fake smile and cold demeanor. She’s outwardly unshakable and cool and has nothing going on in her empty life that would even raise a slight question about her sanity.

Jake saw that Emma and honestly believed that’s all there was of her. He’d chosen to send her on her way, rather than see the broken mess inside, literally falling to pieces at just knowing him. He broke the façade and he doesn’t even know it