Get Away

At the age of twenty, Kelly Kelly was truly a sight to behold. Long blonde hair and huge brown eyes, she was considered by many to be the personification of beauty. And while her body was slender and her laugh infectious, behind her brown eyes screamed out a past life that was sinister, more dark and painful than any other woman could ever comprehend.

Kelly was just a small town girl from Tyler, Texas, who seemed to be destined for better things. She was the head cheerleader at her high school, and went to church every Sunday with her mama and papa, and even managed to maintain a solid 4.0 GPA while she worked part time at a grocery store. She was clean-cut to the adults, and a wild exhibitionist to the others. Of course, her reputation of being a wild exhibitionist was where all her troubles began.

She had met him at a local billiard bar. He went under the name Test, and he was a regular at the bar. On this night he was located at the back of the bar, where he had been having a game against the local mayor, Paul Heyman. Both me had been putting big money on the line, and the big crowd that had gathered around had caught Kelly's eye and she approached, pushing her way through the crowd until she made her way to the front and caught his eye. After some mild flirting, he bought her a drink. One thing led to another, they were in bed together, another thing led to the rest and she was soon his wife.

The fairy tale ended there, however. Test had a penchant to imbibe in alcohol and women and it wasn't very long into their marriage where he would come home and destroy things, and abuse her. And it wasn't just the physical abuse. That was in there, too. In the short time of their marriage, she had managed to make it so that she had learned every secret there was out there to conceal bruises. She'd had managed to hide it all; everything from bruised arms, eyes, legs, back, stomach. She didn't mind the ones that could be concealed by clothes. It was the facial shots, which would prompt her to not leave the house until the bruising around her cheekbone or eye sockets tamed down to an ugly yellow. To her, she felt an immeasurable amount of shame to go out and fulfill any social obligations with everybody's eyes on her. It was too much.

But the emotional abuse was much worse. She was constantly accused of cheating on him, even if she caught the eye of another person in passing. In Test's paranoia heightened mind, she didn't need to know the guy to cheat on him. It didn't matter; she didn't even need to make eye contact with the guy for Test to declare her cheating, and that's when the derogatory names would come out. And that hurt her more than any slap ever could.

She had remembered the nights she would curl up in the fetal position and softly cry herself to sleep, to make sure that Test didn't hear it as he slept beside her, dead drunk and tired out from all the yelling, cursing and throwing. On the nights he was home, anyway. Word around town was that he had taken a special liking to a young woman named Rebecca DiPietro, who had just moved to town from the big city of Hollywood, California, where her acting career had deadpanned. And now Test wanted to see what was under her clothing, and that left Kelly home alone, with her bruising face, crying softly, clutching her stomach from the pain all her crying had caused, her mind running with all the scenarios of Test and Rebecca together.

She always told herself she was going to leave. That one day she was just going to gather her things and take off before Test came home. Leave the ring on his pillow and tell him to shove it. It wasn't like she was a poor woman; her family was very prominent, and they were waiting for the day that she kicked Test to the curb. She was always ashamed to explain the beatings to her mother, and then she would plead for her mother not to say anything to her father for fear of her father going after Test. It was the one thing that made her stay; she loved him.

Tonight was different, though. He had come home in a drunken stupor again, not much to her surprise, but tonight the violence had been a lot rougher, and she had been a lot more razor-spined than usual. He had yelled and catcalled at her, and she had stood up to him for the first time in their six month marriage. That's when he had started beating her, and that's when things escalated. Now she lay on the bed, beaten, violated, and humiliated with herself for letting everything go on for as long as it did. The last fight several hours ago had provided her with a moment of clarity that had told her she would never again feel anything for him, and never again would she let him sleep beside her. She had enough.

Pulling the sheets back, she got out of the bed. She knew that there was little time. Grabbing a duffel bag from the closet, she began to throw some clothing into the bag. She threw everything she could possibly fit with value in her bag. Her parents had a summer house down in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and that's where she would go. They had a caretaker out there named Carlito, a sweet guy with hair that made him taller than he really was, and she was a hundred percent certain that he would take care of her if she went down there.

She pried her wedding ring off of her finger and left it on the pillow before slinging the bag over her shoulder. Moving swiftly, she left the house through the back exit, making sure that if Test were to come through the door or pull into the driveway, there would be no driveway scene and there would be no way for her to be prevented from leaving.

Closing the screen door out back, Kelly went down the steps and across the yard. Pulling open the big white gate, she slowly made her way through and closed it. From there, she knew that she would go to her friend Krissy's house, call a cab, call her parents and then go to the airport.

She was officially leaving Test.