Chapter 5
As Valerie sat in the cab that would take her home, she put the battery back in her phone and turned it on. She was exhausted after not sleeping anything the entire weekend and she couldn't wait to crawl into her warm bed. She closed her eyes briefly and ignored all the texts and missed calls alerts her phone got. They would see each other in five minutes anyways so there was no use in calling him back now. A headache had already spread across her temple and she didn't want to add on that.
The brunette must've dozed off because the cab suddenly came to a stop and when she opened her eyes she saw their house.
"Thank you," she said to the female driver and handed her 30 dollars before exiting the vehicle, waiting for the car to drive off before walking up the small path to the house.
She changed her purse to her left hand as she turned the doorknob and entered the quietness of her house. With a sigh she just dropped her bag and headed straight for the stairs, ready to throw herself into bed and sleep the rest of the day.
"Something wrong with your phone?" A voice came when she was halfway up the stairs. Valerie groaned inwardly and turned around to her boyfriend who was sitting at the kitchen table, back toward her, sipping a fresh cup of coffee.
"I was at a wedding," she sighed, rubbing her temple. "Please, Matt, I haven't slept much this weekend. I really need to go to bed."
"What were you doing all night?" he wondered and without seeing his face she could hear his jaw was clenched and he was straining to get the words out.
"Dancing, hanging out with my friends…"
"They're not your friends," he said and she was shocked at that statement.
"Excuse me?"
This time he did turn around to look at her. "Kelly, Donna, Brandon… The way you talked about them they weren't your friends. You might've ended things on good terms before you left, but that's only because she pitied you… It was only because she found out what your father used to do…"
"I don't need to listen to this," Valerie said, shaking her head and continued up the stairs.
"Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you," Matthew yelled and slammed his fist on the table, startling Valerie.
She turned around slowly and looked at her boyfriend, who was seriously starting to scare her. Never before had she seen him like this, hell they had barely fought before.
"I don't want you to speak about my friends like that," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, her hand gripping the edge of her sweater tightly. "People grow. They've all grown. We might not be best friends, but yes, they are my friends."
Matthew took a few steps forward and stopped by the front door, looking up at her where she stood, almost all the way up to the second floor. "Forgive me for not agreeing with you, love, but I don't like the thought of those people hurting you. They treated you like dirt and that's not something I'm willing to forgive and forget."
"But I have," Valerie said, feeling tears welling up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She didn't want to cry in front of him right now. "I deserved most of it too. I wasn't a saint back then, remember? But I'm a different person now." He didn't say anything, just looked at her. It felt like a staring match that she did not really want to participate in. "Look, can we talk later? I need some sleep."
When he gave her a quick nod, she turned around and tried not to run up the rest of those stairs. It wasn't until she had closed the bedroom door and fallen into their king size bed that she allowed her tears to fall.
Four days had passed since Matthews outburst and Valerie had been walking on eggshells around him, afraid that anything she said would make him mad. So to bring up David's visit hadn't been an option. She could only imagine how he would react if she told him she'd bring one of those supposedly awful friends over to stay in their guest bedroom. How drunk had she really been when she offered him the guest bedroom? She would have to bring it up today, one way or another.
Matthew was already home when she entered the house. "Hey, hun," she called, smiling slightly.
"In here," he said from the living room, and just by the sound of his voice she could hear something was wrong.
A shiver ran down her spine as she slowly approached him where he was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of his favorite whiskey. Matthew never drank this early, unless something awful happened at work.
"Was everything okay at work today?" she asked him, hesitantly.
"Everything was just fine," he said, taking a sip of his whiskey and reaching for an already lit cigarette on the ashtray.
"Please don't smoke in…" she started but his black gaze turned to her and she knew now that she was the cause of his anger. But how could that be? She hadn't even been home all day.
"You got some pictures in the mail today from a Steve Sanders," he started and nodded at a pile of pictures.
"Wait, were you going through my mail? You have no right…"
The glass of whiskey smashed against the wall next to her before she got to finish that sentence and Valerie ducked, covering her head to keep any splinters from stabbing her at the wrong place. Not that there was a right place to be stabbed by shards of glass, but hand was better than head. His free hand grabbed the photos and with three long strides he was standing in front of her.
"Was there something you didn't want me to see? How about this one?" he put the cigarette in his mouth so he could find the picture he meant, the one of her surrounded by the guys where Dylan and Steve kissed her cheek. She looked so happy and the picture was beautiful.
Matthew took out the cigarette again and pointed it at her as he talked. "No wonder you were tired after that weekend after all that screwing around. Did you fuck them one by one or did you take all of them at the same time? A big 'ole gangbang."
Valerie was stunned by the filthy words that left her boyfriend. "I didn't have sex with any of them," she protested. "We're all just friends… they have girlfriends and wives and…"
"And how about this one?" he held up a photo of her and David dancing, one she didn't realize Steve had captured. In this one she was also laughing and having a good time. "Do you expect me to believe that you didn't fuck any of them? I know you got around when you lived there. Hell, you've already fucked all of them."
"You need to calm down. I haven't done anything," she said calmly. "I think it might be best if I stay at a hotel tonight."
He grabbed her wrist, before she had even moved, the photos falling to the ground. "You can't just walk away from me, Valerie."
"You need to let go of me," she said through gritted teeth, trying to pull back. "You are hurting me."
His grip on her tightened and a small whimper escaped her lips. She needed to get out of there and never come back. Flashbacks from her own childhood came to surface again and she could hear her therapist's voice in her head, asking her what she wanted to say to her father if he lived now, asking her what she would've done.
"You're mine and I won't let you treat me like this. You can't just make me fall in love with you and then whore around like that."
"I told you nothing ever happened," she tried again, and she was surprised by the strength in her own voice as she uttered those words. "And I am not an object one can own. I'm a person, I'm a…"
The searing pain on her forearm was the first thing she felt and an ear-piercing scream left her throat. Smell of burning flesh reached her nostrils, the second thing she felt. The pain was like nothing she'd ever felt before and it was becoming hard to stand up straight. She had heard that a great amount of pain could cause a person to pass out. Her eyes flickered down to where the cigarette was burning a hole in her skin and she could feel bile rise in her throat.
"I am not going to be disrespected in my own home," he said, his mouth close to her ear as he finally removed the cigarette.
Tears had started streaming down her face and she finally dared to look at her husband. She didn't know what to say, she had nothing to say. All she had was pain. The worst she'd ever felt. But she didn't dare to move until he was gone. She knew how this song went. Boyfriend abuses girlfriend. Girlfriend says she'll leave. Boyfriend comes home with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and apologizes. Girlfriend forgives. Then the song starts over again. She had seen it over and over again at the shelter and every time the woman was too scared to press charges. Well, not this time.
As soon as her boyfriend left, probably to a bar, she hurried to find the first aid kit. The stinging of her arm only seemed to intensify now that she was alone and only had herself to worry about. Holding her injured arm, she found some ointment to put on the mark. She hissed as the coolness spread across her arm and finished with a bandage.
Trying not to think of her injury, she hurried up to her room and found a bag. She knew she wouldn't be able to bring all of her clothes so she packed the more important stuff, some clothes, cash, her charger, phone. When she zipped up the bag, she ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Before she left the house, she grabbed the pile of pictures on the floor. They were great pictures. She only wished Matthew could've just been happy for her. Happy that her time away had been better than she'd imagined.
Her car was parked in front of the house and she got in quickly, not even hesitating before driving off in the direction of the police station.
