Mollie looked up from the sink and into the mirror. She grabbed a nearby hand towel and wiped the water away that she had just splashed on her face. The handprint was still visible on her cheek and a fresh bruise was forming around her eye.
"How did I ever let it get like this?" she asked herself.
Ben had left to go out with his friends, just like he had done almost every night for the six months they had been married. Mollie didn't think a lot about it at first until it became a nightly occurrence. Every time she tried to say something about it, she withstood a verbal beat down.
Then came that first time he laid a hand to her. Mollie was late getting home from work one night and had forgotten to call and check in with Ben. He sat on the couch and waited for her to return.
Flashback
"Where have you been?" Ben huffed.
"I had so many customers come in to make payments at the last minute. I got stuck waiting on them. I'm sorry I didn't call," Mollie explained.
"Can't you just tell the customers the office closes at 5?" he replied with a more stern tone.
"Ben, I've told you. I work at an insurance company. People need to make their insurance payments. Sometimes I have to stay late," Mollie explained to him for the hundredth time.
"Mollie, if you keep letting people run over you like that you'll be there till 8 or 9 o'clock every night," he continued his verbal assault.
"Well, at least I'd be doing something productive instead of going out and doing God knows what…" she muttered under her breath.
Ben stopped in his tracks and stared at his new wife. "What did you say?" he asked.
"Nothing…" Mollie replied. She really didn't feel like getting in an argument with him tonight. She had had a very long day at work and the last thing on her mind was coming home to World War 3.
"Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you…" he demanded.
"Ben…I just…" Mollie tried to say just as Ben's palm connected with her cheek, sending her flying to the floor.
"What the hell was that for?" she screamed as she got up off the floor.
"For being disrespectful to me…" he replied as he grabbed his keys and walked out the door. Mollie heard his Toyota Tacoma pickup start up as he squealed tired and threw gravel leaving their driveway.
Mollie fought back the tears as she sat down on the couch. 'What do I do?' she thought.
She thought about packing a bag and leaving to go stay at her parents' house, but that would just be admitting defeat. Her parents didn't want her to marry Ben in the first place. They didn't think that he loved, cared for, and respected their only daughter as well as he should.
But Mollie loved him. Despite his faults, she loved him so much. He was the first guy she had ever kissed…ever fallen in love with…ever slept with. She knew that he didn't mean what he had just said and done. He couldn't have…
Later that night, Ben came back in with flowers. Mollie was asleep on the couch when he came in.
"Hi…" he said meekly as he walked in, flowers in hand. "I'm so sorry Mol…"
She didn't say anything at first. She looked into his eyes and saw that he had been crying. It broke her heart to see the man that she loved more than anything so heartbroken.
He continued, "I never meant to hurt you. I don't know what came over me."
"I love you, but if you ever lay a hand on me again I'm gone," Mollie warned him.
Those words rang in her ears as she turned the light off in the bathroom and walked back into the living room. She plopped down on the couch and collapsed into a pool of tears. She couldn't believe she had let herself become one of these battered wives she had seen on TV and movies for years. The ones she had always wondered, "Why didn't they just leave?"
Mollie got on her knees and prayed, "God, I know that you meant marriage to be forever but not like this. Please forgive me for this but I want out." At that moment, she felt a thousand pounds lighter. She knew what she had to do.
She ran through the house packing a bag as quickly as possible. She knew she wouldn't be able to take much, and the biggest majority of her things would probably have to be left behind. She got what she could pack into her car, and then she left. She made sure to drive into town and go to the ATM. She pulled out everything she had in her personal savings account. She even pulled out some from their joint checking account just to make sure she'd have enough.
She got back into her Pontiac Grand Prix and hit the road. She didn't even stop by her parents to let them know what was going on. She knew she'd have to make that dreaded and difficult phone call later, when she got somewhere safe.
3 Days Later
The past three days had been sheer hell. After driving for five hours after leaving her house, she finally stopped and got a motel room. She called her parents to tell them where she was and what she had done. Even though they were angry at her for not telling them what had been going on all this time, they completely understood her need to leave. They assured her that they would go get all of her things and have them waiting on her when she got back
"More like if I ever get back," she said to herself as she checked into her third different hotel room in three different nights. This time she was in Stamford, Connecticut. She had made it all the way from her small town in Mississippi to Connecticut. Ben had called her cell phone non-stop since she left. She continued to ignore the calls one after another until her voice mail box was full.
She got into her hotel room and called her mother to let her know where she was. The next thing that she did was scrape together some change and got a soda and bag of chips from the vending machine. She planned to eat as cheap as possible until she became more settled.
Mollie came back from the vending machine and plopped down on the bed. She pulled out her cell phone and saw the ever-increasing number of voice mails from Ben, so she decided to finally listen to them.
Voice mail #1: "Mollie, where are you? Please call me."
Voice mail #2: "Mollie, please call me. I'm worried sick about you."
"Yeah right," Mollie said to herself.
Voice mail #3: "Mollie, what's the deal? I called your parents and they said you were leaving. We need to talk."
Voice mail #4: "Mollie…you're not divorcing me. Do you hear me? You're not divorcing me!"
That last voice mail pretty much told Mollie that she wouldn't be able to return for a while – a long while.
She was tired of running, so she thought she would just stay put. In the morning, she was going to start looking for a job. She also had several calls to make – explaining her absence from her job, calling a lawyer to start the divorce process, and anything else to cut her ties with her past life and move on.
One week later
In one week, Mollie had gotten the ball rolling on her divorce from Ben. She had also explained to her boss what happened. Even though it was very unlike her to leave any job without notice, he understood the situation and even wired her some money. Everyone at the office took up a collection for her.
She sat inside her motel room and sighed. She still hadn't talked to him, and she didn't plan on it. It was still way too soon. She knew that she better start looking for some sort of employment because the money was going to start running out. She borrowed the local newspaper from the front desk and pursued the want ads.
Then she got out the phone book and began looking for anything she might qualify – banks, insurance companies, etc. She thumbed through the yellow pages and saw the listing for the WWE corporate headquarters.
This brought a slight smile to her face. Mollie, since a very young age, had loved wrestling. It was something that she had inherited from both sets of her grandparents. She used to watch it any chance she got, even though her parents hated it. Ben wasn't much of a fan either, strictly forbidding her to watch it in their home. Mollie was smart enough to know that it wasn't "real" but it still fascinated her.
"It's worth a shot…" she said to herself. So, she hopped in the shower and got ready. She put on a simple black skirt and white dress shirt along with her black, high heel shoes. She went to the front desk and got directions to the office.
Within a few minutes drive, she pulled up to the infamous WWE Headquarters. She had dreamed of what this place would look like. Exiting her car and straightening herself out, Mollie grabbed her purse and resume and headed for the front doors. The doorman opened the door for her and she smiled with a nod in thanks.
She noticed that there wasn't anyone at the front desk and paper were scattered about, like someone had left in a hurry. Mollie found this odd but sat down anyway after signing in on the clipboard.
Twenty minutes had passed and Mollie still hadn't seen anyone approach the front desk. The phone had continued to ring and a rapid constant rate, line after line. Faxes were pouring in and emails were dinging on the computer screen.
Curiosity and annoyance got the best of the young woman so she stood, grabbed her things and took up residence at the front desk. She wasn't sure how the system worked but she figured it couldn't be that difficult.
"World Wrestling Entertainment, this is Mollie, how may I direct your call?" She asked sweetly into the headset she placed on her head. She waited for the person on the other end to respond and sent the caller to their intended place. 'I just hope that's what I'm supposed to do.' She thought.
Just as she transferred the final call that had come in a tall older looking woman in a nice, designer suit came up to the front desk. An angry look was scowled on her features.
"Excuse me but what do you think you're doing?" The woman asked.
"No one had been here for a good thirty minutes ma'am. I'm sorry if I had overstepped anyone's boundaries, but it looked like help was needed." Mollie replied. Then a call came in.
"World Wrestling Entertainment, this is Mollie, how can I help you?" She answered in front of the woman.
The woman, who was the HR manager, had a small smile on her face as she watched the redhead work. She had excellent telephone skills and seemed to have a great personality. She also was obviously willing to jump in wherever she saw a need if she would sit down at an unfamiliar desk and immediately start answering phones. For the past hour, they had been in a tizzy since the longtime front desk attendant, Mary, had decided to walk out and quit without any notice.
When Mollie finished transferring the latest phone call, the HR manager Barbara looked at her. Mollie was scared to death that she was about to be thrown out into the street without even the possibility of an interview.
Barbara said, "What's your name, sweetie?"
Mollie answered, "Mollie Garrison…"
Barbara noticed her Southern drawl and asked, "Where are you from?"
"I'm from Mississippi," she replied with a smile, still feeling a bit nervous.
"Are you in the market for a job?" she asked. "Because we sure could use you around here."
"Yes ma'am," Mollie replied with a sigh of relief. "That's what I came here looking for today."
"I'll be right back," Barbara said. "I'll go find someone to cover for a few minutes while the two of us go fill out some paperwork."
Mollie smiled, not believing her incredibly stroke of luck. Today began the first day of her new life.
