Page 19 of The Sound of Silence

“That son of a bitch,” Natalia cursed under her breath. Reaching into her own purse, she hastily pulled out her own credit card and slid it through the card reader. Her card went through without a problem. I looked up at my friend in disbelief.

“You don’t think…” I trailed off.

“That he canceled your credit cards? Yeah, I think that’s exactly what he did.”

Before I could process her words or what it could potentially mean, the nurse who greeted us at the door poked her head around the corner.

“The doctor can see you now, Ms. Walker. If you’re finished here, the two of you can follow me this way.”

***

An hour later,Natalia and I sat in silence as a stream of doctors and nurses bustled passed my cordoned off area in the ER. I’d been examined, had a pelvic ultrasound, and was now just waiting on the doctor to return. As it turned out, I had been about eight weeks pregnant.

But not anymore.

I felt empty, drained, and hollow, but even more so, I felt confused. I was brokenhearted over the baby I’d barely had a minute to love, but I also felt relief, no longer being pregnant. I needed to sort out my feelings. My marriage was in shambles. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around what happened. I didn’t know if Ethan and I should seek counseling to try to repair our broken marriage, or if I should leave him. I entered into my marriage knowing it was for better or for worse. After tonight, things had definitely crossed over to worse—much worse. Just thinking about it brought on a fresh wave of tears.

“Shh… It’ll be okay,” Natalia whispered softly as she rubbed her hand up and down my back.

“Will it?” I sobbed. I looked up at her through my tear-filled eyes and saw worry lines marring her pretty face.

“Gia, tell me what happened… everything. I know you didn’t get that shiner from falling down the stairs.”

I unconsciously reached up to touch the tender spot around my eye. Shame blossomed on my cheeks again, and I glanced away, unable to look at my friend. When I called Natalia, I planned to tell her everything, but Ethan’s words about not doing anything rash rang in my mind. Instead of telling her the truth, I told her I’d just found out I was pregnant and, in all of my excitement over the pregnancy, I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and had fallen down the stairs. When I choked out the words about a possible miscarriage, she was at my house within ten minutes to bring me to the hospital.

When she arrived on my doorstep, I knew she immediately saw through the façade. Natalia was far from naïve. My split lip, the spreading discoloration on my face, and the bruises already forming and wrapping around each arm didn’t tell the story of a careless fall. Nonetheless, she temporarily let me have my lie and didn’t question me when I told her I didn’t want to call Ethan about my supposed accident.

However, when my credit cards were declined, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots to form a perfect picture of my fucked-up situation. I owed her an explanation. Yet here I sat, staring at the one person I could always count on and I couldn’t find the words.

“I don’t know what happened, Nat. I can’t explain it. He just…” He just what? Lost it. Belittled me. Beat me. Cheated on me. Became a stranger before my very eyes.I couldn’t bring myself to speak any of those things out loud. I let my statement trail off, hoping Natalia would fill in the blanks. However, I knew her better than that. I could feel her probing eyes and wasn’t shocked when she came right out with it.

“Ethan did this to you, didn’t he?” she asked quietly, but I could hear the venom in her voice. I could only nod my confirmation. “Has he ever hit you before?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, he’s lost his temper and shoved me before, but it wasn’t anything that really hurt me. He almost always apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again.” Even to my own ears, my words sounded weak and pathetic.

“But it did, didn’t it?”

“I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. If he pushed me or something like that, there was always a reason—stressed from work or tired from a long day.” I defended, avoiding her question. I didn’t know if I was trying to defend Ethan or myself. “He’s never actually hit me like this before, Nat.”

“Well, the bastard certainly did this time. What are you going to do? Or should I ask, what do you want to do?”

I stared blankly at the light blue polka-dot pattern of my hospital gown.

What do I want to do?

“I’m not this woman, Nat. I’m not the kind of woman who lets her husband beat her.”

“Do you love him?”

My head snapped up to look at her.

“What kind of question is that? He’s my husband.”

“That’s not an answer, Gia.”

“Yes, I love him. And he loves me. I know he does.”

“What he’s doing isn’t love,” she said and shook her head sadly. “There are other men out there—kind and good men—who wouldn’t treat their wife this way.”

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