Jenny
"Jenny?... Jenny!" Suddenly I was pulled out of the strange daydream I had been wandering in while trying to kill time in the never-ending shopping line. I realized that Geneva was calling to me to get me to move up.
"I'm so sorry, Geneva. I guess I was lost in thought" I said to her, turning very red in the face I'm sure.
Geneva just rolled her eyes at me and began ringing up my groceries. She, like most of this little town, didn't like me very much. It wasn't always this way. How did my life get so messed up?
I paid Geneva for the few groceries on the counter, picked up the bag, and headed out the door without another word. I hated going out in public. I hated the looks people gave me. I hated living in this insane little town. I walked as fast as I could to get back to my crappy little hole in the wall apartment. I just didn't want to be out here on these streets any longer than I had to be.
Suddenly there was a police siren near me. My breath hitched and my heart stopped. I became frozen.
"Jenny!" He bellowed. Oh my god, how could he always make my name sound like an act of violence in itself. "Jenny Kelly! Come here please."
I turned around but I didn't want to look at him. Looking into that face was more than any person should have to do. After all he'd put me through during our time together and everything since, why couldn't he just leave me alone? It had been three years already and he's married again, but for some reason he remains obsessed with me and making me hurt over and over again.
"Jennifer!" he all but screamed it this time.
Finally I managed to speak. "What do you want this time Tim?" As I spoke I looked up to see him standing with his back against the drivers side door of the police car. His dark eyes glaring at me with an unusual amount of anger. His form dark and foreboding in the pale light of our town's one street light. I froze again in a moment of real fear.
He took a step toward me and I almost turned to flee but I was frozen in fear. Was this it? Would this be the moment he made good on all the threats? For a moment I was almost relieved because at least it would be over and yet that underlying fear.
"Run Jenny. Run now" the little voice inside my head urged me, but I couldn't seem to make my feet move from the spot they currently occuppied. "Damn it Jenny get away!" I heard this little voice in me screaming but eventually it hushed with the realization that it was making no impact. I knew it was right. I should flee. I shouldn't just flee from him but from this whole thing, this town, the lies, the pain. I should run and never look back. Instead I stood frozen in place with barely the ability to breath.
He saw my trepidation and this grin formed on his face. It's the grin he always got when he thought I had surrendered. I never actually surrendered but I guess giving up is a form of surrender. When you don't know what to do to remain safe, sometimes you just quit. I had quit. I quit fighting, running, trying, and sometimes I wished I could quit living. But I saw that grin and I knew he thought I was going to fold.
Somewhere in me I found the strength to shout "NO!!!" and I held up my hand as if that would stop him. He looked around, the grin gone and the anger returned but also a flick of fear across his face. Fear that if he did anything to me out in this open area the town might actually realize I was telling the truth.
He flipped his hand in the air and mumbled "Whatever" then turned on his heal to go back to his car. I remained frozen but I knew he was leaving. As he finally drove away the tears began to roll down my cheeks. I immediately and instinctively gathered my wits and hurried home so nobody would see.
Why did I let him affect me so much? Why did I continue to even stay and put myself in this danger? I grew up here. This was MY town, but somehow things had changed with one wrong decision, as things often do I guess. Two little words, I Do, changed my whole life.
I had been a great student, all A's, in high school. I was valedictorian of our graduating class. I was the prom queen. I was voted most likely to succeed, though I never really knew what that might be at. I was the fiery redhead with such a spark of life and often a quick wit. And now what was I?
Now I was broken. He'd seen to that. Tim was amazing when I met him. He was like nobody I'd ever known. He was adventurous and wild. He didn't care what other people thought about him. He was the campus goofball at our college. I didn't meet him until just a couple of months before graduating but once I did I found him intriguing.
At first we had been just friends and that was great, but eventually it turned into something more. It happened much faster than expected. We had a little whirlwind romance that swept me away into a sea of dreams of what could be.
After graduation we married within only a few short months and moved back to my home town, where he soon put his degree to use as the law enforcement officer of the town. I had planned to get a loan and buy one of the older houses in the area and start a little bed and breakfast, but it didn't take long for him to put me off those dreams.
Shortly after we married he changed. He became moody and possessive. He didn't want me going anywhere without him, not even to the store. He didn't want me having friends over if he wasn't home. Over a short time it got worse and worse.
Eventually I realized that I didn't really know him when I married him. I didn't know this dark image of this once adorable man. He would scream at me over nothing and treated me like a child or a possession more than a partner in life. When I didn't like what said or did, he'd often hit a wall or break something in the house, and that would usually shut me down very quickly.
One night he hit a wall and I didn't stop. That did it, he turned around and backhanded me, hard. Just thinking about it I still feel the sting on my cheek and the burning in my heart and soul. Realizing what he had done and maybe afraid I would leave or tell, he grabbed me by my hair and dragged me to a closet, which he locked me in for the rest of the night.
In the morning he opened the door and carried me to bed. He brought me eggs and bacon with a rose. He apologized and promised it would never happen again. He said it was a momentary lapse in judgement. Silly me, I loved him, so I believed him.
This scene played out often after this. The strikes got worse and sometimes he'd leave me in the closet for a day or more. Always after he'd apologize and bring me extravagant gifts. Always he'd promise to change. It didn't take long before I knew that was the lie but I was too afraid to leave.
I became a shell of my former self. When there were town events he'd be kind for a couple of days and then he'd dress me up and take me on his arm to whatever event might be happening. We'd mingle and socialize and I was always the picture of a good wife and he the perfect husband. Then we'd get home and he'd snap. He'd always come up with something I did wrong or some imagined flirting he'd seen. Anything to feel justified in smacking me around and putting me in 'time out' for however long he decided.
Still I didn't leave. Fear might have been keeping me or maybe just that I'd lost my will to live at all. He'd taken that all from me a piece at a time. I don't think it ever happens fast like people think. It's a process. It's like being brainwashed, only you know it's wrong but you can't seem to fight it.
The final straw was the last night I was with him. He wanted to have sex. Make no mistake it hadn't been making love with us for a very long time. Usually it was him doing his thing while I tried to leave my body completely. This time though I really didn't feel well and I didn't want his hands on me. He had hit me that night but instead of the closet he took me to bed. Somehow his power play had turned him on this time.
Don't ask me where I found it in me to do so, but I said no. He didn't care. He held me down, while I kicked and screamed at him. He got that grin on his face, the one that always tells me he knows he has the power and there's nothing I can do, but I fought anyway. I fought him the whole time, but it didn't matter. I was no match for him. My tiny little figure beneath his powerful arms, writhing and squirming as he held me down and took what he wanted.
He must have thought he did nothing wrong because he went to sleep and I wasn't in the closet. I laid there in shock. I hated him, I hated me. I wanted to die, but somehow I knew that if I took my life he would win and I didn't want that. I don't think I slept that night. I laid there and took inventory of what in the apartment was mine all night, planning my escape.
The next day, he woke and kissed me goodbye like nothing had happened. He left for work and I lept out of the bed. I packed faster than anyone has ever packed in their lives, careful to only take what I could carry, what was mine, and only the basic necessities.
It took me two hours, which in my opinion was still too long. I kept glancing at the clock, knowing he could come home for lunch and praying I could get away. By ten I was done and out the door. I had already decided to go to my sisters in the next town for a few days until I could decide what to do.
My arms were black and blue and my whole body sore. I didn't have a ride so I had to brave walking and pray he didn't see me, but I was determined to go. I would have called my sister from home but he took the phone with him every day so I wouldn't have it. My plan was to call from Benji's Diner about a mile up the road. I was terrified.
The walk felt like it took forever. Every car startled me. I was so afraid he'd see me and my life would end, right there on that road. Somehow, luck was with me and I made it to Benji's. I hurried to the payphone and called my sister, Gloria. I didn't tell her what had happened but told her to come fast and I knew I sounded frightened.
She was there in under 20 mins and we were off.
Gloria was horrified. She took pictures of my bruises and over a course of a few days she wrote down as much of what he had done to me over time as I could manage to remember or to share. She called the County Sherriff and tried to file for an order of protection. I had asked her not to but Gloria was a stubborn woman and seldom listened to her little sister.
As I suspected officers protect each other. The sheriff called Tim to talk to him before filing any paperwork. Tim charmed him, as usual, and made me look crazy. Then our phone rang. Gloria answered, it was Tim. She hung up. Terror hit me. He was coming and I knew it.
Tim didn't come get me, but he did send someone, a lot of someone's. Gloria's driveway filled with sirens. There was an ambulance and three police cars. Gloria tried to find a way to talk to them but eventually the legal stuff won out. Tim was having me committed. He claimed the bruising and scratches were self inflicted. He told people he'd been trying to cover up my illness for a long time but I'd finally snapped. And as quickly as I gained it, my freedom was gone.
I spent three months in psychiatric care. Nobody would believe Tim had hurt me. Nobody would believe my side of it. He was an officer and in some ways I think they just didn't want to believe or couldn't.
I finally gave in. In order to regain my freedom I had to accept the lies as my own truth. I had to do and say what they wanted. But I had a plan. I told the doctors that I would do as they asked and abide by their treatment if they'd allow me to begin divorce proceedings and contact a lawyer. I somehow got them to agree that the marriage had somehow been too much for my fragile psychological state and they in turn explained that to Tim. He wasn't happy but he couldn't get to me and they asked him to work through the process to help me so he was stuck too. My inner self felt elated at this small victory, while my outer self was still terrified.
When the divorce was final so was my stay at the institution. The doctors helped me get into a local halfway house for further recovery. My journey was far from over but at least I didn't have to go home to Tim.
I don't know why I didn't leave Lakeside right then and never look back. Maybe I thought I could finally take back my life in MY town. I had grown up there. I used to have plans. I somehow thought this would be for the best.
What I didn't realize is that Tim wasn't going anywhere and he was far from done with me. He made sure I was shunned at every turn. He told lies and spread stories about how crazy I actually was and things I had done to him. He slowly turned our very small town against me. I couldn't get a job. I couldn't get a loan. I couldn't even walk through town without whispers and nasty looks. I had become the outcast, the unwanted. Somehow he had even convinced my sister that I was crazy and she wouldn't even return my calls.
Now, three years later, he still calls to threaten me once in a while. The random threat of my demise and how they'd never find the body. The taunting and teasing. He finds me online and pretends to be someone else just to comment on things I've posted in some negative way or call me names. He is a man obsessed with the past and he won't let me move forward, not here.
I have spent hours on end dreaming of leaving. I don't know where I'd go. I have no idea what I'd do, but I dream of just packing a bag and walking away, far far away. Tonight I saw a look I didn't recognize but after thinking about it I think I know. He's ready to fulfill his threats and I'm in real danger. Tonight I have to pack a bag and leave.
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