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I waited until I saw our big white car speed down the street to log onto the computer. Kelly hated it when I spent time on the computer in the mornings when I was supposed to be doing things like making her coffee, cooking her breakfast, letting her do whatever it was that she particularly felt like. That morning she had been in a particularly foul mood and as I logged onto the instant messaging program, I could still taste the blood from my split lip. This time…this time it was going to bruise. I had no idea how I was going to explain that away.

Almost instantly, I saw her name pop up online. Andie. My friend was quick at the keys, as though she had been waiting for me.

Andie: Coffee? *sip*

Nickie: Got a cup right here. How are you today?

Andie: Good. You’re up early.

Nickie: Eh. *shrug* Had to make Kel’s coffee.

Andie: Can’t she make it herself?

Nickie: She likes me to so she can have it when she gets up.

Andie: Nickie, I’m going to ask you something. I don’t care if you decide not to answer or if you tell me to go to hell, but I just want you to be honest with me.

Nickie: Okay….

Andie: Are you with Kelly? Are you a lesbian?

I took a deep breath. No one had ever bothered to ask me that before.

Andie: I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.

Nickie: No, it’s okay. Yes Andie, I am.

Kelly didn’t come home until almost two in the morning. She’d been gone for some sixteen hours. With the car gone with her, I’d walked the nine blocks to work in the rain, then walked back as it chilled out and turned to sleet. I was cold, I was feeling awful, and it was my birthday. All I wanted was for my wife to come home. I passed out on the couch waiting, only opening my eyes when I heard her feet on the stairs, the clock on the cable box gleaming the wee hour. I quickly closed my eyes again. I wanted her to wake me and appologize for being out so late. I wanted her to nudge me awake so I could go back to our bed with her and be warm.

“Goddamnit, Nickie, you’re boots are all wet out here on the stoop.”

She slammed the door shut and I stirred, eyes flying open.

“Kelly…yeah. I had to walk to work in the rain so I left them there so as not to ruin the carpet.”

“Well you ruined your boots instead. Are you fucking stupid or something?” She took off her coat and threw it in the chair. “Now I suppose I’m going to have to take you out tomorrow and buy you new boots.”

“No, they’re fine, really. They’ll dry out and be fine. I weatherproofed them, you remember that.” I got up and grabbed her coat, laying it out neatly before I moved to caress her a little, try to soothe her anger. But when I touched her, I could smell him. Jeff. The boy she’d been “hanging out with.” I recoiled.

“Kelly, you smell like Jeff.”

When dawn came I was alone. I could barely walk from the things she did to me as I begged her to stop and screamed out repeated “no”. All I could think of was how proudly I had told Andie the day before about Kelly being my wife.

Months after Kelly moved out of our apartment so she could go to law school, Andie and I sat on my couch more than a little tipsy and talked. We bared our souls. I told her about the beatings, the rapes, about every mark Kelly left on my body.

“Bella, I will never let anyone hurt you again.”

Tonight I sit alone in my apartment on that same couch. The couch where I was raped, the couch where Andie promised to never let me come to harm again. It’s raining outside again, like it was both of those nights. Kelly is far from my life now, even though I live with her scars. And Andie? She is far away as well. And as I watch my computer and see her name light up, I think of all the things she said. I will never let anyone hurt you again.

I turn off the computer and I sit back, listening to the rain. She said, she said, but she lied. She did let someone hurt me. She may not have raised a hand or broke a bone, but she certainly broke my heart.

by Nickie