“There isn’t anybody else, okay? I honestly just nipped into the office,” I protested.
“So, it’s some slut from the office then?” She asked.
“No. I just had to drop off some more paperwork.”
“No. You are lying,” Amelia accused, nodding knowingly.
“Believe what you want. I’m done trying to convince you,” I said, hobbling out of the kitchen and through the front door.
I intended to leave immediately, but in my haste to escape Amelia, I’d forgotten to put my shoes back on. I walked a few feet away from our flat door, and the blood from my foot was producing a grim smear across the usually white floor tiles. I sat on the cold floor, and I could still hear Amelia smashing up things in the flat whilst I was in the safety of the corridor.
I had no idea what the statistics were in regard to how common this is within a relationship, but I definitely felt like I was in the minority. Don’t get me wrong, she didn’t get like this often, but it was becoming more frequent. Drink was almost always involved. Amelia wasn’t an alcoholic, and I’m not sure there was a word invented for what she was. She didn’t need to drink, but when she did, it just changed her into a different person. I tried to ease her off the drink by telling her it hurt the chances of conceiving, which was true, but as a matter of fact I just wanted her to be sober for my own sake. The booze didn’t agree with her at all. In my head, I had this idea that having a child would fix everything in our marriage, and I was just hanging on until it finally happened. I tried giving her everything that she ever wanted, but it seemed to only make matters worse.
It started off small, wanting to know every last detail whenever I’d been away from home. Later came the accusations. Before I knew it, I found myself not going out with my friends anymore. It just wasn’t worth the resulting inquisition. Everything had to be prearranged, with notice, and approved by her. Every time Poppy called, and Amelia got to my phone first, she would cancel the call or answer it herself. It took me a while to notice what was going on, and by the time I did, I felt like I was already too isolated to see a way out.
Then she started putting me down in public. I was known for constantly making jokes by everyone who knew me. Instead of laughing at them, she would give me a disgusted look, like I had no right to speak. Every time it happened, I felt myself receding further into myself, and the jokes became less and less frequent. She would often talk to a complete stranger and then tell them intimate details about my life, which seemed insignificant at first, but as time went on, the stories became even more inappropriate.
The time that stuck in my head the most was when she begged me to drive her to the supermarket to get more drinks. She got chatting with the woman serving us, making the odd joke about me being boring or a wet blanket. That’s what she did to people; she used to start small, gauge their reaction, and, if it was positive, say something even more tactless. Within a few minutes, Amelia was laughing her head off, telling this poor woman how terrible I was in bed and how I’d never managed to give her an orgasm. At first, I used to defend myself, but I quickly found out that it only made matters worse. So I kept silent as Amelia cackled with the awkward-looking retail assistant, who gave me the occasional look of pity.
Instead of backing away from her and potentially ending the relationship, I started blaming myself and doing everything I could to fix it. I was desperate for our marriage not to be like my parents’ marriage. I felt myself transforming into my father, silently taking it all and not saying a single thing in response. I didn’t feel like a man anymore. It made me feel pathetic and weak. She’d covertly chipped away at my dignity until there was almost nothing left but debris and dust. Just when I thought I was at my lowest moment, she stepped it up.
She started getting physical.
That started small, too, a harder than playful tap on the back of the head or an overly efforted shove when I said something she didn’t like. It was always in private and in the house, but if I said something she didn’t like in public, it would come to haunt me later. She did this thing where she would grab my hand and dig her fingernails into it, and I knew I’d be on the receiving end of worse after it. Some days, I’d have marks or even bruises from it for days. It got to the point that every time she had a drink, I’d receive a slap from her for something. Or, more often than not, for nothing. I didn’t know what her rules were, and it seemed to be random most of the time. Once she started closing her fist, that’s when I noticed the intensification.
The choking was new, and every time there was an escalation, it still caught me off guard. I loved her so much, and I thought she loved me back. I just didn’t understand why she was doing it to me. The day after an altercation, we wouldn’t even talk about it. I didn’t dare bring it up for fear of it happening again. We just continued like nothing had happened. It was as if as soon as a drop of alcohol touched her lips, she transformed into this monster that was lurking inside her.
The worst part of it all was that no one knew.
I hadn’t told a soul what she was doing to me. I think it was due to a mixture of shame and disbelief. I felt like telling someone would be self-emasculating, like I couldn’t handle myself. I just kept imagining me telling Steve he would have laughed me out of the house. I just bottled it up, let her continue destroying everything good about me, and hoped one day she would see who she was becoming and go and get help.
That day was different, though, because it was the first step I’d actually taken to regain my independence back and fix the mess I had slipped into. I didn’t realise I had a line, but she had unquestionably crossed it. I could still feel Amelia’s grip around my throat when I made the call, and she was still screaming as if she was being tortured in our flat.
“Hi! Harry!” Poppy answered.
“Hi, Poppy,” I croaked.
“Are you okay, Harry? You sound weird.”
“Can I come and speak to you? Amelia and I have had an argument.”
“Of course you can. You know that you don’t have to ask permission.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
I stood at the closed flat door; I could still hear her crashing around inside. I took a deep breath and inched back inside. She flounced out of the kitchen to face me. Judging by the state of her face, she had clearly been crying and screaming the entire time I was outside.
“I’m going to stay at Poppy’s house tonight,” I announced.
“Harry, I’m sorry. Please stay. I didn’t mean it,” Amelia pleaded.
“No, I need to go and clear my head. You should do the same.”
Amelia’s monster took over again. I saw it snarling at me from behind her eyes.
“Going to your sisters, sure. You mean staying with your whore?” she bellowed.
“No. I’ll be at my sister’s house. When I get back, we need to talk about this for a long time. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Take what? You’re a coward.”
“I am not a coward. I just can’t talk to you when you get like this. You could have killed me.”
“Now you are overreacting. It was in the heat of the moment because I love you so much.”
“People who love each other don’t do that.”
“You provoked me, and I responded. I can’t be blamed for that.”
“If you believe that, you need help,” I said directly.
Amelia stormed towards me, holding an empty wine glass in her hand. My initial thought was that she was going to smash it over my head, but she dropped it at the last minute and slapped me across the face instead. I had become so twisted that I actually felt grateful she elected to just slap me when she could have done so much more damage. She continued shouting and bawling at me, but something inside of me had snapped, and I was no longer willing to keep enduring the continuous torrent of abuse. I calmly moved through the flat, almost ignoring her existence, collecting the things I’d need for an overnight trip. I packed a bag and left through the flat door without exchanging further words.
The farther I drove away from Amelia, the more freedom I felt. I almost felt guilty leaving her in that state, and I had to keep reminding myself it was the right thing to do. I know I was technically in the wrong for lying to her, but when she reacted like that to something seemingly insignificant, how would she react if she found out what I’d really been up to? I felt like my decision to conceal the truth from her was vindicated. If I’d told her the real reasons I’d been so distant, I probably wouldn’t have been breathing.
I arrived at Poppy’s, and she came out to meet me in the driveway with a big hug. I hadn’t realised it, but Amelia had left bruises on my neck in the shape of her hands, and even after the long drive, I had an alarming red handprint across the left side of my face. Poppy led me inside, and her wife, Josephine, ran up to me and hugged me too.
I told them everything.
