I don't remember every second after that.
I remember the cold floor beneath my cheek.
I remember Richard moving near the doorway.
Most of all, I remember trying to stay awake.
My eyes kept closing without my permission.
Each time I forced them open, the room looked a little less familiar.
The table seemed farther away.
The light above the kitchen counter blurred into a pale circle.
I could still hear Richard, but his voice no longer sounded as close as it should have.
I knew I was badly hurt.
I didn't know how badly.
That uncertainty frightened me almost as much as he did.
I tried to move my legs.
They responded slowly.
My shoulder was worse.
Whenever I shifted my weight, pain ran down my arm and made me stop.
The phone lay beside me.
Its screen had dimmed, but I knew what I had seen.
The distress signal had gone through.
I repeated that fact silently.
It had gone through.
I had done what I could.
For years, I had believed that surviving Richard meant learning how to endure him.
I had learned to keep my voice even.
I had learned to watch his hands.
I had learned when to apologize, when to agree, and when to make myself invisible.
Those habits had helped me get through childhood.
They had followed me into adulthood, even after I had built a life far away from him.
Now, lying on my own kitchen floor, I understood that endurance was not the same as safety.
I didn't have to convince him that he was wrong.
I didn't have to make him understand why he couldn't treat me this way.
I needed someone else to reach me.
That was all.
Richard stood near the broken doorway.
He looked toward the hall, then back at me.
I could tell he wanted me to speak.
Perhaps he wanted me to reassure him that nothing had happened beyond the two of us.
Perhaps he wanted to hear me make an excuse for him, as I had done in the past.
I couldn't give him that.
My mouth felt dry.
I swallowed and tasted blood.
He moved a little closer.
“You're making this worse than it needs to be.”
I looked at him.
For years, that sort of sentence had made me doubt my own memory.
He could frighten me, then complain about my reaction.
He could hurt me, then tell me I was the one causing trouble.
Somehow, the person who had done the damage always became the person who needed comforting.
I used to accept that responsibility.
I didn't have the strength to accept it now.
I turned my face away.
He muttered something I couldn't understand.
Then I heard him step toward the hallway again.
I couldn't see whether he intended to leave.
I couldn't make myself care about his intentions.
The doorframe was broken.
The lock had failed.
The apartment no longer felt like a place where I could close my eyes and rest.
I thought of the picture above the couch.
It had hung straight for months.
Now it sat crooked on the wall, its lower edge tilted away from the frame.
I had noticed it when he first came in.
I noticed it again now.
It seemed like a small, stupid thing to care about while I was lying injured on the floor.
But I needed ordinary things to hold on to.
The picture.
The mug.
The uniform in the closet.
They reminded me that this had been my home before Richard entered it.
It was still my home.
He had not changed that simply by breaking the door.
I tried to lift my head.
The movement made the room spin.
I lowered it again and waited.
I had treated injured people in military medical settings.
I knew enough to understand that losing consciousness could be dangerous.
I also knew that understanding a danger did not mean I could prevent it.
My training gave me instructions.
My body was becoming harder to command.
I concentrated on breathing.
In.
Out.
Again.
I thought about the signal and the information it had carried.
I didn't know who would receive it.
I didn't know how long a response would take.
I had no way to see what was happening beyond the apartment.
I could only trust that the system had done what it was meant to do.
Richard's footsteps crossed the living room.
He stopped.
I heard him shift his weight.
Then he spoke again, quieter this time.
“Ava.”
I didn't answer.
I had heard my name in his voice for most of my life.
It had once meant that I needed to pay attention.
Now it meant only that he was still there.
I wanted him gone.
I wanted my mother to explain why she had let so many years pass without protecting me.
I wanted to be back in bed, waking up to an ordinary morning.
But wanting something did not make it happen.
I kept my eyes open.
The light above the counter flickered once.
Or perhaps my vision did.
I couldn't tell.
I thought of the uniform hanging in the closet and how carefully I had pressed it.
The creases had been sharp.
The collar had been clean.
I had planned to put it on and walk out of the apartment as I did on other mornings.
I had believed the next day would be ordinary because I had done everything necessary to make my life orderly.
I had forgotten that order could not protect me from someone who refused to respect it.
My eyelids grew heavy.
I forced them open again.
I had sent the signal.
I had to hold on a little longer.
Then I heard a sound from outside that did not belong to the apartment.
I tried to focus on it.
I couldn't make out what was happening.
But Richard heard it too.
His movements stopped.
For a moment, the room was still.
I watched the doorway through my blurred vision.
I couldn't stand.
I couldn't fight.
I could only wait.
And waiting, for once, did not mean waiting for Richard to decide what he would do to me.
It meant waiting for someone else to arrive.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: I Had Spent Years Believing Nobody Could Help Unless I Explained Everything, but the Distress Signal Had Already Told Them Where I Was
I Thought Three Years and a Locked Door Had Put My Childhood Behind Me, Until Someone Began Beating on My Apartment Door at Two
Part 5 of 20
