"Build a bridge and get over it," he said scornfully the words tinged with more than a little venom, almost unchecked malice. It was meant to hurt.
It felt like a physical blow.
She felt detached, as if her awareness had run away not minding that its physical body was left behind to bear the brunt of the physical attack that would surely come next. She shrank further within herself into a place she'd once felt safe from the emotional turmoil, vicious words and threats but as the layers of her being were stripped away that place held less comfort, it felt more like a prison.
She felt made of glass, easy to see through and always on the verge of breaking.
His grip was vice-like, her wrist shackled in its immovable force. She tried to break it and was rewarded with a sharp slap across the face from his other hand...she endured the pain of both and tried to remove herself emotionally, deeper inside she went and the pain, mercifully, seemed unable to follow.
His handsome face twisted in rage mere inches from hers and he squeezed her wrist harder as he spoke as if to hammer home his words with the pain he knew he caused.
"How dare you question me...you, my property. You're nothing but what I make you, have nothing but what I give you and...," she let his words fade away from her conscious mind, now focusing back on the pain at her wrist and her stinging cheek instead...anything but those words she'd heard over and over.
There was a time when she'd yearned for his face close to hers, the touch of his hands, but that face didn't contort in anger, not at first, and those hands had been tender and loving...now she felt nothing but hate, fear, derision...hopelessness.
She hated and derided herself for still being there and she hated the feeling of hopelessness and...for him she felt nothing. He was nothing. But she knew she'd stay; leaving was hopeless.
I was going through a notebook, a diary of sorts, and found those words above, words I wrote several years ago. They made me think about the person I'd written them about, a friend of mine who was trapped within a terrible and abusive relationship that she felt incapable of escaping.
On three occasions she'd found herself laying in the intensive care unit, beaten mercilessly by the man she loved and who loved her. I never understood it when she said that to me; feeling so trapped must be a terrible feeling.
I visited her on two occasions and we both cried, talked about a way forward, how she could build a bridge across the chasm she needed to cross...on the third occasion I couldn't go. I just couldn't see her like that again, or run the risk of seeing the man who had done it. He was an animal, a disgusting creature made up of gym-built muscles, testosterone and the feeling of power that came from his low-level criminal associations. He scared me and I didn't want to be anywhere near him.
I remember feeling like I had abandoned her at the time, and I guess I had, but that wasn't my world and I couldn't share hers; wouldn't share hers.
She was a beautiful friend, physically and in every other way, one of the few people I would call friend in my life, but when she fell for this man in the early stages of his life of crime (that she was initially oblivious of), she began to change and we began to drift apart from that point.
I called her when she left hospital that last time and asked to meet at which time I tearfully told her how scared I was for her, begged her to leave him. I told her I couldn't stay and watch this happen again...she said she'd start building that bridge upon which to make her escape.
She did not and I never saw her again.
I struggled with that for a long time and would write in that notebook which helped me gain some distance from the thoughts, perspective, and they served as a reminder of a world I wanted nothing to do with then, or ever. My guy was a pillar of strength, as always, and we worked through it.
I felt guilt, anger, fear and a little self-loathing for not having the ability to stay by her side but that was not my scene and, if I'm honest with myself, that happy girl I knew had become something totally different a long time before I made my decision. She was unrecognisable from the inside out. It's so very sad.
I wonder where she is sometimes.
A mutual friend saw her once about four years ago in an unsavoury part of the city being held up, half dragged, by two meat-head guys propping her up between them. She looked drugged or tremendously drunk, falling out of her top and her skirt would have been more suited to be called a belt, so short it was. It's not my scene, not at all, and never was...and it wasn't hers either, until she chose it.
I try to remember her as she was when we'd first met many years earlier, but I can't anymore and trying to just hurts so I don't. I do not write in that notebook anymore either; I think I've made peace with my decision to let her go. I did it for me and my guy and he helped me...but he let me come to my own decision. I made the right one.
Bridges...I've built a few, moved forward from one set of circumstances to another, adversity, bad times, loss of loved ones and other things...I know it can be done, but some gaps are too wide to span I guess, certainly for my friend. It saddens me and despite making peace with my own decision to walk away from her, knowing it was the only one I could make and having the support of my partner in it, I still wonder if I could have made a difference. Instead, I built a bridge of my own, in the opposite direction from her and crossed it.
Becca 💗