Page 23 of I See Red

“I—I can’t be here, T. I’m sorry.” My robe feels like it’s strangling me. My hands rip it from my body, my lungs thirsty but left unfulfilled with each breath I take as I start rummaging through everything in the closet, trying to piece an outfit together. Suddenly, I drop to the ground. My strength is gone, my will obliterated, fucking shattered. Screams release out of me as my fists bang against the floor, tears bursting from the depthsof my soul. My father and his father racing through my mind, my hand on the glass, the smiley face smiling back at me as the worst human of all humans drives me away from the only person who ever saw me for me. Him before him now. Now he’s older, wiser, more handsome, and riddled with my burdens that have now become his own. Suddenly, this house doesn’t feel like a home. It feels like a small, padded white room with no exit, and all I want is a nurse with a needle and sleep. In this moment, I would gladly take the terror of my alternate universe over this reality.He knows. He knows I’m a sad, pathetic, broken woman posing as a put-together one in the pretend pretentious world I created. He fucking knows me—the me I never wanted him to meet.

My Reckoning

“I’ve had my running shoes on my entire life. It’s time I removed them and let the stillness haunt me. Daddy always said you can run, but you can never hide.”

—Ivy

Ispent the night in the library, hiding in my books. I was searching for an answer, a quick fix, or just some badass heroine knowledge. I always seem to find answers on the pages. It’s interesting how dark romance is a taboo subject for some, but the truth is, it’s my way of healing. Although the stories may be made up, the characters simply a manifestation of someone’s subconscious; they came from a source of someone’s mind. There is nothing more therapeutic than reading your struggles within characters and seeing them win and overcome. For those of us who didn’t grow up in a Disney fairytale, I like to believe we can find comfort in relation to the beautifully-tortured souls we read. I can’t speak for others, but I certainly have healed inothers’ words. There’s comfort in being seen and heard simply by escaping into an author’s story. In their worlds, you have the ability to explore and process your own discomforts, a comfort they didn’t even know they curated for you. Through my reading last night, I realized running has always been my answer, but for once, I must face the music for, he knows, sadly just enough to form his own opinion on a topic I wish he knew nothing about. Me, my childhood, my demons that wade in the shadows constantly following me, forever embedded in me. The thought of leaving his questions to his imagination scares me even more than telling my truth. If he is going to know, then I want it to be from me, in my words, not what his brain has conjured with the little information he has. So today, I must face my worst fears, doing what I have never done before—speak on topics I have been running from my entire life out of fear of judgment. I guess I always felt that if I put it into the world, then it’s true. It’s a warped logic, but for as long as I can remember, I convinced myself if I keep it locked in my mind, then it is simply that, a thought to flutter, but If I speak it, then it gives them wings with the ability to fly into my reality, a world I guard and protect religiously. A reality I chose to never face, much less accept, but it is nevertheless my truth. My mental state, and my life’s movie reel proves it. For a phoenix only rises from ashes, and ashes can’t be formed without fire. You must be burned to rise; maybe this will be my way of healing. Perhaps this conversation will finally prove to me I am not the ashes of my story yet a strong, beautifully worthy phoenix, one deserving of forgiveness, and in that, I can finally separate the dust left by all my trauma from my rise and see myself in its purest form for the first time in twenty-nine years.

Maybe Tayden is the key my world has been waiting for to finally free me. Maybe he is the prince, armed to save me from the ruins of the castle I have held myself prisoner in for alifetime. Maybe the world is right, and the truth will set me free. Slamming my fist against the bed, frustrated at my thoughts and what awaits me once I walk out the door, I muster up the courage to rise from the most comfortable bed I have slept on in years. Standing at the side of it, I take a deep breath, turning in a circle, taking in all the beautiful spines, stories, and hidden truths, pulling inspiration from them, allowing them to be my strength in my time of weakness. For there is no time like the present. Fuck, I wish my therapist wasn’t dead.Fuck you, Evalyn, jokes on me, right? Selfish bitch had to run off and die before our journey was complete.

Walking out the door, I leave it open on the off chance that he is still sleeping, hoping to avoid him as long as I can.Yeah, fucking right.Straightening my bedhead, I approach the living room; he isn’t there. Bulletdodged.Suddenly, a voice rises from the kitchen.

“Did you sleep well, Mi Amor?”

My body tenses at the sound of his voice, my words frozen in place as I turn looking onto him. He’s showered, his midnight hair perfectly gelled in place, his back flush against the counter, his elbow resting on the edge as if he is unfazed by our prior night’s argument and all that was left unsaid. Lifting his coffee to his lips, he takes a sip as the steam runs from his breath. Fear begins building through my body again, tingles forming everywhere, a lump lodging in my throat. My lips part, but no words escape, yet a million running rampant in my brain.

“Coffee?” he asks, his tone calm, his eyes inviting me in.Just fuck him, Ivy, that fixes everything. Who needs words when you can fuck it all away.If only that were the fix for this, but I know it’s not, so I allow that thought to pass just as quickly as it invaded my brain.

“Is there whiskey in it?” My tone sarcastic, wrapped with truth and conviction.

“There can be if you’d like,” he responds, raising his glass like we are cheersing.

“I’ll take the whiskey; hold the coffee, please,” I blurt, taking in a deep breath. My lack of comfort unable to be masked, as he sees right through me.

“Ives, we don’t have to if yo—” I cut him off before he can finish his sentence as he hands me my coffee cup filled with Glasgow 1770. The answer to my sorrows.

“Yes, we do, and we will. Bring the bottle,” I snap, turning away, taking a long but needed sip. The notes of almond, pear, and honey ignite my taste buds. My tongue awakens, ready to speak, as I head out to the back patio, taking a seat that allows the lake to grace my view. My body language requesting his presence without a single word.

I chug the rest of my liquid courage, as he sits down in front of me, my hand sitting open, requesting a refill as he slides the bottle across to me. Uncorking the top, I refill my cup to the brim, examining him, attempting to evaluate where his head is at but he’s not giving me a damn thing. No emotions radiate off him, none I can read anyways. I posture my body to mimic that of stone as I take a sip, our eyes still locked, just our breaths and the wind. The warmth tingles through me from that first glass, the whisky loosening my lips, that for a lifetime have craved to say what they were never allowed.

“I want to make itveryclear that once we have this conversation, we are to never speak of it again. What you will learn will change your perceptio—”

He cuts me off,“Nothing could ever change my perception of you, Mi Amor.” Fuck, he is so gullible and completely unaware of the shitstorm he is stepping into right now. If I knew the emotional change he is about to embark on wasn’t so tragic, I’dfind it cute. However, his worldview spectrum is about to hit a broadness I am certain he never knew existed in his perfect world.

“It can and it will. I need you to understand that first and foremost, T, what I am about to share with you will change you. And it absolutely will alter your perspective of me, in which way is yet to be seen, but it will fucking change it nonetheless, and this is your opportunity to walk away and maintain your version of the world as you have lived it. This is my trigger warning to you to get up and walk away, and we will never speak of it again, but know that if you choose to stay and listen to what you claim you want to know, it will change you forever. For there is no way to tell you the part you have come into the knowledge of without telling you the entirety, and as someone who has lived it, I cannot imagine what hearing it will do to you. So, I am giving you an out right here and now. We can pretend last night never happened and file it in the back, and I will not blame you for getting up right now and walking away. If I am being completely honest, I would prefer it, and I’d feel the same way if Liam was sitting in front of me too.” My voice cracks. I’m heartbroken internally for him, for me, for us.

“I’m not leaving and walking away, Ivy Sage Rutledge,” he objects, firm in his stance, reaching his hand out requesting the bottle of whiskey from me.

He’s not walking away, fuck me, I hate this so much.

“It’s fucking Reed, Ivy Sage Reed,” I bite. I’m not really angry he still calls me by that name even though I changed it a few years back. I love it really. The way the syllables and vowels roll off his tongue, but right now,just for once, I need her to be dead. I am Ivy Sage Reed. I can’t be the little Rutledge girl he sees and has loved since he first said her name in full before the three most sacred words in my world.

“You are forever Ivy Sage Rutledge to me; nothing will ever change that, Amor.”

“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?It’s your mental funeral.” My response laced with a laugh as it is what I do best in uncomfortable situations, as I shove the whiskey across the table to him. He most certainly is going to need it, possibly more than me.

Tucking my legs into the oversized sweater I slept in last night, I seek comfort. Although I am about to expose my darkest secrets, I am fighting in every way possible to feel less exposed. Subconsciously, I think the fetal position has always been my most comfortable one in times of stress. After nights with Dad, in the corners of the cold white walls, and even today when I crack that position always seems to bring me solace. Taking a deep breath, fighting the tears building within my eyes, I just go in, cutting the oxygen surrounding us with my words.Gloves off.

“I knew what foreplay was before I knew my ABCs.” Pausing, I realize this is the first time I’ve ever said this aloud to someone; even my therapist only got it written on a piece of paper, slid across a table to her from my comfort of the other side of the room. She wasn’t even allowed to keep it. Simply allowed to read it all in silence, then slide it back for me to destroy. I stare at Tayden, his body shifting as he takes a drink, and I’m allowing him a moment to stop this madness; he doesn’t,fuck.

“My world growing up was so different. Sadly, I didn’t know it wasn’t normal until my mid-twenties when I finally decided to do some hard work with a therapist I trusted. I mean, I knew things were not normal, but in my world, T, they were so fucking dark and twisted. I was molested by a distant family member at the age of two. Coincidentally, I had no recollection of it, but my mother made sure to tell me one night when she called me high off her ass. That statement further molded me for the worst. By the time she told me that, my life’s trauma had already started,and it was just the punch that kind of brought it all full circle for me. I know she was just trying to work out her own shit, but it was devastating to hear because I was already fighting to unpack so much at that time already; it just fucked it up a lot more. It taught me I was never whole, even before he got to me.

As a young kid, I felt as though I was different, like I knew a piece of this world and other worlds I couldn’t have possibly been in, like I had lived so many lives outside of this one here. My ability to abstractly process the world and people in it not only made me an easy target but a knowledgeable one. As you know, I have a big heart and love fiercely, but what I didn’t know was that all the versions of what love truly is are not the version that was taught to me.” I realize my thoughts are racing in so many different directions, and I need to get back on track. I drop eye contact with him, glancing down, fidgeting with my toes.You already started, just fucking run the Rolodex.

“Fuck, okay, um, so my body was just that, a body to many, including my own family. My, um, my father, well, it was his too. I spent most of my childhood in and out of psychiatric facilities because when a family has secrets, and your victim is strong-willed, naturally, you must first break them. Break them into obedience, create fear, and, most importantly, align yourself in a savior position in their life so they can never turn on you. For what woman would ever turn on a man in which they hold in such high esteem, much less a man who has shown his ability to wipe you from the world and lock you up with such ease? A man who has the capability to convince the world you are broken, mentally unstable, and psychologically wired wrong. A man who can convince professionals of this with such ease, ones that are fucking trained and taught to identify children in trauma, to see him for what he was. He was so good at it that he could fooleventhem. I said for what woman, now replace that with what child, and the narrative thickens even more damningly. By the time Igot to an age where I could speak my truth, the trauma bond was formed so tightly that he knew I would never say anything, for my life had stopped mattering to me long before. But his life and image were always my primary concern, protecting him while he never protected me. Mental illness and the very mind-altering drugs that came with them became my life. Drugs I didn’t need that took my days and weeks away from me, eventually my years. That altered the chemicals in my precious brain. Time and memories were constantly missing. Some days, unaware if I had even woke up, unsure if it was even the same day, but when I did awake, my body felt different, and I was a little more broken. As a child, I didn’t understand why he constantly did this to me. I convinced myself of many reasons, like he loved me, that I was indeed fucked up, that I brought it all onto myself, so many days convincing myself for hours on end it was me, that I was put here not to live yet to be lessons for monsters in the world. When I was super young, he never placed me. It was just a ton of medicine and psychiatrists, but around age six, the placements started. I wasn’t sure why the shift then. The only answer I ever came to was I was getting smarter and stronger. At times, I hoped it was because I had aged out; what my body was molding into wasn’t for him. I was having outbursts but at the same time, anger was my only emotion. Fuck, I was so angry. Was I to blame? Truly? Was I crazy? Losing my mind? Was any of it even real? Some days I still feel like it was all made up in my head. It fucks with me, you know?”

Pushing the chair back, as I circle the porch, the sleeve of my hoodie clearing the snot from my broken face, my eyes find his, two souls completely broken. My arms begin to match my tone, my words mere screams, our souls trapped in one another’s tear-filled glare.

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