“Mom…” I whispered, trying to gasp for air. I was trying and failing. The fear I’d forgotten descended on me like a hurricane, stronger than any other storm I’d ever had to weather. I could deal with Dougie. I was equipped to. I’d built up my storm doors, cemented myself against the physical and emotional abuse and been able to endure it.
But Dougie, alone with my mother—I hadn’t planned for that.
“Mikka, don’t sound so dejected. He’s not listening. He will listen tonight when I tell him your hand is worth a thousand of his. He thinks he can have you even though he doesn’t work. Yue Lao would be so displeased. I mean—”
“Mom!” I yelled, stalking toward the house. “I need you to let Dougie know I’m coming. I need you to be nice to him. I’ll be home soon. I’m taking the first flight I can get on.”
“Oh, now you want to come home because your boyfriend and mother might quibble?”
I took the stairs two at a time. “He’s not himself, Mom.” I mustered up the courage; I pushed out the words that stuck in my throat. “He’s dangerous.”
“Excuse me?” she whispered.
“Just…” I closed my eyes and fisted my hand, trying hard to keep my tears at bay. I wracked my brain for options. I’d never reported him. I’d done everyone an injustice, put lives at risk by keeping it a secret.
Even then I thought of his pain, of what he’d been through. I saw the way he looked at me right before he was about to hit me, like he’d lost the control he’d struggled to keep for so long. Turning him in, putting it on record, calling the cops to let them know our dirty secret felt like betrayal.
“Mikka, are you saying—”
“I’m going to call the non-emergency police line. I’m going to fly home now.” I threw everything into my bag. Then I ran to Jay’s room and grabbed my book bag too. “Be calm, Mom.”
“I’m not going to be—Dougie!”
I heard the phone rustling.
“Get your ass here, Mikka.”
My hand shook as his voice rasped into the phone.
“And don’t you dare think of calling someone. I deserve a private conversation with you. If I have to hold this knife to your mother until I get one, then so be it.”
My phone lit up, signaling that the line went dead. I called back once, twice, and again, but there was no answer. I tried his phone, and it went straight to voicemail.
Adrenaline kicked in. I had to save one of the only people I loved. My mind sharpened, and my instincts, my drive to overcome the impossible, took over.
Jay couldn’t help me with this—it would ruin his shoot and possibly his career—so I called Brady. He raced me to the airport without asking questions. I told him I had to leave; it was a matter way out of my control.
I wondered if everyone else on the flight to San Francisco thought the pilot took his time, that we should have arrived in half the time. Minutes passed by so painfully, they tore at my soul, sliver by sliver.
Was my mom safe? Would Dougie have the gall to harm another human? The worry magnified my guilt because I’d ignored the signs.
This was all my fault. I’d ignored the advice I read over and over to report abuse. I even ignored my own advice to friends who’d faced this situation before me. When I saw a woman being hit on TV shows, I’d scream at the screen for her to leave, to call the cops, to do something. And I’d done exactly the opposite.
Abuse was fickle like that. Wasn’t that the saddest thing ever? I hadn’t really loved myself, not the way I’d loved so many others, not enough to leave. When it was just me, I covered it up. I dealt with the abuse, the pain, the guilt, and the shame. If it had been someone I loved, I’d have fought to the death for them. But I hadn’t fought for myself.
We’d all succumbed to the idea of a good man, to the idea that a relationship could work if we just tried hard enough to fix it. But those men, the ones who turned violent and brutal, that continued to hurt the ones they loved, weren’t looking for someone to fix them. They were looking for a keeper of their secrets and demons. They were looking for a hollow vessel in which to dump all their fury and to keep it bottled up. Dougie had taken his time bleeding me dry so I was empty enough for him to abuse.
I let him. I bent my soul for him until it broke, and I would have stayed had I not had the support to pull me out.
That support showed me I was more than just a woman trying to be the best, though. I was a woman a whole town loved, a woman who could be good enough just by being herself.
I was the first person off that plane, and even when I saw the texts and missed calls from Jay coming in, I ignored them all to dial an Uber. I needed to get to my mother’s. I made a beeline from the terminals to the drive-up garage to catch my ride.
I couldn’t worry about Jay or what he would do if he thought I’d just left. It would look that way. There hadn’t been time to leave notes or explanations.
The shop’s lights were off, but my mother’s apartment above it glowed bright against the night sky. I waved off the Uber and grabbed my spare key.
Turning the locks and entering the shop felt like a horror film. I wasn’t sure where they were, what I would walk into when I climbed the stairs to her place or if I would be able to withstand the sight.