Page 31 of Copper

I purposely frowned for days after he was gone. Funny movie? I frowned through it. A child telling a joke in line at the grocery store? The kid probably thought I was an asshole. My mouth felt free for the first time in years. I could frown, zone out, or even scowl without caring about getting a swift kick to the ribs.

Over and over, I dream about that asshole, and I pray for the day it’ll stop.

One night sticks out in my mind the most, and my subconscious always toys with me. It was after a work party. I knew he and Ellen Quarry were in the coat room fucking around, and I had nothing to do but drink while they did it. I must have had too much to drink because I asked him about it on the ride home. I never would have done that sober.

He smiled like he did when he was dangerous, but I was emboldened that night. Maybe I was mad about being cheated on. Maybe it was because it was so…public. I never hit him unless it was in self-defense. Even then, it was usually me raising my arms to protect myself and accidentally clipping him in the process. But I slapped him that night. He was driving, and I slapped him as hard as I slapped Aaron last week.

That was the night he pulled the car over, dragged me out of the car by my hair so hard that a large clump came out, and beat me until I was unconscious at the side of the road. After he beat me, he sodomized me. When I woke up, hurting in my most intimate places, he was sitting in the car like nothing had happened. He’d gone to get tacos, and he came back to watch for when I woke up. I often wonder what he thought he was going to do if Ihadn’tregained consciousness. Bury me right there?

When I came to, my ass was sore like I had been torn. I remember blood streaks dried in rivulets down my legs. He must have had a hard go at me. The blood was either from the brutal sexual assault or the blood from my broken nose ran all the way down to my legs.

I was in the middle of nowhere, so I had no other choice but to hobble to the car, get in, and let him move the hair back from my face. “There, there,” he said. “That’s a good wife. And you’ll be a better wife now, won’t you?”

Silence.

A slap hard across the face. So hard that my head hit the passenger window. I remember nodding in agreement. He just wadded up his taco wrapper, started the car, and drove home.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night, mostly because of the pain, but I didn’t dare make a sound as he slept like a baby next to me. Not a whimper. Not a moan. I knew he’d be angry if I woke him. When he left for work the next day, I went to urgent care and told them I had a terrible fall at home. Was my husband home? They asked the question, and I told them he wasn’t, the lie dripping easily off my tongue. It was the only time I could lie with a straight face. Mostly because I knew what would happen to me if I didn’t. He was at work when I fell, of course. I always made him out to be a good husband when I went to the doctor. I was just clumsy.

A cracked rib, a nose that had to be reset, two black eyes from either the beating or the broken nose, a sprained wrist, and two chipped teeth on my left side, to say nothing of the bruises all over my body. Surely, they knew. If the beatings weren’t a sign, the small bald spot at the back of my head should have been a clue.

But nobody helped me.

Not one fucking person.

When the nightmares come about that night, my subconscious shows me what my conscious missed while I was out. Beck calling me every name in the book as he pushed into me, my dress up to my waist and ruined in the ditch water. I was bent over, my mouth full of grass clippings, weeds, and dirt, and barely able to breathe.

Sometimes, while I was getting the worst of a beating, I fantasized about a hero coming to save me. Most of the time, it was Aaron who drove up in my fantasy, tapped Beck on the shoulder, and punched him out cold.

But that didn’t happen. As much as I wanted Aaron to come almost every time I was getting beat on and as much as I tried to fix my eyes to silently ask him for help at the class reunion, I knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. His eyes barely met mine that night. Cynthia was his date. I ran into her in the bathroom, and she was nice to me with the few words she said. Of course, she was. She was nice and quick with a smile for everyone, even her husband’s ex-girlfriend. She complimented my dress. Aaron deserved her. Out of respect for his wife, he didn’t dawdle while politely speaking to me at the bar.

If he would have looked harder – closer – I know he would have seen my plea for help.

I needed a hero. My heart ached for one, but I was alone to solve my problem. I’ve always been so alone. Powerless.

I wake up in a cold sweat, the blurry memory of Beck on top of me still in my mind, and I grasp at my throat. I swear I can still feel his hands there, and I can still smell him. His laughter echoes through my ears, and I reach for my bedside lamp, quickly turning it on to chase the shadows away.

He’s not here. He can’t hurt me.

I need to talk to someone. Something. Why don’t I have a cat or a goldfish? I wish for something I can talk to just to hear a sound beside Beck’s maniacal laughter rolling through my brain.

Picking up my phone, my fingers dance over the screen. Who would I even call to talk me through this? Who understands enough to talk me down and tell me everything is OK? Peter? He’d listen, but it’s awfully personal. He knows Beck beat me, but he doesn’t know the details, and he doesn’t know I have nightmares. I need comfort.

There’s only one person I could call. I could message him through Facebook or call through there, but he gave me his number on a club napkin after I moved back to town. I remember stuffing it into my bra, thinking I’d only message him through social media if I wanted to say hello.

But I entered his number into my phone as soon as I retrieved it backstage.

Thoughts of the last time I saw him nearly make me pause the process of entering his number. Him pulling his pants up. Jason with a mouthful of Aaron’s cum. We haven’t spoken. What makes me think he’ll take my call in the middle of the night? Will he yell at me for waking his girls? Tell me off for putting him in the position of fucking a man’s ass now that he’s had time to really think about it?

“Dwyer,” he says, answering in a professional tone. He sounds like he hasn’t gone to bed. I look at the clock and notice it’s three in the morning. Is he working? “Hello?” he asks again.

“Aaron?”

He sighs on the other end of the line, but it’s not a sigh of annoyance. It’s…relief. “Lucy?”

“You know my voice that well?” I chuckle.

“I’d know your voice anywhere. We talked until midnight every night as teens. Are you safe?”

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