Page 78 of Melted by a Man

I glanced around the living space, wondering if this was the same space she shared with him. If it was, I hoped she and I had created new memories in it for her. Memories that didn’t involve him.

I side-eyed the kitchen counter, wondering if I could help her create more new memories to replace potential bad ones.

“That sounds fast,” I muttered.

“That’s because it was. Too fast, definitely.” She leaned her head against my shoulder, and even though I couldn’t see her face, I loved watching the back of her head lean into my body like this, “I was young. I hadn’t dated seriously before Vincent, and I thrived off of the attention. Everyone at work knew we were together, too—”

“—Pause, his name is Vincent?” I interrupted.

I felt her cheek pull back, she must have been smiling against my arm, “Yeah.”

“That’s the most evil-villain name I have ever heard,” I replied. She finally released a huff of laughter.

“You’re not wrong,” she laughed again before getting back to it, “The problem is, as soon as I was under his roof, that’s when he started to show me who he really was. He didn’t have to pretend to care anymore, he didn’t have to try to win me over. As far as he was concerned, I was locked in. He even tried to talk me into marriage within a few months of living together, and when I told him I wasn’t ready for something like that, I think that’s when even the little things angered him.”

I tried not to hold my breath, hoping that the story wasn’t going in the direction most stories went when a man in a relationship started feeling anger towards his partner.

“Did he hurt you?” I asked, doing a terrible job of hiding the fury in my voice.

Jacqueline was silent for a moment before whispering, “Yes, but not physically.” That didn’t help my mood, unfortunately. “He’s the kind of guy who feels better when he can put other people down. Suddenly, everything I did either wasn’t enough for him or was something that made him upset. When I started getting more promotions than him at work, making more money than him, that’s when his ego took a big hit.”

I rolled my eyes, not that she could see.

I’d met a couple of men like him in the past, “I stayed with him for three years. And yeah, there were good moments. Moments that kept me with him much longer than I should have been. He would put on the mask of the guy he was when we first met, usually after a fight or disagreement. I was convinced that that mask was who he really was. I was confident that he was just going through a rough time, and I even blamed myself for bragging about my success at work too much. But it wasn’t until we started going to couples counseling that I really started to see what the situation was.

“After a year of counseling every other week, I asked to see our counselor one-on-one. I was so lost, and so confused. Surely,Iwas missing something, because after a year of work, nothing really changed. I was convinced it was all my fault—Leo, I need to breathe.” I blinked, loosening my grip around her waist at her words.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Don’t be, I know it’s upsetting,” she snuggled back into me once my hold on her relaxed enough.

“So what did your counselor say?” I pressed, not ready for her to change the subject quite yet even though everything she shared made an indescribable rage burn in my chest.

“Well, she ended up risking her license for me,” Jacqueline murmured.

That made me raise an eyebrow, “How?”

“So, the thing with couples counseling is that thecoupleis the client. The two of us. Which can be tricky, especially if the relationship is toxic or emotionally abusive in any way. We hired her to heal the relationship, to find a way to keep us together. So when I asked to meet with her one-on-one, and she told me what she really thought of our situation, it went against the ethics of the situation, since there wasn’t any physical abuse and I wasn’t in any obvious danger.”

I sighed, “Okay, but what did she say?”

Jacqueline shifted to set the chips down on the coffee table before turning so that she could tuck her legs underneath herself, laying her cheek on my chest, “She told me that she considered Vincent emotionally abusive. That no matter what I did, he would look for new ways to attack me. That he had no desire to change or improve. She told me—” She swallowed before continuing, “She said he was preying on my empathy. He knew I was quick to blame myself instead of him. That if I really did want to try to continue to work things out with him, she would help us, but she was tired of trying to lead me to the conclusion herself, and I needed to hear the words ‘emotionally abusive relationship’ point-blank.”

I whistled low, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Jacqueline lifted a shoulder against me, before her index finger started tracing invisible shapes on my chest, “The problem is, I don’t always understand nuance that well. So when Vincent would randomly give me the silent treatment or slam a door, I would spiral trying to figure out what exactly I did wrong. I wouldn’t know we were even in a fight until he randomly snapped one day. Usually, it was for me not understanding what he said or expected of me. When our counselor tried to do the same, subtly hinting that Vincent had no intention of improving or changing, I didn’t get it either. She would say things like, ‘For every mile of progress you make, Vincent only makes a few inches, but he wants praise for it as if he also worked a mile.’ So I just kept thinking to myself, ‘Okay, I just need to be patient and work harder and wait for him to catch up.’ Instead of understanding that that was her way of saying that he never had any intention of improving.”

I set my drink down on the coffee table before slouching down some more, wrapping Jacqueline in both of my arms and resting my cheek on her forehead, “Can you give me an example?” I winced, “Sorry, I’m just trying to understand how not understanding nuance can cause a grown man to throw a tantrum toward his partner.”

Jacqueline released a short giggle before flattening her hand against my chest, “Okay, um…” She drummed her fingers on my skin, and every muscle in my body relaxed at her touch, “So, one day, we were supposed to go for a run together after work. I was home earlier than him, watching TV. When he came in, he slammed the front door, huffed and puffed, and was visibly upset. I asked him what was wrong, and he just said that he had a long day and didn’t want to think about it anymore. This was a couple of years into our relationship, and so I was trained to try to de-escalate his moods. So I immediately replied something along the lines of, ‘Hey, if you’re too stressed to go for a run and you just want to hang out at home, that’s fine.’ But apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.”

I lifted my cheek off her head to ask, “How was that the wrong thing to say?”

“Because,” she turned so she could rest her chin on my chest, giving me a quick glance, “He said, ‘I just want to forget about my day’ again, so I repeated, ‘That’s fine, we don’t have to go on a run if you don’t want to.’ But apparently, hedidwant to go on a run.”

I knew my face looked confused because her lips twitched with humor at whatever expression I had on, “Why didn’t he just fucking say that?”

“See!” She grinned, before resting her cheek against me again, “That’s so validating. So he was mad at me for a few days after that, and when we talked about it in counseling, he explained that he felt like I didn’t want to spend time with him. That I was always looking for ways to avoid spending time with him. Even though we spent that entire evening on the couch, watching TV together.”

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