Page 42 of Carry On
“Oh, come on—”
“No—”
“And why the fuck not?”
“Because this won’t be my first marriage!” Lincoln exclaimed, practically shouting over me. “Jesus fucking Christ! Just listen to me when I say it won’t work!”
And so I shut up and listened, only for him not to say a damn word. We sat in silence instead while Lincoln visibly struggled with the admission. He was married before. I let that one sink in and tried not to get ahead of myself about why he wasn’t anymore.
How long we sat there was beyond me. He stared across the room, his gaze hard on the floor, and I picked apart a piece of bread to pass the time.
“I was married,” he finally said.
“I gathered that,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
“I got divorced six years ago,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. I wanted to ask questions—mostly to satiate my curiosity—but kept mymouth shut. The hollowness in his voice wasn’t lost on me. I recognized that level of emotional detachment. I knew it intimately. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the full story out of him. “I’m not gay, but I knew really early on that I’m not straight either. I never hid it growing up, but I never talked about it either. Honestly, I don’t think my aunt and uncle ever knew. I was so focused on getting good grades and getting the fuck out of Pine Creek that I never focused on dating.
“I met Chris when I was fresh out of law school. He was smart, handsome, and he was… he was obsessive,” he whispered. “You know what I mean… thatcan’t get enough of youkind of obsession. He’d show up at my work or the courthouse or restaurants just to see me. He’d give me little presents or bring me coffee or some bullshit to buy my affection. It was cute, but looking back, he stalked me, and I was completely oblivious to it.”
I made a sound but kept my thoughts to myself. It was kind of ironic when it came down to it, considering the lengths he went to tracking me down.
“That’s different,” Lincoln snapped.
“I didn’t say a fucking word.” I shrugged.
“Yeah, but I know what you were thinking,” he said. “It’s not the same. I wouldn’t hurt you, and it was never about controlling you. And I know how that sounds.”
“I didn’t say a fucking thing, Linc,” I replied and pointedly popped a piece of bread in my mouth, as if that’d prove my point.
“Whatever,” he muttered. No matter what I said, the comparison hung in the air between us and burrowed its way under his skin. “He moved fast… really fast, but I was so impulsively in love with the man that it only made sense to move in together after a few months. A marriage proposal after six months was fine. A shotgun wedding right after… completely normal. I mean, why not, right? We were in love, and we knew what we wanted. We didn’t need anything more than that.”
I knew enough about relationships like that to know where this was going.
“It was a gradual build,” Lincoln continued. “It wasn’t like he turned into a monster overnight. A moment here, a moment there… a bad day here, a bad day there. Gifts, groveling, and promises that it’d never happen again. And every time, it happened again, but I kept telling myself that it’d be okay, that we were all just one bad day away from losing our temper.”
Except one bad day didn’t mean we treated people like crap. I held my tongue, refusing to add to the conversation unless he invited the interaction. What he was sharing… it was deeply intimate and personal. I shouldn’t have been privy to such memories.
“My breaking point was our anniversary,” he told me. “He planned a vacation for us. It wasn’t on our anniversary, it was a few months after, but it counted. I told myself it’d be okay, that a vacation would do us good. The whole way there, everything was wrong. We didn’t leave on time because a case held me up, and then traffic was backed up, which was my fault because I worked too much… because I cared more about my job than I did about him. And then we didn’t get there before the restaurant he wanted to go to closed.
“It was just all these little things that just added up the whole day. I wasn’t in the mood. Hell, I didn’t even want to stay. I offered for us to go home. He snapped like I’d never seen before… hit me harder than he ever had before.
“And like always, he tried to make it up to me, but I wasn’t having it. I don’t know… I just…” He shook his head like he didn’t have the words. “He wanted to after… and I wasn’t in the mood… and that was the wrong answer. I only managed to fight him off for a few minutes before he hit me hard enough to knock me out.
“When I woke up…” His voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat. “I knew how I felt, I knew the damage that had been done, and I didn’t have to ask.”
My heart sank.
”I could fill in the blanks, and I knew I couldn’t stay anymore. I played nice, I said what I needed to say, and did what I needed to do to survive the rest of our vacation.
“As soon as we came home, he left for work one day, and I called in sick. A few friends came over and helped me move out. I stayed with them for a while because it was just safer than being home. I fought like hell for a divorce, and well… the rest is history.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” After something like that—any of it—the guy should’ve been in jail. I frowned as he let out a disgusted sound.
“The boys in blue always back each other, no questions asked,” he replied softly. Fuck. His ex-husband was the detective from the night he kept me from going to jail. That explained a lot, unfortunately. “Besides… it’s hard enough for a man to say he’s been sexually assaulted and have people believe him; it’s damn near impossible when you’re married. I know the stories. It’s not sexual assault if you’re married, it’s… a disagreement between spouses. It’s all just a bunch of fucking bullshit.”
“Why didn’t you leave him sooner?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, blame the victim,” Lincoln scoffed, shaking his head. “That’s always the question, isn’t it? Why didn’t they leave? Why didn’t they report it? It’s never why didtheyhit? Why didtheyrape? Why didtheydo whatever awful fucking shit they did? We don’t talk about that, do we? No, it’s just easier to attack the victim with demands about why they didn’t do what you think they should’ve.”
